this and that

I took a major step last week towards moving to the country house.  I took all my clothes and my chest of drawers.  From now on, instead of taking what clothes I think I will need for Friday through Monday, I will bring back what I think I’ll need for Monday through Thursday or Friday.  We tend to do this moving in spurts.  We’ll move stuff for a couple of weekends and then a month or two will go by and we will have moved nothing.  One hold up is that we want to buy a new couch but don’t have funds available for that right now, too many other more pressing things on the list to buy, but the main hold up is not being able to work out there.  Our current job, though, is at the full size art work stage and that I can do out there.

We’ve been leaving on Friday afternoons and coming in on Monday mornings but being out there all last week with the grandkids was really nice.  Didn’t get a lick of work done but I made lots of cookies and worked in the yard and messed around with the kids.  I also mounted a major offensive against the fire ants which are abundant.  Pot after pot of boiling water was poured on the mounds in and around the garden and flower beds.  It’s amazing how many gallons of boiling water some of those mounds absorbed before there was no sign of activity.

In the garden this last week, Marc put in tomatos, japanese eggplant, and banana peppers although we lost one when a limb from the tallow fell on it.  I’m happy to report that the beans just jumped out of the ground so fast you could almost see them growing and the spinach finally has sprouted.  No bell peppers yet and I still have to get some cucumbers in.

The burn ban was lifted after the rain last week so we torched the burn pile.  Took all day and well into the night for it to burn down as we had three trees taken down while we were out there, two pines (one dead, the other dying) and a small chinese tallow.  The other thing the rain did was to really bring out the wildflowers.  The pastures are blanketed with indian paintbrush, evening primrose and bluebonnets.

The far end of the 13 acre field behind us.