Another Adventure

Fiorella has been exploring the property again lately. A couple of days ago, she took a break from rocking the north side of the driveway to wander further into a the woods and found a charming dell her yardman had obviously mowed. Further on down, she came across the northside dry creek and lifted some rocks out of it to add to her cart. The whole time she was very cautious because she'd taken a bad fall when she was exploring the southside dry creek last week. It's an area she wasn't familiar with, and she lost her footing, ending up on her back and unable to pull herself, so she had to  scoot a couple of yards on her bottom to the fence line and haul herself up on an iron pole.

Fio likes a challenge, but this one was scary. She lives in rattlesnake country.

Lost Cause

Nine years ago, Fiorella's primary form of communication was her cell phone, and she even knew how to enter names and numbers into her directory.  Then she moved to the country, to five-plus acres on a dip in the local topography.  Yes, a cell-phone dead area--unless, of course, you walk to the top of the driveway next to the road or lean off the second-floor balcony.

Cell phones have changed a lot in the past nine years, but Fio, because she's home most of the time, is way behind the curve.   Husband uses his cell phone to take pictures, look up information, do calculations, record and play videos, monitor his stocks, check the weather, find a road map, even read a book on his cell phone. The only thing Fio knows how to do is charge the battery.

Another case of use-it-or-lose-it.

Deer and Drought Resistant

As far as Fiorella's concerned, spring is here. She's put away her jeans in favor of shorts, and Husband visited the nursery yesterday, where he sank a small fortune into yucca and rosemary, both of them deer- and drought-resistant.

Fio loves the new view. The grass is bright green, and wildflowers are beginning to bloom on the verges of I-35--baby bluebonnets in the midst of millions of little yellow dots. The pink primroses should show soon. And the red paintbrushes.

Fio and Husband don't have any bluebonnets on their property, but they do have purple verbena, wild and tame. Those weird butterfly bushes the landscaper planted are in full bloom, but Fio is preparing to replace them with rosemaries because she doesn't want to ruin her other hip nursing the butterflies through the drought this summer like she did last year.

Yes, summer will come, the rain will dry up, and the drought will be in full swing again, but this time Fio and Husband will be better prepared.

Yucca and rosemary, that's the way to go.

Prickly Encounter

Life in the country is fraught with misadventures for a city-bred girl. Fiorella is typing this blog with her left hand because yesterday her right hand encountered a hidden prickly pear. Husband had taken down a tree and was cutting it into logs which Fio was loading into the wheelbarrow. She moved backwards, preparing to turn the barrow, when her foot hit a rock. She lurched, the logs spilled, and Fio went down on her back, throwing out her hands to cushion her fall.

Husband put up the chainsaws while Fio rushed back to the house and tried to remove the hair-thin spines with duct tape. Multiple applications and no little pain later, she realized duct tape had gone about as far as it could go. Time to melt a couple of candles and set up a home-waxing center. Multiple applications and no little pain later, she head for the tweezers. Beyond that, she'll just have to grin and bear it till the things work their own way out.

Hmm. A scorpion sting and a run-in with a prickly pear all within the past few months. Please don't tell Fio what's next.

Autumn Chainsaws

Summer is over, at last. Temperatures are dropping, shadows are reaching across the road, and the voice of the chainsaw is heard in the land. Time to harvest summer's dead hardwoods to provide next winter's firewood. Time to cut cedar to protect against next summer's wildfires.

When Fiorella and Husband first moved onto their five and one-third wooded acres seven years ago, Fio wanted every tree to remain in place, but the drought has changed her mind.

Husband is sharpening the chainsaws.

Happy Days Are Here Again

It may be autumn everywhere else in the country, but it's springtime in Texas. With the daily high finally dipping below one hundred, the bushes are putting forth little green leaves, the garlic plants are blooming up a purple fury, and the verbenas wave their friendly fronds at Fiorella every time she goes out to check on them.

Of course, she's still watering everything from the bathtub, but apparently that isn't going to change for another ten years.

Varmint after Varmint

Fiorella is nothing if not obsessive. So, having racked up armadillo number six on her scorecard yesterday, she raced downstairs this morning and checked to see if there was a number seven.

Yes! The trap had been sprung, but what was that in it? It looked like--it was! A skunk!

Be interesting to see how the trapper man handles this one.

Mornin', Ma'am

Fiorella Plum, pioneer woman. She got up at dawn, fed the livestock, watered the crops, and fought off hordes of pestilent varmints.

Okay, okay--she staggered out of bed at seven, gave Wendy Dog her kibbles, hosed the planting beds with used bathwater, and put a couple of deer to flight just by opening the front door.

That's just about as pioneer as Fio gets.

Snippets of the Drought

Fiorella is pleased to announce that Miz Duggar has a new offspring. It's midway between her and the next verbena, which, since they sleep in the same bed, Fio is now calling Jim Bob.
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Husband discovered the sugar water in the hummingbird feeder had fermented into alcohol. So did the hummingbirds.
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The only good thing about the drought is that we'll have more dead trees to cut down for firewood come October. How's that for making lemonade out of lemons?

Ever Inventive

Despite the 107-degree temperatures, our plants are thriving.

They should be. Fiorella and husband devote an hour very evening to caring for them-- and considerable ingenuity. She's told you about using plastic milk bottles, but the delivery systems have been adjusted too. The harness holding the milk bottles as they descend from the second-floor landing to the first floor dining room has been simplified to a loop on the end of the rope, and every bottle is capped to avoid accidentally washing the said dining room's floor. And Husband is, as of Monday morning, hooking the bath water hose up to a sprinkler. After all, it's agua usada so drought watering restrictions (hand-held hoses only) don't apply.

Humans, ever inventive. No wonder we trumped the Neanderthals.

Garden Update

With the state of the world being what it is, Fio heeds Voltaire's advice and tends her own garden with a vengeance. Yesterday was the allowed watering day for the odd-numbered side of the street so she and Husband spent their evening nourishing the planting beds. He wielded the hose in the west beds while she took care of the large, sun-baked north bed.

Ironically, the plants seem to be doing better currently than when they were being watered three times a week by the now-verboten in-ground system. Husband's mulching is part of the reason, Fio thinks, but it's also that the beds are now receiving daily life support, thanks to milk bottle storage and the bath water gizmo.

The world may still a mess, but Fiorella's garden is doing quite well, thank you.

Murdering Cedars

Earlier this week, Fiorella grabbed her battery chainsaw, the little one Husband gave her for Christmas, and bounced out into the west yard to take down several small cedars. (She has to leave the big ones to husband and his gasoline chainsaw.)

Yes, this is the same Fiorella who loudly decried the way her neighbors had massacred their cedars, virtually balding their acreage. After all, Fio reasoned, with oak wilt two houses and one deep ditch away, she should value every tree on the place. As it turned out, her reasoning was specious. Half those trees Fio thought were live oaks are elms, which are immune to oak wilt. Enter the chainsaw. Fio and Husband plan to take out all the smaller cedars inside the driveway loop and trim up the grandfathers.

The frightening thing is how quickly Fio adjusted to becoming a destroyer of the young. At first she mentally apologized to each of her victims, mourning the life that was not to be, but now she's relishing her role as destroyer.

Is this how mass murderers begin?

Cleaning Up

That big pile of cedar in the north yard is gone. And the flower beds around the house are cleaned up. And the brush Fiorella and Husband had chainsawed in the woodsy area to the west of the driveway has been cleared.

Fio finally gutted up and checked out three guys who advertised in the local newspaper. One was very eager and kept lowering his price. The second one didn't show. The third one was running a crew and charged fifty bucks an hour, flat rate. Fio opened Door Number One, and he did a great job. In fact, we'll probably hire him for more work around the acreage.

It's progress, and your Fio likes to move ahead.