Sprouting, Dr visit, bees, fishing with Mama, watering

About six weeks ago I planted some pecan in cardboard sleeves. I have tended to those little sleeves filled with dirt since that time. I was telling Mama recently that I would give the pecans until the end of the month to sprout before I discarded them. Monday, I saw a tiny sprout. At least I thought it might be a sprout. After observing it for the last few days, I am pleased to say that it is a sprout. In fact, there is another sprout showing from a second of the six nuts planted. I would take a picture, but the sprouts are so small that a picture would not show them well. If things progress as expected, I will take a picture when the leaves start to show. Time will tell whether or not the seedlings will survive to be planted and give us pecans in the years ahead, but it will cost me nothing but patience to follow through on that plan.

I had a doctor’s appointment yesterday morning. My appointment overlapped with Grandma and Grandpa’s appointment. Mama had encouraged them to see our doctor versus the one they were seeing in Bowie. Dr. Aulds is more engaged and diagnostic than the man they were seeing in Bowie. Anyway, my appointment went well. By blood pressure was low. My pulse was low. My weight was lower. The doctor encouraged me to keep up with whatever I am doing with the one recommendation that I take a lower dose of one of the two blood pressure medication. Since I have already been doing that, it will not be hard to apply as instructed. Grandma and Grandpa were very encouraged by their visit with this doctor. Though they will not necessarily follow all her instructions, they were impressed by her approach to understanding their current health conditions and her interest in moving them to a better place in that continuum.

With the bees we have on the farm, since they are not interested in the syrup I have put out for them, I asked Mama to call Donny to see if we could pick up the in-hive feeders I left with him when we transferred the bees into our hives. We drove out yesterday at lunchtime to retrieve them. This morning we will mix the feed as instructed and I will open the hives, check on the bees and insert the feeders into the hive. If I do not do that, I run the risk of the bees dying of starvation or swarming to find a better home. I do not like either of those options. Hopefully, we will not have to deal with either.

When we finished feeding yesterday evening, Mama and I drove over to the quarry to find the lake Ricky had told Mama about. It was not hard to find. It is just above the lake we have been fishing. A wall of rock about 150 feet thick separates the larger lake from the one we currently fish. The third lake is smaller than the other two, but it has a ton of fish in it. Mama and I defaulted to trying the smaller lake for a few casts, then we went to the larger lake. The water in each lake was crystal clear. On my first cast into that lake I hooked a small bass. When I let him go, I cast out again and hooked a monster bass. Mama watched it come out of the water three times as I struggled to keep it on my line. At one point, when I thought I had it, the line snagged on the branch of a willow tree at the edge of the lake and broke. I was very disappointed. Not only did I lose the fish, which will eventually die because of the lure hooked in his mouth, but I lost a very good lure. Mama and I went back to the smaller lake and fished at a different location where I caught five bass. Three I put back. Two were huge. We took them home and filled them. Mama worked on her business while I fished because the reception was so good up at the smaller lake. Those fillets will be supper tomorrow. Hopefully, I will show the pastor the other two lakes later this week or early next week. He will be excited to have that much water to fish in.

Mama and I are having to water our plants already. After getting almost 6 inches of rain this year, we are looking at about ten days without rain. Fortunately, the days are not oppressively hot. Those days are not far away, but we will enjoy the warmth we are getting. It is perfect for the plants we are raising in the garden and all over the farm. Our peach tree is loaded with fruit. The nectarine as well. The blackberry bushes are full of berries. I might actually have too many of them around the farm, but it seemed a waste to not replant all the sprouts the original blackberry bush gave me. I have more than a dozen of the sprouts from the original that are not larger than the plant that spawned them. We should be picking those berries in a couple weeks.

Now if we could get our finances as healthy and robust as our farm, we would be in great shape.