65623986_337849847146732_4465131997330836748_nI think sometimes Sue wonders why it takes so long for me to write these little blog posts. I think that, much of the time is spent looking for my initial photo or image. The other major part is spent researching things like, definitions; snake/insect/bird identifications; chicken diseases; and the like. Another contributing factor is that I often write while we’re watching a movie – so sometimes my attention is diverted. Today, for the initial image that goes with the title, I finally decided to steal my cousin Callie’s photo of her latest flower creation… it seemed to bring about the “slow Saturday” sort of vibe. (Thanks, Callie!) You can check out her creations at calliesbrightblooms on Instagram. Anyway, it has been a nice quiet Saturday. We had a cooling rain come over around 1 this afternoon and took us from 101° to 78° in about 30 minutes. It rained hard for a good 15 minutes, but didn’t penetrate any more than a 1/4 of an inch. Need several more of those rain showers over several days. Since it has been a quiet few days, I thought I’d just give you some updates and share some photos of things we’ve been talking about the last several days. 

IMG_4602Thursday I talked a bit about Sue beginning work on the wall that will surround the outdoor kitchen and patio area. So, for a change, I thought I’d actually take a “before” photo as the project starts, so we can compare after it’s all completed. This photo shows the area that will be enclosed by several gabion/bottle walls. If you follow the hose that you see in the foreground, you’ll see it goes around to the right of the electrical outlet on the 4×4 and down to the two rock piles at the back of the photo. The hose encompasses the area of the kitchen/patio and outline’s where the walls go. The footing in the foreground is 8′ long – that’s where the first wall will go up. There will be breaks in the wall where we have paths and to keep the overall pattern that was set up when she made the initial walls that we now have the flowers and herbs boxes on.

IMG_4603So – raise your hand if you’ve been to our place. Go on. Raise your hand. Now, all of you who have not raised your hand, when are you coming??? You can put your hands back down now. If you have been here, you know that we have, literally, tons of rock on the property.  Much of it has been placed in piles around the property. Piles like you see in this photo. Many of the rocks are just gorgeous, but they are huge and heavy as well. Sue has been IMG_4604moving them, one by one, out of the patio area. Some of them will be able to go into the wall, but many are just way too big. She’s taken to moving them to the fence line… reminds me of the dry stone walls in Ireland. I rather like that idea. Not the same type of stones, but we can do something very similar. I was hoping that we’d be able to also do a stone patio, but Sue doesn’t believe that there will be enough and, at this point, I’m inclined to agree with her, after seeing how large an area will be encompassed by the walls. This’ll be Sue’s ongoing project for a while. So you can expect occasional updates on that.

IMG_4601This morning, it was chores and then watering, then we added new bales of straw to the Renata Inn, since the old bales were coming apart. Then we added straw to the garden to help keep the plants moist. When it’s over a hundred in the shade, it’s really difficult to keep the plants wet. Maybe this will help. We’ll see. Since it was a quiet day, that’s about all that there was to report… took the rest of the morning to make lasagna that ended up – all right. Filled the belly though. Tomorrow is our Sabbath, so we’ll see what happens on Monday that we can report on Tuesday. Until then, as always~
Thanks for reading.

Today’s Weather: I’ve already said that 101° was our high today. We did have a passing thunder storm with goodly amount of rain. Currently, at 8:07 p.m., it is 83° with 44% humidity, winds S at 8 mph, pressure at 29.91 inHg – still have 10% chance of precipitation. Sunrise today was at 5:33 and 7:18 was sunset.

Egg Report: Friday – 31 chicken, 3 ducks. Saturday – 26 chicken, 2 ducks.