My dirty little secret is that I'm a workaholic...until you leave me alone on the farm. Then I have a tendency to curl up with a book and a cat and not emerge for hours.

Since I had several items on my to-do list to complete while Mark was away at school, I figured I'd instead take the cat to the garden and see if Huckleberry is as good at prompting me to work as he is at telling me to play hookie.

Of course, once I'm outside, the wonder of nature always sucks me in. Tuesday, I was clearing off the butternut beds in preparation for planting oats. The weeds had grown high in the aisles and the remaining butternut vines turned this zone into a wild area, so I wasn't entirely surprised to find a box turtle happily hanging out amid the greenery (along with seven overlooked squash).

The rings on this turtle's shell tell me that she's about seven years old (not quite fully grown), and I amused myself for a while imagining that my totem animal had hatched right here soon after Mark and I started reclaiming our core homestead from the wilds. After Huckleberry said hi, I moved the visitor over under the hazelnut bush, where she can find some peace and quiet amid the comfrey.

Next door, the broilers were already hard at work dismantling my earlier planting of oats at the feet of failing tomato vines. Mark and I put the brooder in this area because I assumed tiny chicks wouldn't be able to scratch up the plants before their roots became fully established. Apparently I was wrong! At only one week old, the Red Rangers are already prime scratchers, so I may have to write off some of the cover crops in this zone. Oh well --- no huge loss since we'll get to eat the meat.

"You're not paying attention to me," complained Huckleberry. "This is boring. I'm going to take a nap."

Good call, cat. I guess it is time for lunch.