Work Continues

The work continues on the front walk.  We were unable to do anything Saturday because of the wind and cold.  Winds of 25-35 mph brought in a front.  It was very unpleasant.  Today it was cold but there was little wind so we worked 2-3 hours digging out some more of the walkway.

We are two-thirds finished at this point.

The crushed granite and flagstone were delivered.  Seems like a lot of both!

We have been putting the soil we've removed in low spots along the drive.  Not sure how successful it will be redirecting rain water to other areas.  If we are able to eliminate some standing water after a hard rain, we've done okay.

What's Going On?

The last couple of weekends our focus has been the yard, garden and preparing the walk for the flagstone.

 lettace and spinach

 radishes and turnips

 green onions, kale, and carrots

We'll see where we are in 45 days.  It is too early to be bothered by critters but I'm not holding my breath.  

We have ordered the flagstone and granite base so we can install the front walk.  Peg has done an excellent job digging down the 5-6 inches we need to dig so we can install it.  I'm not much good helping with my bad back, but I haul the excess dirt away and have taken and planted the buffalo grass plugs in several places.  We had to wait for the rains to make the soil loose enough to be dug out.  

After several hours of work, we are a little more than a third of the way through the digging.  Peg is a real work horse tho she does get a little grumpy if I don't do things just the way she wants me to. There is no special machine we know of she can get to make this job any easier.  Honestly, I am afraid to have her working with "that" kind of machine!  Once it's all dug out, then we need to create the walkway.  

Kind of a poor example of the plugs I planted, but it's a start.  We also tore up the soil for a larger area around the house to be planted with the buffalo grass seed.  The only grass that survived the 41/2 months of no rain, was the buffalo grass.

It is practically impossible to see the new baby buffalo grass seedlings, but they are there.  The very green grasses coming up is the rye grass from last year.

Peg spent some time hitting my old acorn hunting grounds in Dallas recently.  We have planted an assortment of live oak, red oak, and burr oak acorns for future tree plantings.  The babies are enclosed to protect them from the digging critters.

I happen to know that an armadillo dug the hole below.  He has gotten into my potted flowers and dug hundreds of holes out in the yard.  The devastation is horrible!  The bunnies are also doing massive amounts of digging.  What a challenge they pose for the farmer!

Thelma And Louise

The neighbors have brought their cows back to their land next to ours.  I think I mentioned the last time the cows were there that they had two donkeys.  Well Thelma and Louise have returned with the herd.  I'm not sure which is which though they are different.

One has a white nose and the other a black nose.  The black nose donkey is curious but stand offish.  The white nose donkey will eat grass out of my hand and will let me pet her.  By the way, they are both Jennys, which means they are girls (as implied by their names).  God really over did the ears!

The New Member Of The Herd

Here is the newest calf arrival.  I am calling him ADD, which I will explain later.

 He's about three days old in this picture.

Here is ADD with his mama.  His mama is the only black cow in the herd.  So I look for her, then ADD.  Since ADD's arrival, I have observed her strong motherly connection and incredible patience.
I first observed ADD a couple days before I took these pictures.  What caused me to pay attention to this little guy was his mama would start walking with him at her side.  After only two or three steps, he would make a right angled turn and head off in a completely different direction.  She would hurry over to him, get him along her side again, start walking, and ADD would do the same thing.  I watched this over and over.  He seemed to have his own agenda or as I suspect, could not stick to what needed to be done.  With coyotes running through the pastures all day long, ADD's survival depended on him sticking with his mama and the herd for protection.  Needles to say, I was not making any bets he would last long.  However, ADD has gotten better.  He is moving now with his mama and the herd, though he still moves away occasionally.  I have my fingers crossed he makes it!