Mama and Victoria went shopping with friends yesterday and had a pretty good time. They were a little disappointed by the prices of what they found in the discount boot stores but they enjoyed the morning out. Later they went to Denton to go to Sam’s. Their ulterior motive was to wait for a cancellation at the office of the ENT Victoria is scheduled to see today. That did not happen so they are headed back to Denton this morning so Victoria can make her appointment before she has to be at work in Bowie. It would have been nice to get her in yesterday.

The two of them got home a little after I did. I was changed and ready to repair the fence on the south end of the meadow. That is where the longhorn cattle have been gaining access to our meadow. We all went together to make the repairs. Mama drove the tractor because I needed tee posts, a sledge hammer and wire to make the repairs and it is a pretty good distance to carry things like that.

When we got there we discovered that our neighbors had already stretched the fence to tighten it so all we needed to do was to add three tee posts to make sure it was better supported. It will be nice to have that length of fence replaced. When that is done it should be good for the rest of my lifetime. The fence that is now in place is probably more than thirty years old and has seen numerous repairs over that time. It is a good thing we do not have cattle that challenge the fences.

When we got back to the barn we took an hour to muck the stalls. It had only been about three weeks since we last cleaned them so it was not too big a chore. It really helps to have the tractor bucket to take the loads from the barn to the area where we dump the manure. If we had to do it by wheelbarrow, it would be a major chore. Mama has the fun part of driving the load to the dumping spot. That is the really smelly part – and she lets us know it.

While Mama was cooking dinner Victoria and I worked on getting some boards up on the flower garden at the apartment. I was a little off on one length but we will make it work. At the very least it will keep Sam and Kira from digging up everything we plant in that space. I still have more to do but it is quickly taking shape. After dinner I did a little more work on the fence in the flower garden but was putting my tools away by 7 pm.

I went to look over the vegetable garden and saw that the plants we have there really needed water so I charged the hose and went to work. The dirt in the garden is dusty and dry when it is freshly tilled but once it packs it is hard as concrete. It is not the best soil for a garden but it is what we have inherited. It will take several years of concerted effort to add enough nutrients and moisture retaining compost to make it truly fertile. Regardless, it will always take a lot of water to make things grow properly.

While I was tending to the plants in the garden Mama and Victoria decided to plant a row of corn. It was too pleasant an evening to let it go to waste. I helped with that and then I planted some seeds for bird house gourds near the area I set up as a windbreak in the garden. I hope the trailing vines will shade the plants we put inside the enclosure from the wind and sun.

We will know this season if my garden enclosure experiment was a success or not.