2011 - Day One Hundred Fourteen; Easter Sunday...

Another beautiful day in central Texas but we could really use some rain. Very windy still, but no damaging storms like they are experiencing north and east of us. No wild fires in our area either, knock wood.

Yesterday I found out I can only post five photos per post, so I am going to catch up with some from yesterday and weave them into this entry.

This morning I got started about 7 with breakfast and checking all the meters. I cut grass along the fence lines, and at one point I started paying attention because someone started a wild fire accidentally yesterday while plowing a field. No reason to expect you could start a fire by plowing, but it made me pay a little bit of attention. Everything is looking nice and 'paid attention to' so I am glad about that. Then there were tree limbs to trim, and just run of the mill stuff like that to get taken care of. First photo from yesterday, this is the antique style rose that I talked about yesterday, and it is still blooming it's heart out. There is no sign of it quitting any time soon.

I mentioned yesterday also, that I had one weak hive of bees, but I don't think I went into any detail. It looks like I need to replace the Queen in one of the hives, she is laying eggs and there are a good number of bees in the hive, but they are really not performing well, so I will get a new Queen and introduce her into the hive (hopefully this week). Once that happens, the new Queen and the old Queen will have a fight to the finish, and the stronger Queen will reign, and all should be good after that. That, in concert with the new entrance feeders I hope to get this week also, should put all the hive on track. This is one of the photos I was thinking of sharing yesterday, but did not have room for. Me and the hives.

Here is another photo I wanted to share yesterday, one of the buds of cactus blossoms that are just getting ready to bust forth. I really love cactus blossoms, but they come and go so quickly it is easy to miss them.

Jody and the dog went for a little ride this morning while I was feeding cattle and taking fresh bales of hay to the front pastures. They will only have access to one of the pastures, but it was a good day to take hay out to them, so I went ahead and put bales in both pastures.

This is a photo of the cattle, it kind of reminds me (okay this is a stretch, work with me here) of the water color painting of Koi I have in my office. You have to pay attention to the Koi in the painting to count all eight of them, and you need to pay pretty close attention to this photo to see ALL 14 of the cattle in this one shot. I did not have nearly as much trouble counting all 14 cattle today as I did yesterday. Everyone was pretty cooperative, although Daphne was a little bit stand-offish at first, and she stayed in the back of the pasture with three or four of the calves until I went back there with the tractor to put out hay. Eventually all the calves decided to follow suit, but they were in no real hurry.

Of course, Jody and I went into Georgetown for spoilers. You will be happy to know (I know we are) that Dairy Queen is open 365 days a year (add one if it is a Leap Year). It is comforting to know you can count on capitalism to come through in a clutch.

When we got back, Jody went down for a nap, and I went out clean the chicken coop and to install the automatic watering device that I bought the other day. I had contemplated several scenarios of problems I might encounter with this installation, and the only one I had not thought of was 1). The first hose I hooked up had a hole in it, 2). The next three hoses leaked at the hose coupling (where the hose is put together) and 3). Not even a variety of new and/or used washers could solve the problem. So, tomorrow, I will be going to buy a NEW HOSE to see if that will work. If not, the chickens now have a new and REALLY EXPENSIVE water bowl in their coop. I really hope I can get this thing to work. We shall see...

Okay, NOW HERE IS A SURPRISE to me, while we were out walking around this morning, one of the cactus buds was blooming, and it is really pretty. Just thought I would string you all along for a few paragraphs before I showed this to you. There seem to be dozens of more buds on the various cactus plants around the house, so I hope to get more photos in the next week or so.

Get some rest, tomorrow is a work day.

Deeds, Actions, Changes, CACTUS BLOSSOMS, Kindnesses, Whirled Peas, FUN!