Thought I should do another update.

The pecan season is upon us.

Pecan prices are the best we have seen since we retired. 80 cents a pound right now. pecans are so so, but the season is just starting.

While we were picking pecans, we saw this out in the pasture.

To give you an idea, I pushed it around a little and put my pecan picker on the ground beside it. The pecan picker is four feet long..

And a close-up of the 'head'.

I feel like it gives me a fair outline of the snake's head/nose/eye area. Or so it seems, haha. It was(is) probably a corn snake or rat snake. If so, neither is poisonous and actually good to have around.
Especially if I don't see it while it is alive. ;-)

The weather has been really nice. We actually had a couple nights in the 40s. Thought maybe "winter" was finally here; but nope. Getting another warmup. Not the 90s, hopefully. I think the last I read in Farmer's Almanac was wetter warmer. We'll see.

Since I never did the other update on our Florida trip, I'll add a couple pictures here. Sister-in-law and hubby took us fishing on a pier. The great 'blue' herons there are not really afraid of people. They will steal your catch or bait right out of your bucket if you're not careful. Some people feed them, which adds to the lack of fear.

Most of the people weren't catching anything. And when they were catching, They caught these little mango- or mangrove snapper, I think they were called.

The evening was gorgeous. Just enough breeze to cool the 90 degree weather. The moon was out early, and as the sun began to set, most people packed up to go home.

And it was just as well we left then, because we were barely into the truck when it started pouring!

But is was a good trip, even if we didn't catch anything.

You all be safe and God bless.

Grissom Air Museum.

We miss SAC.

It had rained a lot before we got there, apparently, as there was standing water in the grass, so we stayed to the path for the most part.
These are just a few of the pictures. I'll post more later.

You all be safe and God bless.

Well, there is that.

We're leaving a day earlier. He just can't wait.

I'm not really complaining. Well, sort of, haha. But since I have to do most of the planning and packing, it would be nice if he told me these things instead of me hearing him tell his brother over the phone and then having to ask him what he meant. ;)

At least we're leaving in the morning, instead of after he gets off work. Hopefully we can get some sleep Wednesday night. We usually don't sleep well before a trip, no matter when it is.

Happy Tuesday, everyone! :)

T Minus 20 hours and holding.

Houston, we have a problem.

Well, to be honest, hubby's work has a problem. One that might keep us from going at all. But he didn't get off work until 1930 (7:30PM for non-military/gov't types) and didn't want to talk about it last night. Said he didn't need one more thing to think about right then.

And he has gone to work already as I type this.

The problem, among many, is he is the only one who can fix the problem. (He is also the only technician left in his office. All the others are <i>engineers</i>. Somehow, it was decided several budget cuts ago, that engineers are cheaper than technicians.
Go figure.

So they forced out or early retired all the other technicians.
(If only there would be an early retirement right nos.)

Hubby has seniority. They couldn't touch him before, but we're ready now. Even if he only gets 2 weeks to vacate like they did last time. We're gone.

And to be honest, it scares the crap out of his boss.

Because he is the only one who can do many of the things he does.

Now to give them the benefit of doubt, they do have 4 other people working on this particular problem with him.
This time.

But we don't (and may not at all) leave until the problem is fixed.

And we might not be able to talk about it tonight either.

I can deal with delay. I do not do well with uncertainty.

Not at all.

TGIF on a cold Friday morning.

What to talk about today?

Hard to believe it's the end of August!
Been hard to post lately. Can't seem to concentrate on blogger and it seems blogger doesn't want to work right anyway.
As you know, our trip to the farm didn't go at all like we might have expected.
We didn't get there until about 1030 at night. I do not like night arrivals.
Even with the dark though, it wasn't hard to see that everything had grown like crazy. July and August are usually the hottest months anyway, and as those of you who live in the South know, this year has been exceptionally so.
I did take a few pictures in the dark.

Notice we have no driveway visible upon arrival.




This is a shot towards the trailer. The light is the security light that the electric company maintains. I think it costs around $8 a month. A fair enough price to not be totally in the dark.



The Johnson grass had gone crazy.



This is our Chevy 2500 pickup, almost engulfed by Johnson grass.



Yes, it was taller than our truck. Annoying and a bit depressing. Hubby said to not let it get to me, but ugh.

I'm guessing there is a backyard here somewhere. It's just crazy that this is barely 3 months' growth.



Here you can see the actual grass is not as tall as the Johnson grass.



That's the burn pile. We didn't actually burn last time because it was so dry. The Johnson grass seems to love it. :/
Hope you can see the pictures okay. I shrunk them all down because I don't have the option to shrink in the blog any more. I decided to just use Webshots for now, since that is where I keep all my online photos right now anyway.
If you can't see the pictures very well, just click on the album link for August 2011, and it will take you to my album where you can see the pictures.

That's all for now. Back to reading up on you all. :-)

On the road again. Just can't wait to get on the road again...

I am guessing that shortly after 12 noon EST, we will be on the road to the retirement property. I will try to keep up, but there is no telling what sort of internet time we'll have.
I am just hoping that at least some of the weed killer worked.
Hoping not to see this when we pull into the yard.

Especially now that I know it's poisonous to animals (except mice, apparently) when there is a drought.
I mentioned it to hubby and he said he did know that it is poisonous when stressed, so we will have to work harder to get rid of it. There was some in the pasture, too.

Oh well. In a day or two we'll know. We might actually drive like normal people this time instead of driving straight through like he's been doing. We'll see about that, too. ;-)

Hope you all have a safe, blessed weekend!

Two (and a half) days until our next trip

I messed up my layout, but changed the comment thingy in a further attempt to help people make comments. Not that I know of more than one who had trouble commenting, but in case others have been having trouble I found another group of settings for comments. Why does blogger have to make things so difficult?
Anyway, hopefully this solves any problems people may have been having on my blog.

The sleep study went okay, I guess. I think I got all the pink stuff out of my hair that they used for the sensors they put on my head. There were about 20 wires attached in various places. The lady told me I did real well the first half of the night, but then the second half I kept holding my breath.

That was news to me. All I remember is the dumb machine trying to either suffocate me or drown me in air!

Later yesterday morning I had an appointment with the doctor who is treating my... Apnea or whatever I have. He told me a name of something that I will never remember unless he writes it down, and said it was basically nothing to be done for it other than to do what we've been doing. He explained though that when the nurse told me I was holding my breath, what she meant was that when I wake up and then go back to sleep I don't always remember to breathe. So I wasn't holding my breath, I just wasn't breathing.

The doctor also gave me Flonase because sometimes I have some congestion, but I pretty much always get an itchy nose when the mask is on. So hopefully the itching will stop.

Friday we leave for the farm again. Lots of mowing if nothing else. I was looking at the weather forecast for while we are there. Pretty much every day is going to be upper 90s with a couple 101s and a 102 thrown in. (38C for my non-American friends.)
That means I'll have to keep a watch on the hubby who likes to keep going until he gets dehydrated and then takes a day or more to recover.

I'll try to keep up with blogs while I'm gone, but no promises.

Happy Wednesday, everyone!

4 days to our next trip

Have another sleep study. This time at the hospital, since the CPAP machine is not the miracle cure for me that it is for most people. I find it annoying. The small mask is a bit too small, the medium mask is a bit too big, they both tend to leak and they really bother my eyes and throat. We'll see what the hospital comes up with, if anything.

Friday after hubby gets off work, we leave on our next trip to the retirement property to mow and see if the weed killer did anything about this.

Hubby really wants to get rid of the Johnson grass. The closer we get to retirement, though, the less I want to be using pesticides. Once we get there and can keep it mowed, that should hopefully take care of the problem more naturally. In this spot at least, tilling is not an option. The septic leach field is here.
Johnson grass is one of those things where people don't clearly think out all the ramifications before they do something. Like Kudzu, Nutria and allowing exotic species to be imported for people to own.
Ah well. We'll just keep plugging away and see what happens.

Hope you're all having a blessed week!

Almost Friday

We're heading back home tomorrow. Got a lot of mowing done. Would have done more, but we're trying to get rid of the Johnson grass before we move down here, so we did some spraying. I'm not real hot on that, but since we don't have anyone who can do the mowing any more, that's how we've decided to handle it.

It was kind of disappointing, but really not a surprise I guess, to see all the grass after almost nothing in February. The Johnson grass is like, 10-12 feet high in some places. And of course there are vines and poison ivy all over everything, too.

A handful of cattle egrets came to watch us mow the pasture. They wanted to be sure we did a good job and to help us with the little lizards and snakes and such. ;)
No pictures because it is way too dry and dusty right now to trust taking the camera out mowing, sorry. I did take pictures this trip. Not as many as other times; but I took some and I'll post them after we're home.

Those of you who have red dirt, is there anything in particular you need to do to increase the fertility? Do you just make compost, or do you put down lime, or what?
Inquiring minds want to know.  ;)

Happy Friday to you all!

Wordless Wednesday

So I've been trying to decide what to post

about our trip. I thought I'd start with a few pictures.
We were shocked. We didn't have to mow when we got there! Yay for cold weather?

And the grass actually looked like grass. Was really a boost to our spirits. :-)
Of course we did mow a little, but more about that at a later date. Still trying to catch up/keep up.
Happy Wednesday to you all! :-)

Home again Home Again, Jiggety Jig.

Hope you've all been well. Will do my best to catch up and do a real post later, but will take a few days. Got stuff to do tomorrow.
Have a blessed Sunday!

Busy busy

Sorry I haven't been keeping up very well. Not been online a lot. Just wanted to say I'm still here. Pump house installation went well.
Will have pictures later.
I did get into something while clearing brush, apparently. Everything is dormant, so I don't know what or where, but my guess is I trimmed poison ivy without knowing it.
I took this picture with my phone:

That's the largest rash on my right arm. I've got small spots on my left arm, and managed to get some on my right cheek too, so I've been using a poison ivy spray, and cortisone cream since I got up today.

Hope you're all doing well!

So I tripped today

Just a slight imperfection in the concrete and down I went. Fortunately it was cold out, so I was wearing one of my husband's insulated shirts for a jacket. It goes down almost to my knees so I didn't rip anything. But I did skin my knee and scrape my hand.
A nice young Marine asked if I was okay and helped me up.
"Just hurt my pride," I replied. Which was true. I hate when I trip over something, let alone nothing. Or next to nothing. It really wasn't much of a difference in the two pieces of concrete that did it.
Oh well. I'm achy now, but I took something for pain.

So, I wanted to share a few pictures with you.

Hubby made a modification to the pump house. A travel modification, because it sits up so high. We're hoping, like the big trucks, that this modification will lower the wind resistance of the trailer.

He said he'll have to change the ball he usually tows with so that it will have clearance over the pickup, but hopefully it will work.

And my bucket experiment is still ongoing.

They have mostly survived the winter. And they're still mostly green. I covered them with a two clear recycle bags during the really cold windy weather. And moved them out beside the shed. They get morning sun there. And some afternoon sun, too. As clueless as I was, I guess I didn't do too bad. Though next time I think only one plant per bucket might be better. Broccoli and Brussels sprouts. I had also planted some peas for nitrogen for the B plants, but most of the peas did not like the winter temps.
A couple survived though.

For some reason, this bucket filled with water when it rained, after I took the bags off. They all have the same hole in the bottom, but this one held water. Only one plant survives. I found some fence tool (so hubby told me) and used it to put a few more holes in the bucket. And cracked the side. But at least it won't drown the...
I think it's a B sprout, but I could be wrong.

And the garlic I planted last fall survived. I thought the cold had killed them. I planted 2 store cloves that had sprouted in the fridge. Oops. :)
They've sprouted in the last bucket, which also holds a B sprout plant. :)

If you click on the picture with the single big leaf, you and see to each side of it, what looks like a stem of grass. That should be the garlic. :)

When we get back from the farm, I'm going to make a small raised bed frame from the leftover pieces from the pump house. Looking forward to trying my brown thumb with that.
We'll see how these fare while we're gone. Sadly, our boys can't be counted on to watch over them. The last time I tried that, I came home to another flooded bucket that smelled like swamp muck...

Right now it's looking like weather at the farm should be partly cloudy and mid 70s, at least through Monday. Here's hoping it continues and we can get a bit done.
I will be taking the camera. It's on my 'to go' list, so hopefully there will be a few pictures, too.

Happy Wednesday to you all! :-)