June 24, 2016 Work, Work, Work

The little whitetail buck
Thursday morning.

Wednesday 6/22. Our morning project was to drive down to the pavement with the trailer to pick up a stack of free pallets we had seen.  That, in itself, took a couple hours.  When we got back home, I put in a load of laundry.

After lunch, JB drove back down to get an old refrigerator we had seen that was also free.  He want to use it in the shop to store oil and other flammable liquids, rat poison, etc.

While he was gone I hung out the wash, made MORE humming bird syrup, and spent a little while using the mackintosh to chop out some of the root balls of the bushes we cut on Monday.

We put the refrigerator just inside the shop, clearing out a few things to make room.  It is going to work out just perfectly.

After dinner I cut and stacked the few branches that were left behind the house to the south.  Then I started on the pile to the north, cutting and stacking a few loads.  

Getting rid of all the bushes is going to be quite a chore, but I figured if I cut just one bush each evening, they would soon disappear.  So I started this evening by getting rid of one by the swale directly across from the house.  Then I sat on the porch and listened to the music from the Michael Flately DVD that JB was watching.  But, not being able to sit still very long if I am not tired, I was soon trimming the ninebark and rose bushes by the chicken run.

That heavy rain we received the other day gave us a total of about 70 more gallons of water in two of the water barrels.  So we still haven't had to use water from the cistern to water the garden or any of the flowers.

Thursday 6/23. Dinga's barking woke me up at 6:00 am.  There were two small deer right out in front of the house near the driveway, just munching on bushes.  They weren't mule deer, so they must have been white tail which we rarely see Up Here.  It was a doe and a buck with antlers just barely taller than his ears.  I didn't let the dogs out.  Just watched the deer eat and got a few good photos.  When they finally moved on, I let the dogs go.

Then it was back to bed til 8:00 am, at which time it was 52, breezy and partly cloudy.  Looked like a good day to work outside, so after breakfast and laundry, I split four tractor bucket loads of wood.  JB worked in the shop, filling his "new cupboard" and re-arranging the moved items.

After a late lunch, I stacked the wood that JB had moved over to the wood shed.  Then I split and stacked another four bucket loads.  JB worked in the shop some more and cleaned out his Jeep in preparation for his trip Down There tomorrow to get propane, ethanol-free gas for our small engines, and diesel for the tractor.

While he was cooking dinner, I discovered that it is much easier to remove a root ball with a shovel than a mackintosh.  Still as sweaty, but much easier on the wrists and arms.  After dinner I got rid of another bush and took the root ball out with the shovel.

When I came in for dinner I hadn't noticed the black clouds that had quickly moved in.  Rain began to fall so I ran out to close up everything which included putting things back in the shop, covering the tractor and closing JB's Jeep windows.  Five minutes after I was back inside and quite wet, the rain stopped.  But, as it often happens, we were on the south edge of the squall and it rained quite a while in town.

If some of the photos on my blog are blurry when you click on them to make them larger, it is because I usually have my little pocket Canon camera with me and it doesn't zoom in well.  But I often don't want to miss the picture, so I take it anyway.

Friday 6/24. It is 44 and breezy with clear skies, except for the clouds sitting on the mountains.

Thought for the day: Technology can, and will, fail you.  Mother Nature (the laws of nature) never will.