finally feeling well and bastard squirrels

Lack of energy and snot. This has been my life the past week. Slept well enough Thursday night and Friday morning I think I'm on the mend but I've thought that before. We'll see.

It occurred to me the other day that I can plant some winter vegetables in the place where the zinnias were since I won't plant anything else there until spring when the zinnia seeds go in. So the plan is to go to the feed store for plants. Maybe even get the leaves moved today. And wash the 'honey dew' off the car...again. It has been just terrible the last month. Everything under the pecan trees and crepe myrtles is covered with the sticky stuff. The ground has been so sticky that leaves and gravel stick to the bottom of my sandals. Apparently this stuff is exuded by aphids up in the trees. If so there must be millions of the little suckers up there.

Worked outside for about 40 minutes on Friday, dug up and potted five porterweed volunteers and then turned the dirt where I plan to put in some broccoli and cauliflower and some pole beans. That cold front didn't last, already in the low 80s and that was all the outside work I did Friday as I came in hot and sweaty and out of motivation. I did hose off the car and the truck after I got back from taking the dog for a walk.

Today, Saturday, I finally feel well, not completely well but almost there. Well enough to go to the market and get the microgreens for me and tamales for Marc and stop at the feed store for cauliflower plants (my neighbor has some broccoli and cabbage sprouts for me) and come back with the plan to turn a bag of compost into the dirt where I plan to plant. Rather than carry the 40+/- pound bag of compost I thought I would use the garden cart but first I had to empty the garden cart onto the burn pile and on my way to the burn pile I passed the monster rose bush with the thought to prune away enough rose canes to be able to get to the hackberry tree growing up in the middle and then I saw a pecan tree so cut some more and another hackberry and more pecans and virginia creeper and one thing led to another until I had pruned all the way around clearing it from the ground up to about 18”. I emptied the cart and left two huge piles of rose bush prunings to attend to tomorrow because by now I was hot and sweaty and tired and had probably already exerted myself more than intended. I bet I cut off a third of the growth and it's still a monstrous bush. No before picture but as thick as the foliage is at the top, it was that thick all the way to the ground. You can see the big hackberry poking up from the top in the middle.

There must be at least a dozen trees of various size under there. Tomorrow I'm going to cut them out and treat the stumps with stump killer so hopefully they don't come back.

And that bastard squirrel. I looked up and he was ON the bird feeder under the hood. Chased him off. Wasn't too long before it was back. I took these pictures through the glass in the door and it's hard to see with the glare/reflection but he's actually made it onto the bird feeder.

OK, so the hood over the bird feeder doesn't work. Now I need to find a pole that I can mount the bird feeder on and put the hood underneath. Surely they can't get around that!