Shade 3.0

Rufus noticed I had folded my favourite quilt and left it on my desktop!

Being the tallest does have its advantages.

Rufus settled in for the day.

Last night … Rufus tossed himself onto the reclining chair.

It has been so hot that the donkeys appreciate their food being delivered to the shade.

Ede strapping in the eaves trough fly trap.

Rosie – tool hand.

Bella’s picnic in the woods.

It’s working! We’re catching flies in that trough!

Darby loved having the hay barn to herself.

Shady lunch spot.

Hay on the left, water on the right.

The girls lunching in the shade.

Don’t you love fiddling around with ideas? We sure do here. We read about a fly trap that used an trough of soapy water. Sounded like a possibility for the shade structure. The deer flies and all of their other biting friends have started to hatch. Seems we’re always looking for another strategy to keep those guys from taking chunks out of our arms or the donkey’s coats. So we installed some screening at the bottom of the shade tarp and then a trough (eaves trough section) under that. The idea is that the flies hit the screen and are forced down … or want to fly down to where the screen is in order to get out. This is sort of the reverse order of things we have in the back paddock. There we have folded over transparent tarping. The flies fly into the tarp and then as they fly up they get caught in the fold. When I checked after a few hours of having the trough installed we had caught six flies … plus a lot of ants. The jury is still out on whether this will be a successful strategy. Hope you managed to stay cool today! Phew! It was very muggy and hot here. The donkeys loved hanging out in their shady areas. Lunch was served on the shady side of the woods.