The Fig Tree Job...

This was my second project in the yard.  Far be it from me to clean house and catch up all that when I have many excuses, uh, projects, outside.  Choked in Wisteria, the Wisteria was asked to leave and when it didn't I took charge.

This is what a wisteria vine will do to anything it can climb on.  Just like the Honey Suckle by the water garden, it  restricts the growth of whatever plant it attaches to.

Another pile to be very proud of.  That's why you got lucky and are forced to read a second post today.

Now the fig has room to grow and produce these lovelies.

Two jobs down and a bazillion to go.

The water garden is recovering from my attack,

so shall the fig tree.

Not so confident about this old body,

It's feeling the work.

  

Egg On My Face...

I have been conversing with a wonderful person, Sandy at Oklahoma Transient, for quite some time.  Felt a connection and THOUGHT I was following her.  Well, stupid me, was not!!!  We have these wonderful conversations by email.  Sandy is always ready with that word of encouragement just when it's needed.  Always.

Imagine the embarrassment when I discover, after she had awarded the two wonderful awards above that I was not even on her followers widget.  It's way down on the right, just keep going you will find it.  One interesting sweet lady is at this address. 

Drop in and tell her the nut At The Farm sent you.

The rules are (and I am a breaker of rules) to list seven random things about yourself and pass it on.
Sooooo, here's my seven.

1.  I sometimes wish I had joined the military.  I think I would have made a good officer...so does my family.

2.  I love ice cream with chocolate and peanut butter.

3.  I adore rainy days.

4.  I think one can never have too many dogs...as long as you can care for them properly.

5.  I was a tomboy as a child and have never completely grown out of that.

6.  I have been "in love" once and still am.

7.  I wish I had the body I had thirty years ago with the brain I have now.  Nothing could stop me!

I pass these awards to all the wonderful readers and friends out there in blogland.

Getting Closer...

Never plant Honey Suckle where you want anything else to grow.  It has claimed everything. Fair warning:  When trying to pull up Honey Suckle vines, WEAR GLOVES.  I had to let my hands heal to finish. Remember what it did look like.

The choking growth of the HS made the Hibiscus spindly and almost choked the House Leak to death.  The drought had thinned the ground cover but I do believe it has a chance of becoming the beauty it once was.

Still have to thin water plants and have that one spot around the Asian Lilies to clean.  Yep, more Honey Suckle.  I don't remember planting it but then I forget some things.

Beginning to see Dad's rocks again.  This garden was built for him mostly from his rock collection.  We have added Mount Ida crystals and others finds to make it a family water garden.

On this day we got some rain.

From Tuesday through Saturday is how long it took this soft, office girl to get this finished.  I tried not to work in the 110 heat index so I could only work mornings.  I'm calling it finished.  The lilies are repotted, the Honey Suckle and Golden Rod have been banned along with whatever water plant that was that had filled the garden. I have allowed Parrot Grass, Bog Bean and Arrow Plant to remain with my lilies.

And, yes, that is a toilet tank by my bench.  I have planted House Leak in there.  I have washed rocks, waded knee deep with what I hoped was frogs bumping into my legs and have pulled every weed I could find.  It's through!!! My back was aching, my hands a wreck, my bare feet soaked and wrinkled but I'm done!!!! 

My second job awaits.  This fig Dad planted years ago provides us with all the figs we can eat.  It have been attacked by the Wisteria.  My next job will be to remove the wisteria so the fig can grow healthy again.

You may wonder why I have so many jobs backed up and waiting.  With Hubby's illness in the past two year things have gotten ahead of me.

Welcome to my retirement At The Farm.

The Mag 128...The Dark Pair

Oh, I do so look forward to this writing challenge each week.  Visit Magpie Tales and join the fun

Our challenge today is the image by Zelko Nedic.

Pointing his finger at Nero

He issued the ultimate command

"Do not bring me a boot.

Bring me a man!"

SC 117-Medical Care

“Please remit your payment promptly”

Was on every bill.
The piles growing quickly
Along with bottles of pills

Don’t understand the medical
I know it must be a game
The doctors hand out candy
The dentists say, what a shame.

I think it’s a party
A money making crime
Though they rarely fix you
They charge for all their time.

Money goes for testing
Others get money to read
You get a bill for your records
When a copy you need

You don’t have to pay for a car
When it's not repaired
I think the same rule ought to apply
To a patient’s care.

Join Saturday Centus

Tractor Man's New Tool Box...

Just one small problem with the tractor and Tractor Man.  They both kept losing tools.  There was only one small tool box on the Kubota and all you tractor people know they are never big enough.Tractor Man, who is very inventive when forced to be, found an old rusty tool box and decided to fasten it to the tractor.

I said, but it will rust more. You need paint. He agreed. I was nice enough to ask what color he preferred. He stated he didn't care soooooooooooo....

 I used what I had.  No need to run to town just for special paint.  I make do with what I have.

Tractor Man's new tool box.

Sadly I ran out of lavender and had to pull out the pink then I ran out of pink and had to get creative.

I'm not a graffiti artist.

This was my first try.

I think he will get the message when he uses the tool box.

The box is now installed and handy as a pocket on a shirt.

Even if it's girly colored.

TTIAR With Pat...

I only have rows of logs today.

I'll try to rhyme anyway.

A pair of heads were sniffing there

Ki's nose "rows" to sniff the air.

You go that way, I'll go this

Meet at the fence rows

down by the ditch.

Grab some rows

and join the fun.

More rows at Pat's

She's THE ONE.

The First Day Of Retirement...

I got up at six AM, woke Andrew for football practice, picked up Marcy at the truck shop, came home and worked outside.

Decided the water garden desperately needed my attention today.  I began removing the money plants, pulling weeds while topping off the water.  Also let the water soak a few weeds for me.

Here's my pile of removed undesirables.  Dead money plants, a few weeds and the grass I pulled was replanted elsewhere.  Grass is very valuable right now.

Looking a little better but hours to go before I'm finished.  It has taken all summer to get this grown up so will take me more than  a couple of hours to bring it back to its proper state but progress was made.  Yes, there is a water garden there, full of water plants.

Honey Suckle and Golden Rod are not my friends any more.  I am kicking them out of the garden.

One happy flower.

One unfinished job.

This soft little office girl has blisters

but I still know how to work.

So begins retirement.

Monday Was The Final Close Out...

and I shed no tears.  I did not tell the community.  I didn't want a big hullabaloo over my retiring.  I just wanted to slip out and I did.  I left a thank you note on the bulletin board thanking every one for their kindness.

Been having trouble sleeping with all the thoughts that come with change.  The fact that my paycheck was all that was coming in is kinda scary.  Still waiting on Hubby's paperwork to go through.

Maybe I will smell more flowers,

take more walks,

do some overdue jobs

and get that plywood installed.

I'm still not sure what I want to be

when I grow up.

An Award...

passed to me from A Quiet Corner. I humbly accept and think I am supposed to write eight things about myself.

So look out...eight things you may or may not have guessed about me coming right up. I kinda took clues from A Quiet Corner's Eight.

1.  Do not like hot dry weather, at all.

2.  Like things in order but not too worried if it's not.  It will be eventually.

3.  Thinking about shaving my head since I'm retiring.  I said, THINKING. I imagine I will just cut it shorter.  I have never been a hair person, if it's too short to braid then it's gone.

4.  Been blogging since September '08 and have written 1737 posts on this blog.   My second blog is about animals called Familiar Spirit.

5.  I like to play with words, paints, cloth, wood and animals.

6.  I have a strange almost dark sense of humor.

7.  I am rather independent and dislike asking for help.

8.  The world of blogging has put me in touch with so many amazing wonderful supportive loving people.  I can't imagine how I ever did without y'all.

Thank you for the honor of this award.  Everyone reading this deserves it so grab the picture and do your thing.  Have fun with it!

Art Mag 127

brought to you by Tess Kincaid, The ever different always amazing pictorial writing prompt.  Go visit, join in or just read the amazing takes on the picture below for this Mag 127.

Figure Eight, 1952, by Franz Kline

ART

What do we see in art? 

Do the pieces make a whole

Or is it only parts?

First I see the Figure Eight

Because I'm told

That's what this makes.

Then I look closer still

And see a mad man

Armed to kill.

I look again and I see

A smiling face

Looking at me.

Art imitates life they say

It's all in the perception

What's your choice today?

My Last Friday...

and the sky looked like Hiroshima.  I hope this is not an omen for my future.  After Monday I will no longer be an employee of the United States Postal Service.  I am retiring.  Thirty-nine years is long enough.

I was proud to be an employee of the postal service for many years.  I began as a PS3, to a PS5 to a letter carrier, to a supervisor to a postmaster in three different offices.  I have helped in every section I was needed and I did a good job.  I shall repeat, thirty-nine years is long enough.

Thursday this followed me home.  The weather said it was going around but I grabbed hold of it with my mind and dragged it to the farm.  I did not measure the rain.  I was simply grateful it came.

Marcy has had a second opinion and is having more tests.  If you will, please pray, that it can be taken care of in Mountain Home and is not major.  It is a very curable cancer.  Maybe with prayer and healing thoughts we can make it smaller.

Hubby's papers have been processed so maybe after two years, he may have a pay check.  Talk about blessings!



TTIAR With Pat

Fungi

Sunflowers

and Petunias

Put on their party hats

Lining up for Pat.

Border Music

"But time is an old lens of amber, and if you look down the barrel of it,  good things get remembered and bad ones left behind.  The good images stay, as if they were suspended in a mason jar, like Jack had said about sunrises one time.  She keeps them there in the jar and sometimes in the late Octobers, especially in the late Octobers, takes them out and looks at them."

I've been reading Border Music by Robert James Waller.  These are not the only good lines in this 246 page book.

Oh, that I could spin a tale as beautifully as he...

The Sky

was beautiful as I walked.

The farm team had recovered enough to hunt.

The ground was damp enough for tracks.

The sunset peeked over the trees

as Ki-Anne asks, "What's taking you so long?"

How To Turn A Mutt Into A Shar Pei...

Please note the shape of Ki-Anne's head

She could pass for a Shar Pei today.

Poor Junior/Jack/Gibson got a makeover too.

Notice the white lines on Lil's sides

and a larger snout than usual.

All the dog's got alterations.

How you may ask.

One word, Copperhead!

Hubby was in the field and noticed Ki and Junior jumping forward and jumping back, barking like crazy.  Since they have been thinning the muskrats, Hubby didn't think much about it.  He thought they had cornered a ground hog or some other creature.

Hubby decided to check it out.  It was the King of Copperhead snakes.  Over three feet long and  bigger around than a tennis ball....and he wasn't backing down. 

All the dogs had been bitten but they were not giving up.  It is their job to kill the poison snakes.  They take it seriously but they are new to this. Ki is not two and Junior is not a year old.  Hubby hollered for Lil, Queen of Snake Patrol.

Lil and Squiggs show up...the expert snake team that is training the young ones.   Lil just wades right in and pop, pop, pop like Harrison Ford's whip, the snake was lifeless and the head was gone. The white marks on Lil's side are where she popped the snake so hard it discolored her fur on both sides. 

All the dogs were bitten, Ki twice, every one else got one bite.  Unlike rattlesnakes which can kill a dog, the Copperhead rarely will kill a dog.

This was a beautiful snake and was more than big enough to make a belt but the Snake patrol skinned and dismembered this giant is short order.  Not even enough skin to make a hat band.

This is one of the many reasons in this country you need good all around farm dogs.  We are so very proud.  This is also the reason they always go with me when I walk.  I want a full Snake Patrol with me.

I was at work so no pictures for Pat and the other snake lovers out there but next time, maybe I will be lucky enough to have a camera ready.

All dogs are fine.  They knew what to do.  Soak the bites in cold water and reduce the swelling. Lil kept immersing her head for relief.

This mixed mess of mutts except for Lil. a Border Collie, are developing into quite the herding team and keep the cattle in line.

Just something about having a good working team of dogs  makes the heart feel full.