Saturday, May 14, 2011

2011 - Day One Hundred Thirty Four; Saturday...

Okay, we are back on schedule and all is well. Well, except for the fact that I got stung twice today while I was feeding the bees and these two stings are SERIOUS. My arm is really hurting. I am pretty sure I got the stingers out, but I will keep paying attention. Sometimes it takes a couple days for the stingers to appear and that is a bugger! AND, one of the fountains on the front porch is being problematic and I have had to work on it twice today. AND one of the GFCI breakers in the garage keeps tripping (which turned off the refrigerator in the garage and we lost all the food that was frozen out there). BUT, pretty much other than that, all is well.

Last night when we got home from the airport, there was a package from Chevrolet waiting for me. I really like surprises, and this was a pretty good one. It contained a nice card from GM thanking me for buying their new vehicle along with a note from some kahuna (maybe the President of GM or the Chevrolet division, I need to pay closer attention). Then there was a little brochure with further explanations of what the car is capable of (I spent weeks after I first got the car studying the owner's manual) and a nicely printed book about the evolution of the car itself. AND it also included an HD Flip Video. Pretty cool. It said something about how they know Chevrolet Volt owners like technology, so they sent alone a Flip Video for us to record different things about the Volt. Not too shabby. I have always said the car is like a rolling computer. It took me months to figure out how to set the radio pre-sets, and I never really did figure it out, Tom at our office did it and taught me how to do it.

Jody and I did our customary weekend visit to Georgetown and stopped at Dairy Queen (I had a hot fudge sundae and Jody had a German Chocolate Blizzard). Then we went to Wal-Mart and then by our space at Collector's Market, then a nice drive home.

Once we got home, Jody went down for a nap, and I caught up on e-mails and went out to check on the cattle and take them a fresh bale of hay. The rains we got this week along with the cooler weather make it nice to be a cow at JB Acres. It could definitely be a worse life. All the cattle were up in the small front pasture, so I closed the gate off to the bigger pasture and took a fresh bale of hay out. While they were nicely confined, they cannot get too anxious with the new bale of hay. It is really not the cows that I am worried about, it is Mr. Speckles. He has no fears, and he thinks that fresh bales of hay are pretty much the cats-meow, and he is right there in the middle of it, whether I am there trying to cut off the wrapping cords or not. It is just easier to do when the cattle are otherwise occupied.

I have often wondered why folks with farms or ranches or just lots of acreage don't cut down trees once they are dead, but now I know. The answer is, because there is really no need to cut them down, and usually if you will just wait long enough, they will probably blow over by themselves, and you can then just let them lay there and rot. Or let the cattle rub up against them. Cattle like to rub up against things. AND, sometimes the dead trees are kind of attractive in themselves, and it is easier to see hawks or owls or other birds in a dead tree (in the summer time) than it is to see them in a tree that has a bunch of leaves on them. We have a couple trees right now that need to be cut down, but I think I will wait a couple years and see how things work out. If it all goes as I have it planned, they will just blow over (hopefully the one in the front will not blow over on the barn), and then all we will have to do is wait for them to disintegrate. No problems!

Things have finally started to bloom out nicely now, and there are bees everywhere. They are not bothering anything or anyone (unless you are trying to feed them) so that is not a problem. Jody even got stung twice while I was gone, both times on the tip o the same finger. Tomorrow I am going to suit up before I feed them, it is just easier than getting stung. ANYWAY, this is a picture of one of our thorn less cactus, this one is in front of the house, and it was just covered with blossoms the last couple of days. Also, the small 'spreading roses' that we planted last week seem to have settled in nicely, and I should get some photos of them in the next several days. They are supposed to make a nice ground cover, so we hope that will work out the way they advertise them.

Late in the afternoon, we both went out to the front barn to start going through some more boxes that we have not looked at since we moved here almost three years ago. AND, while we were out there, I noticed the Magnolia that we gave up for dead two years ago was blooming, and it has beautiful blooms and several more buds on it. This tree has a really strong self-preservation drive, and it is doing better this year than it has since we lived here. Just another reason not to cut down dead trees, you never know, they may not really be dead. Tomorrow I will give it a little trim job, and see if I can't help it recover a little bit faster. Maybe I should just leave well enough alone. Maybe...

Deeds, Actions, Changes, HOME, Kindnesses, Whirled Peas, FUN!

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