Sunday, September 07, 2025
Catch up here...
Friday, September 06, 2024
alive...
After a week of feeling like crap, I'm finally doing better.
I found out what it is like to be short of breath and feel as though I was wading through mud up to my shoulders. It is not a good feeling and I empathize with anyone who has experienced this.
This was a strange one for me. Sore throat for a day and then a fever for a day. Finally, the feeling of not being able to breath for days. I could breathe, but the feeling was horrible.
I did get out last Friday early in the morning to see my friends the Orb Spiders and enjoy some quiet time before the tree guys came in with their machinery.
I don't think I will ever see this sort of scene without gasping. Just imagine if you were afraid of spiders, how would you react?
This is about 5 acres of meadow and it all looks like this when the Orb Weavers are busy. They actually are around in the spring, but they are tiny. They mature in the fall and the Females build large webs, the males sometimes build webs too.
More about Orbweavers here from the BugLady who writes for UWM Saukville, WI. Her site is full of cool information about insects. She actually has a featured blog for Bug of the Week.
A small Orbweaver according to the BugLady's latest news on Orbweavers, this could be a male...
Beautiful webs...This year has been pretty sad for butterflies. I saw one Monarch flutter by this week and am hoping that my Zinnias attract more! I spent one afternoon chasing a Swallowtail earlier this summer on the Bee Balm, but haven't seen one since late July.
When I look back on my archives on I noticed that I didn't get a lot of shots of Monarch until the start of September. So perhaps I need to be patient and keep an eye out for them. I had shots of Monarchs from September 1st through October 2nd.
A shot from last year:
In the meantime. I'm going to be grateful I can breathe much easier and I actually feel like making supper.
No more spiders today. Maybe I can find some awesome and cool looking fungi this weekend now that I feel like doing something again!
Saturday, May 07, 2022
This week's Cliff Notes
Mornings...and whatnot.
We still have frost on some mornings which can produce fog and make things look magical.
Frosted Daffodil
I had to separate the two the other day as the pony thought it would be fun to chase Sven and bite him on the butt.
Sven ran like the dickens and jumped through the hot wires to escape. Sven can't stand to be too far from the pony so he just grazed in the open lane until I caught him.
Sitting on the bucket in the back pasture is calming. I can listen to the birds wake up and watch the day lighten while sipping coffee.
Redwing Black bird singing his
morning songs.
I've seen Tom Turkeys displaying their feathers and strutting around in the meadow. They are so awkward looking yet so determined!
One morning before it was light, I surprised this group of deer.
This week has been a whirlwind of activity. I had something going on every single day!
The best part-sss of this week have been that the new young Primary Care doctor for Rich is amazing. She actually listened to him and his concerns. She didn't tell him to 'buck up and get over it' like some other doctor had told him. She asked him if he had a goal for this summer. She asking for a referral for PT with Pulmonary Therapy. He is actually looking forward to going. Best part? She is local and we don't have to travel 2 hours to see her!
His goals are fairly simple. He would like to be able to walk out to the shed and get on his riding mower and mow the yard in bits.
The change in his attitude of seeing a doctor that actually showed empathy and CARING improved his mental well being.
Other great things.
Great hike with friend Mr. Bill. [more on that later]
Young friend Molly is back in town! I have a mule riding partner again! And Rich has a young gal who visits often to talk horses!
More on Molly from 2019 in Meet Molly.
Happy Mother's Day tomorrow to all moms. The weather looks like it is finally changing so I'll be out and about enjoying it.
Morning Dew
Tuesday, May 26, 2020
A very busy week...
There is Morel Hunting.
It has been a tough year. The south hillsides were so dry that there were nearly none.
My mornings have been starting with Morel Hunting and Charlie hiking.
The best time for me to do CrossFit is around 8AM. Rich is generally still asleep and I am ready to do something other than read the news.
Most of the chores are pretty simple, I rotate the mules and check their water.
[I am hoping to have the 4 wheeler issue resolved before I start riding the trails again. So I am waiting.]
Below is a photo of me doing my Home Virtual CrossFit workout for Friday. I thought it would make an interesting shot. Handy to have a smart phone that puts the little camera on a timer!
Yesterda was a pretty nice cardio workout. My 800 yard run included a very steep hill! No matter, once I get back to the nice flat streets of the gym it will be easy peasy!
Charlie.
Still supervising most things from his perch on the bench. I can work in the veggie garden or flower garden and he always ends back up on the bench just watching over his yard and pasture.
I did get my hike in with Bill last Thursday. I took him to Black Hawk Rock.
I think Bill loved this hike the best so far, I think I can tell by the number of Wows, I kept hearing.
Bill took a photo of me leading him up the trail.
Nice of him to take these with his cell phone.
The garden is just about all set. I even planted acorn squash in one of the winter pens. Seems they like to grow there anyway even with a mule walking around them. Last year I had squash growing from an old soft squash I'd tossed out in the pasture the winter before!
Mother Nature sure is interesting.
My hair. Hmm. Guess it is in the messy stage of growing out and no one is around to look at it besides Rich and I.
Warm weather has hit and it was muggy and foggy the past two mornings when I went out to check on the mules.
Monday, August 26, 2019
Time to catch up!
Rich had surgery on Thursday morning.
This is Thursday afternoon with Nurse Charlie keeping Rich occupied and making sure he keeps his knee up.
The doctor said he removed the bursa which looked like nasty cottage cheese and said he sent the necrotic tissue to the pathology. The lab results were posted for us to see already. I read it, but will wait for the follow up appointment to see what the doctor says about it.
So Friday and the weekend were spent with lots of ice, rest, and the leg raised.
I hauled a mattress for our neighbor to the local landfill. Since I was going, I filled the back of the truck with pieces of metal and 'junk' that I'd cleaned out from a corner in the Big Shed. Tossing the metal 'junk' onto the huge pile at the land fill felt pretty good.
I'm working up to loading the truck up with some larger stuff and heading to the 'junk' yard where I would return with some cash.
Since our grill was murdered by a falling tree, I got a new tiny one and spent the afternoon putting it together. The grill is small enough for me to cook on the porch! This winter I can cook steaks on the grill under cover!
I spent Saturday clearing the old busted up metal gate panels from around one of the locusts that will get cut down. I tied up Sven to the tree and let him do some cleaning too. Little Richard was staked nearby and he did some trimming.
I tried my weed whacker on some of the tougher weeds just north of the pen to no avail. I'd need a blade on the 'whacker'.
I was stumped for a while and then recalled that there was a Scythe in the shed. It was a bit too large for me to handle well, but it did knock down the weeds. The blade probably needs sharpening but it served its purpose.
In fact, I went all around the north paddock and knocked down thistles and Smartweed. Sven loves the blossoms of the Smartweed. Now if I could rent my neighbor's goats for a few days they'd clean up what the Dexter's used to eat and the mules DO not eat!
I was tempted to do more with the Scythe but my arms and forearms were aching so I quit. The handles on it are meant for someone much taller than I am. But I admired the job I'd done. The mules walked around and ate the wilting nettles and the thistles.
I decided to take a walk down to the creek and check out how the mules were doing with browsing in the woods.
They are making good headway on the berry briers and widening the deer trails making it easier for me to wander around in the forest and look at interesting things.
They prefer to stay in the meadow which is really needs a rest now. Time to rotate again until I have to take them out of the south pasture when the tree trimmers come to work.
I took my camera...you knew I would, right? I'll have some photos from my walk later.
Sunday.
Day of rest. And I mean rest. I sold the cattle headgate to a neighbor and he came down to pick it up. All I had to do was point it out in the weeds and he loaded it on his truck and paid me cash. I can live with deals like that.
Next up on the sale block will be the aluminum hound dog box. Raccoon hunting season is coming up as well as coyote hunting season and dog boxes will be in demand.
I look at the piles of 'stuff' and wonder sometimes how I'll deal with all of that.
One step at a time I suppose.
My To Do List is still quite long. But I've done some large projects this year and I'm pretty happy with it so far.
That's it.
Boring stuff.
Rich's knee looks really good. We changed out bandages today. That nasty huge gross lump is gone. The knee is swollen from the surgery, but still looks [and feels better] than it did before surgery.