Halfway into the second quarter of the year.

 

You all be safe and God bless. 

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.

What is it with August?

I was in the pasture, putting hoses out to water pecan trees, both young and old.

Something is out there devastating our pecan crop. We're finding all kinds of green pecans on the ground.
Whole ones, ones with just a bite taken out, and some that have been obviously eaten out and are just little pieces.
Hubby is pretty sure they are squirrels, but green pecans?
It's really annoying. We're afraid we won't have a crop this year. :-(
Any ideas for what to do, other thank squirrel stew?

Back to the hoses. I had just set a sprinkler in an area where we have 3 young pecan trees and a couple of older ones.
I was walking back to the mower when I gave a low scream. You know, "Ah!", and jumped over.....
a SNAKE IN THE GRASS!



I think it was about 2 and a half to 3 feet long. Scared the bejeezus out of me, I'll tell you.

I took a look at it. Closer than I should have. It seemed.... dry? Like it was getting ready to molt, maybe. I thought it might be dead. I took this picture with my phone. I stupidly pushed at its tail with my shoe. It didn't move.
Lucky me.
Anyway, I'll tell you the same as I told my hubby. That was the end of my bravery. No, I did not take more pictures, and no, I did not look for the head.
First a stubborn gator, and now a snake.

I had a feeling, and he confirmed, that it was probably a cotton mouth. A poisonous snake.

After I turned on the sprinkler, and checked the other hoses, I went back to check the sprinkler coverage.
I didn't see the snake or where it might have gone.
Needless to say, I decided my time in the pasture was done for the day.

Besides, it was 90 some degrees and I was already sweating like a pig.

You all have a wonderful weekend! If you celebrate, have a safe Labor Day.
We'll be laying close to home. No money until next Tuesday.

I'm glad August is over. Come on fall! Take care! :-)

Bits and Pieces Sunday

Hot, hot, hot! Instead of trying to cook dinner this evening, we're going to see the new Star Trek Movie.

We have more Wisteria blooming. Small, but it smells just as pretty. :-)



The Cicada are hatching.



Sorry for the quality of the photo. Took the pictures with my phone and it just didn't want to focus on the shell for some reason.

Spread some grass seed and turned on the sprinklers. Then hubby came in and showed me a sort of blister on his arm. He said he thought it was an infection, so off to the VA Hospital we went. He's diabetic, so any sort of infection is particularly troublesome. Four hours, or maybe five or six hours later, we came back home. A staff infection. So he got shots for that, and the pain in his shoulder.

I went out and shut the sprinklers off. Hopefully all the grass seed didn't drown or wash away.

Anyway, I took some trash out to the burn pile. When I came back, I realized I had almost run over a snake. I turned around to see what it was. Obviously it did not like the mower I was riding. (Not mowing, just riding.) Anyway. I shut the mower off so I could take a picture or two.




At first hubby said it was a Copperhead. Joy! But after watching the video (which I am too illiterate to know how to post), he said it was a Cottonmouth. So much better! Not!

I asked him what a water snake was doing in our yard! I know we watered a bit, but not that much!

He said it was probably laying eggs. Like all the turtles that come over from the bayou. He said the baby snakes can't breathe water.
So, at some unknown point in the future, we could have poisonous baby snakes heading off to the bayou. Double joy. ;-)

Highlights of the day?
That Wisteria, and our first good regular tomato!



In hindsight I may have picked it a day or two early, but I couldn't tell that from where it was in the middle of the tomato plant.
And look! No blossom end rot!



And yes, that's my hand holding it. :-)

That's it from this little piece of heaven. Hope you are all having a wonderful, safe weekend! ♥

We found another patio type area

While trying to level the area by the steps he put in at the utility room. (It's always been strange having a door to a drop-off.)





Sorry about the pictures, the sun was over the roof.
Hubby said there used to be big brick patios and paths of the red bricks, that's why we find them everywhere. It must have been really pretty then. Wish I had seen it like that.


We went fishing this morning, but only caught a few, so we tossed them back. It was nice this morning. Even with the Cotton mouth that tried to climb the bank. I scared it off by hitting the ground in front of it with my walking stick. No pictures because the camera was in the truck.

On the way to fishing, we saw Pileated Woodpeckers eating on the ground. Very strange.
We got a new camera. While I was fumbling with it, one of them flew off, but we got a picture of the other one.




There is supposed to be a big hatch of cicadas this year and BIL thinks they may have been feasting on an early hatch.

Thought I'd show you our corn, too. Ignore the grass. This garden is running away with grass. I'm going to try and weed a row a day, but this grass is very stubborn. Every little piece of root hubby left when he tilled it up, has sprouted into two or more plants.
Annoying.






The shiny stuff is aluminum foil on fish line. Had to come up with something to keep the blackbirds from pulling up the young plants so they could eat the corn!

The bags are an idea I was trying. I've read about other people 'bag gardening' to help keep weeds down. Yeah, I know, it didn't exactly work, haha.
Anyway, the bags are compost and they each hold a small melon plant.

Oh, since K asked, I have not started canning anything yet. I don't have a canner. (Well, I have a water bath canner, but I don't have a pressure canner.) I need to get one and learn how to use it.
I've not used the water bath canner since the disastrous pickle affair a couple (few?) years ago.
What we don't eat, we either freeze or blanch and freeze right now.
I need to research canners.

I'm ready for summer to be over. Don't like summer temps so early. Oh well.

Hope you all have a wonderful week! ♥

We've had a couple of gorgeous days!

Not only that, but the BIL came down to help out. They did a lot of work in just two days, hubby and the BIL.
The result of that, is about a ton of scrap pipe, barbed wire, etc, on the trailer to be recycled.
Here is how rednecks load a trailer. ;o)

The log is braced against one of the pecan trees, pushing on a square block of wood, pushing against that... triangle of pipe that used to be part of the dairy barn.

I'll try to remember to take a picture of the full trailer to show you. They filled that Sunday.
(p.s. I forgot to take the picture, but it was 1580 pounds of barbed wire, fencing, old water pipes and duct pipe that could not be salvaged.)

Today, they were out working on clearing the pig pen.
While pushing a piece of sheet metal (roofing tin) up out of the ground, look at what we found!

BIL and hubby were both speechless at finding this underground cache. They think it's unusual to find pecans hoarded like that. Hubby cracked one and was surprised to find that many of them are from this year's crop!

And of course, clearing an area like this, you are bound to find live critters.

Hubby had moved him (her?) to the other side of the fence, and it decided to climb the bush to see just what was going on!
Hubby said it was a King snake. About 5 feet long. (Roughly 1.5 meters, if I figured it right.) They often eat other snakes.

Tomorrow his niece and her hubby are coming in for a funeral. We haven't seen them since 2008. Will be good to catch up.

Hope you are all doing well! ♥

One question answered, but another still to be found.

Yup. One question has been answered. Our yard is thick with Elderberries.
This is going to be a picture heavy post, if my phone connection will hold up.

Remember the berries that looked like grapes? Those are still here, too.

Some of the leaves look a little like grape leaves, some obviously don't.
I know that BEES like them. Or wasps or yellow jackets or some such. You might be able to see one in that third picture. They were all over the bushes by the old barn.

I've done a lot of laundry here. Between mud, dust and the week on the road; I am mostly caught up. But I dry the laundry on a clothes line so the rain is a bit limiting there.

I saw a snake last week. Stopped me in my tracks. One of many 'farm' critters I am terrified of. A mocking bird had been chasing something. I was going to check my laundry and scared the bird. Then I saw what it had been chasing. A HUGE (to me, haha) snake was headed toward the porch. Roughly 3 to 4 feet long with a mosaic pattern. I did not have my camera and I did not go to get it. I did not move.
I stood there until it turned away from the steps and went into the, as yet unmowed, Johnson grass by the porch. Then I turned around and went up on the porch from the other side of the house.
Yes I did walk all the way around.
I told hubby about the snake, but it had already disappeared by then.
I identified it from the internet later as a rat snake.
Hope it eats all the mice and rats. Be fine with me.
With fields across the street from us, and fields behind us, I'm sure it finds plenty to eat.

Hope you all have a blessed Sunday. I am listening to thunder between the rain. ♥