Driving Country Roads....

Driving country roads you never know what may walk out in front of you around the next curve....there are dogs and cats roaming freely. At any given point you could cross paths with a coon or possum. Routinely we see deer and turkey.We've even seen wild hogs. I've seen a wolf, a bobcat and my dad even saw a black bear cross the road in front of him a couple of years ago.But the other day while driving up a steep hill and around a curve, suddenly two peacocks were right in front of me. Fortunately I was able to stop in time and let them take their own sweet time to "strut" across the road.

Herbs and Butterflies In The Springtime

I love the springtime. To me, the awakening of Mother Nature with all her glory is a magnificent event, even though it happens every year.

We have a wide variety of herbs growing in containers in our greenhouse. Basil, sage, rosemary, thyme, oregano, chives, tarragon and mint are only a few. We also have lovage, lemon balm, stevia and lemon verbena. The butterflies seem to love the herbs.

Our greenhouse has become a favorite pit stop for the butterflies as well as lady bugs, mosquito hawks and crickets. Like I've said before the only regret we have about getting the greenhouse is that didn't get it six years ago.

He's A Fishin' Man

My Honey, he's a "fishin man". After working all day long around the ranch, he still likes to go out to the pond to "throw a line". It doesn't matter if it's good weather or bad. It doesn't matter if it's early or late. It doesn't matter, if he catches anything or not. Besides all that, he throws back whatever he catches anyhow.

After twenty eight and a half years of dedicating his time to being a professional fire fighter in the city, now he can go "throw a line" whenever he feels like it.

I'm so proud of him and so happy to have him home full-time. It's only taken us ten years to get on the same schedule !

Early Harvest

Our early harvest always seems so special. To most people it's just lettuce, a few radishes, a head of brocolli and a bunch of green onions. To us, it's the first taste of garden freshness which we've worked toward and waited for so long.

After "surviving winter" and eating "store-bought" food, our first vegetables are so anticipated that it makes them taste all that much better !

Rising Water

The water is rising. As the Weather Channel shows, we are not the only ones getting way too much rain all at once. My Dad says that this is our July and August rain, that we are getting early, like an early birthday gift that we should appreciate.

The road that I take to drive to the library (in the above photos) will most likely be closed by this afternoon or tomorrow. The water was almost up to the pavement when I came through there this morning. Last year, the water came over the spillway, below the dam and the road was underwater and was closed for about two months.

If the road is closed we will have to take a 15 mile detour, but we are thankful that our place is only totally saturated but not underwater,,,,,yet.

Catfish Dinner

A few days ago, I'd gone off to town to do my weekly errands. I called My Honey and told him that I was bringing catfish home for dinner. I asked him to get the 4-wheeler out, hook up the 4-wheeler trailer and meet me at the front gate.

Much to his delight, I was bringing home catfish and we would be serving dinner. Catfish food for the 100 new baby catfish would be served in all three of our ponds where we put the 6 to 8 inch Channel Catfish. We had meant to stock the pond with catfish long before now, but as usual something else came up to delay that project. I just happened to be at the Farmer's Co-operative on the right day, at the right time when the fish truck was there. For once I was in the right place at the right time. My Honey was a very happy man !

Stray Cows

Living in the country we always have had problems with stray dogs and stray cats showing up and causing problems at our place.How many people have problems with stray cattle? As I've mentioned before, our place is surrounded by government land which lease grazing rights to people with cattle. For the past six years, we've had problems with stray cattle coming in and taking over. In the past we've stressed out over it. In the past, we've herded the intruders out, mended places in the fence where they push their way through and spent time tracking down the owners to have them picked up. This year, I told My Honey that we need a new approach to this problem. We decided not to spend our time chasing someone else's cow around the pasture. We decided to "make friends" with them instead. At first three cows showed up in our barnyard. Later one of them had a baby, so there were four. A few weeks later, four more cows invaded our place. Now we had eight stray cows that were causing us problems. The local sheriff's department said for us to place an ad in the newspaper and if they were still unclaimed, that we would be legally allowed to sell them. After a few months, the owner FINALLY came looking for them. My Honey informed him of our "new plan" regarding the stray cow problem. Since the cows had been eating our grass, hay and feed we required the owner to buy us some feed and a salt block, which was still a pretty good deal for him considering that we'd "boarded" his cattle for two months. "Betcha" next time his cows are missing he will be more concerned about retrieving them before we "legally" sell them for our own profit.

In The Green

In the green and loving it. Our new greenhouse is awesome. It has helped our gardening endeavors so much. Our only regret is that we waited so long to get one.