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Four loads: That’s how many trips we made to the brush site this week to dispose of downed tree limbs from last month’s snowstorm. It took us about two hours to build a load and another hour to drive to the brush site, unload and drive home. We try to trim the branches so we can get as many as possible on our little pickup so it isn’t a matter of just throwing the branches on. Some of them were big enough where we couldn’t have done that. Those had to be trimmed with the pole saw into smaller and more manageable pieces. The weather was as pleasant all week long as it was unpleasant the previous week so it was nice to be working outdoors. Joyce was a big help and Friday we were feeling so good about what we had accomplished we treated ourselves to caramel frappes. We’ll hit it again next week. There are maybe 2-4 loads left to haul off.
A week later…
I don’t mean to complain but Joyce and I have hauled seven loads to the brush site over the last two weeks with at least one more load to clean up and now today it is blowing all to be damned and I look out in the back yard and see more limbs down. That’s a lot of “ands” but I think I have a right to gripe.
Otherwise, things are going well, the election aside. Oh, and it has been several weeks since the guinea has been seen. Ever since the last chicken died more than a year ago, the guinea spent most of its time across the street. The people living there tell Joyce the like the guinea. They even called it Jenny the guinea until Joyce told them it was a male. Then they changed it to Benny, or something. Anyway, it is MIA and presumed dead. Not to worry, though. We still have plenty of cats. Rebecca gets a kick out of them so I guess they are of some benefit.
A week later…
Joyce and I hauled the eighth and last load of branches to the brush site Monday. We are still finding limbs that were damaged and haven’t made it to the ground. There was a pretty good blow this week and it brought down several more limbs but we were able to cut them up and put them in the city trash container. I know of several more I’ll need to trim out of the trees. I sometimes feel I’m presiding over the demise of Six Acres.
I took a day off to attend a playa field day in a little town near Lubbock called Lorenzo. We got to hear from a Texas Tech professor experimenting with methods to increase the bobwhite quail population. He showed us how the quail population rises and falls largely on the amount of rainfall. We also heard from a man, I guess you would call him a farmer but I don’t think he actually does any farming himself. What he does do is buy land with playas on it. We took a field trip to such a property, 160 acres which he had recently purchased. He has trash, old equipment and other stuff removed from the property when he buys it, then restores the playa as needed. That depends on how much the playa has been compromised by farming practices. On this latest property, he installed a pivot and plants a crop which covers the cost of the place plus a little. He hires a farmer to handle the crop. On the rest of the place besides the crop and playa areas he is working to restore the natural grass plus doing a few things to encourage the quail and pheasant population. It seems he and some other farmers who have bought into the idea of restoring playas are showing gains in the level of the aquifer underneath their land because of their efforts.
Joyce and I managed to get our outdoor Christmas decorations put up and also the Christmas tree. We brought the rest of the indoor decorations down from the attic and put them in the garage where Joyce can access them at her leisure. It is always nice to get that done before Thanksgiving.
Rain was forecast for this weekend and so far we have received a whopping 1/100 of an inch.
Thanksgiving week…
Our weather this last week of November ranged from damp and windy to pleasant to snow and rain. Saturday morning we had a covering of snow which soon melted. Between snow and rain, we got .16 of an inch of moisture. Beats nothing, I suppose. Sure am glad we got the lights up last weekend. We missed having the Wylies with us for Thanksgiving dinner but managed to enjoy a pretty good Thanksgiving any way.