Mama home safe, growing things, defenses

When going to pick someone up at the airport, it is mostly a guess as to where to park. The signage can tell you the general area of the arrival gate. That can give an approximate location of the baggage claim, but if you do not know the airport really well, where to park in the garage is still more of a guess than a plan. However, yesterday, when I got to the airport to pick up Mama - returning from her time with Maggie, Aaron and the kids – it worked out pretty well. I knew I was near the door that said I was near the gate, but I had no idea how far from that door the baggage claim area would be. I had parked only a short walk from where I would meet Mama; saving her from too much walking to get her very heavy luggage to the car. She is still not feeling well, but a few days of rest should help her recover. Time will tell.

She has only been gone for about eleven days but in that time the trees put out leaves, the garden plants tripled in size and the bottle babies grew noticeably. When she left, the grass was starting to turn green. Now it is quite high in many places on the farm. I mowed Tuesday evening. Trimmed with the weed eater on Thursday evening. By Monday, the grass in our yard will need to be mowed again. Such is the blessing and the curse of Spring. That is, unless the heat comes on us as quickly as it did last year. Today, the temperature is forecast to be 85°. Maybe a little higher tomorrow. The high was 54° only a few days ago. Normal Texas weather. If the rains continue, we will be alright. If not, things will go dormant by early June. So, we enjoy the growth while we can. Mama enjoys mowing so it costs very little time or extra work for me when she manages the grass in our yard. We are not, however, going to plant anything else in the garden since we are two to three weeks behind the optimal time to have done so.

Over the winter I lost most of the fruit trees in the garden. The apple tree, two plum trees and the dwarf peach all died. I have since pulled them up to make room for other trees. I think I may be responsible for the fatalities because I did not water the trees aggressively through the winter months – and we got very little rain. For them a drought is a drought regardless of the ambient temperature. The only trees that survived are the nectarine and the two large pear trees. Maybe I will do better next year. The backyard trees, a peach and an apricot did well and are now loaded with blooms and tiny fruit. Whether or not the fruit will hold on and ripen remains to be seen. Blueberries, blackberries and grapes are also doing very well so far.

Mama and I will have a busy weekend. She is going to get feed today which we will use immediately to fill feed barrels and restock our store of feed kept in the shop. Tomorrow we will go to Trade Days followed by taking Mama to look at the house we are investigating in Bowie. She has only seen the photos I sent her. That is not the same as seeing the house in person – where it sits on the lot, what is around it, how close it is to other structures or the corner of the street, what kind of shape the driveway and sidewalks are in, etc. She will get to do her own evaluation tomorrow. From that point we will either continue to investigate the property of drop it. It is exciting either way.

While in Bowie, I will need to swing by the farm Norman is vacating to collect some pipe I need to reposition a fence I am moving so that Sam and Sasha can get to the back of the property once we complete the fence for the new goat paddock. Right now, they are able to squeeze between the pipe rails of the fence and run through the open gate at the back of the paddock. That will change very soon, and Sam is getting too old to go the very long way around. I still need them to be able to defend that area of our farm because of the pigs and the chickens and I am thinking that if it became too difficult to access the area quickly whenever the need arises, they would give up on that portion of their duties. Maybe I can prevent that from happening.

Once back at the farm, we will try one more time to get the sheep into the barn so we can give them their shots. Right now, we only lack three, but I will take a slightly different approach than we used last time to corral them in a spectacularly unsuccessfully attempt when one of them almost knocked Mama down escaping out temporary enclosure.

I intend to be ready this time.