May 2, 2016 Deer, Visitors & The Pity Party That Wasn't

JB loading the large rock.

A deer on our south ridge
Saturday afternoon.

Two of a family of three
deer just across our drive.

Friday 4/29. It was 40 and overcast this morning with a forecast of 50% chance of rain.  My brother arrived at 9:00 am for breakfast and we had a good visit.

I continued to work on cutting the branches into kindling and stacking it in the woodshed.  I also raked the swale so we can put dirt on it.  JB made a frame for a door to the chicken run, which will be so nice because right now we just have vertical piece of wood stapled to the chicken wire.  He then crawled under his Jeep to be sure it was the radiator that was leaking, and found that it was the water pump instead.

It did not rain today.  As our son said, we got the other 50%.  Our high was 56.

Saturday 4/30. It was 42 and clear with a breeze this morning.  I sat on the porch with my coffee.  Listening to the wren sing his song is a lovely start to any day.

Today was supposed to be my first Pity Party, but just as I had thought, the items on my list just didn't seem important enough any more to waste my time getting upset.  Not worth the effort to rant and wail.

JB drove the tractor down to start Miss Kitty and bring up a large rock that had slid into the road during the winter.  He came back up, having been unable to load the rock by himself.  So I went down with him with a pry bar and we managed to get it into the tractor bucket.  He dumped it just north of the house where we want to build an outdoor oven and fireplace.

Then I filled the bucket with clippings from the branches and JB took several loads to the small swale.  He also took two loads of kindling I had cut to the wood shed.

We have so many small branches and clippings that we picked out a location for a third swale.  It will be east of the large one, but first we are going to make the large one longer.

We have seen several deer Up Here in the past few days.  Fortunately either the dogs were inside or they didn't see them, so we were able to watch the deer for a while.

Our high for the day was 60 and the sky remained clear, however large, dark clouds were on the southwest horizon by dinner time.  As usual, they just broke up and went to the south and north.  I did see our first swallowtail butterfly today, and we have several other small ones Up Here now too.

Sunday 5/1. It was 50 and clear this May Day morning.  I called Sandy while we were sitting on the porch with our coffee.  We always get to laughing so hard.  I just love our phone conversations.

Right after breakfast we rode the tractor down just past our hairpin turn to get some more large rocks.  Not quite as large as yesterday's rock, and we made two trips.  Then JB took several bucket-loads of branch clippings to the east end of the large swale to extend it.  I leveled them out and then JB covered them with rich dirt full of rotten wood that was right next to the swale.  He also took a few loads of the dirt to start covering the branches on the smaller swale.

We were just finishing lunch when the Sixes drove up for a visit.  What a pleasant surprise!  We had a great visit and I ended up showing the boys the edible miner's lettuce, which they all tried, and telling them the names of some of the other edible wild flowers and berries.  A big "Thank You" to Mrs. Jim for identifying the white-flowered bush as service berry, aka Saskatoon berry, as I was able to tell the boys about it also.

The service berry actually has medicinal value as a binding agent for the bowels.  The Native Americans used it in their pemmican along with other berries and salmon.  The bark is good for various eye ailments.

I stacked more kindling, which is going to be an on-going job.  I really need to get started splitting the rounds and cutting the branch wood in the cradle.  The tree company is sending a truck up on 5/12 to finally cut down the three trees by the house.  Will be so glad when that is done although it will mean a lot of work trimming and cutting them into rounds.  But it will be lots more firewood.

It was another gorgeous spring day with a high of 62.  Anything in the 60's is just perfect.

Larry and Elsie came to visit after dinner bearing gifts.  They gave us plant starts of cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower.  Elsie also gave me some lotion she had made with frankinsence and myrrh which is good for arthritis.  It was such a lovely evening that we walked up to the south ridge, then we dug up some of my iris bulbs for them to take home.  A great visit.

Monday 5/2. It is 56 with clear skies this morning.  These sunny days are very nice, but we really do need some rain.

Thought for the day: There are no ordinary moments.  Dan Millman, author of The Peaceful Warrior