Maggie Discovers Porcupines

She was crashed on the front porch dog bed this morning. Unusual, but I didn't think much about it as I set out to do the goose & chicken chores. A few minutes later she ambled gently out into the yard, where I then saw three porcupine quills sticking quite prominently out of her nose. Ahhh... so THAT'S what all the excited barking was about last night!

Put Maggie into a headlock, and yanked out the quills one by one. She was growling by the second quill. By the third quill, she was ready to take off. I let her go, whereupon she immediately attacked Bandit who was lolling innocently nearby. Perhaps she was blaming Bandit for last night's adventures?

[Pic: Maggie sniffing a chicken butt, probably much like she did with the porcupine last night, but with less trauma.]

Misshapen Bushes

Let my efforts be an example of what NOT to do:



[Sorry this took so long to post. As usual, so much to do, and so little tequila to support the effort.]

Mistake?

Uhh, I may have done something really stupid. In my haste to get the property quasi-cleaned up for a visitor, I trimmed our Texas Sage bushes... in the dark.

Okay, okay, I did have the outside lights on, but I'm now thinking that trimming at night might have been a mistake. Still, the bushes were growing so lopsided. Plus with the recent rains softening up the ground, they were all leaning at different angles, and covering up the view from the windows as well. (Dwarf Texas Sages, these are NOT. "Estimated three to five feet tall", puh-lease!).

Spouse and I have been trying to play catch up since the Summer of H3ll on Earth, and I've been carving out time where I can: between rain storms, or before/after work. Sometimes that means the only time I may have is after sunset. Anyhow, I'll post pics of what was done tomorrow - success or failure - when there's light enough to snap a photo. Perhaps that would be a good rule to keep in mind: only shape plants when there's enough light for photographs?

In other news, I've received permission to bring in my good camera to take photos at the plant nursery, and also to post here on the blog. I see some amazing things at work that would be lovely to share.

[pic: Butterfly on Plumbago flowers, taken at the nursery with cell phone camera]

State of Mind, State of the Farm

Our neighbor is getting ready to throw his Spouse a major blow-out birthday bash, and I'm prepping music for possible inclusion in the mix. It feels like my old I.T. days: Spouse playing music on his computer while doing his work, and I've several applications going at once. Laughing at #conservativebible jokes on Twitter (where folks are making fun of some fringe group who is taking out the "liberal" passages from the Christian Bible). Tweaking photos. Burning playlists to CD. Checking email and the RSS feed reader all at the same time... is there any wonder why I used to be so ADD? No, don't answer that, and don't even joke "what do you mean, past tense?"

This weekend we're trying to get the patio shade drapes completed, and then clean up the porch so we're not looking quite so white-trashy. [Nothing like the threat of an upcoming visit from a friend to kick our butts into gear.] We're replacing the formerly beautiful Ikea white cotton-cloth curtains - which have rotted & shredded within a scant two years - with a more utilitarian, UV-resistant poly shade cloth we can get by the roll at the hardware store. Price will be as inexpensive as the Ikea solution, but should last longer. Geese shouldn't be able to gnaw through this stuff as easily, either. Rotten geese. Pics forthcoming. Of the curtains, I mean.

Speaking of white-trashy, we desperately need an outside storage area so we can at least hide all our stuff, if not perhaps even - gasp! - organize it. We're getting our act together to finally lay down the concrete base for the garage/storage/pottery studio. Need to do some exploratory digging to find which direction all the pipes & electric from the pump house are going, and if we need to re-route all that stuff away from the planned garage area. The good news: all the rain has softened the ground considerably. Perhaps we won't need to rent a jackhammer like we did last Spring.

The Fall garden is doing all right. Cabbage is already being attacked, so I've purchased some Bt (approved for organic gardening) to spray. Will have to wait for a break in the weather. We've had another inch-and-a-half of rain since last night, not that I'm complaining, nosiree. Just hoping there'll be some cabbage left to save! Otherwise, the plants are all enjoying the cooler temps (80's F) and wet weather.

Off to finish up the playlist.

[Pic: my sweet boy, Godzilla, the lead gander.]

Motion

Fur in motion stays in motion:


Unless something catches it's attention:


Then it's back to motion again.