Weekend at the Farm July 19 - 20, 2014

This is my Paw Paw tree that I planted among some African Hostas.  The armadillos are already uprooting the hostas.  Just when they look great and have totally filled out for the season the armadillos find them - every year.  This weekend I'm going to surround the bed with chicken wire.  It will look terrible, and my husband will hate it.
I drove up by myself on Thursday evening after work and stayed until Friday afternoon.  Went back to Houston for dinner at my parents' house.  Gretchen and Becket are visiting.  Gretchen is leaving Beckett for two weeks while she goes to L.A. to make a movie with Annie Potts based on the events surrounding Beckett's birth and my sister's death.  It's a comedy, not sure what's funny about that, but if anyone can make it funny its is Gretchen, she is a good writer.  Back to Burton Saturday morning with my husband and mother-in-law - her birthday weekend.

• Friday I noticed something on top of the pool skimmer.  Went to investigate.  It was a vole, stranded on a little piece of the skimmer that floats on top of the water.  It obviously fell in while trying to drink from the pool and managed to crawl up out of the water.  I've never gotten to take such a close look at one.  They live underground and, I surmise, come up out of the ground to drink water at night.  They are practically blind.  I fished it out with the net, considered killing it (they certainly have killed lots of my plants!), but I set it free instead.
• It has rained 3 inches over the last several days.  Wonderful.  It's wearing my poor husband out with all the mowing, but rain is always a good thing.
• Friday I worked in the Orchard from 7:30 until 1:30.  It was threatening rain the whole time but never rained.  Cut away dead blackberry vines, pulled weeds, and turned over several flower beds.  Hauled away three truckloads of debris to the burn pile.
• Came inside and washed and boiled 12 8 oz. preserve jars.  I filled them all with honey to bring home to Houston.  
• Pulled weeds.
• Went to the hardware store and bought a few succulents.  I planted them in an old pair of shoes that I'm using as planters. 
• Saturday morning I went to the grocery store and bought ingredients to make a rabbit ragu.  We have so many rabbits, we might as well eat some of them.  
• Pool sweep is broken.  I guess that will be a $1,000 which makes that a disastrous event.
• Sunday morning I got up early, drank coffee, and watched the sun rise.  
• Staked a couple of my Castor Bean plants in the Vegetable Garden that fell over during the heavy rains we got last week.
• Spread grass clippings over several beds in the Orchard. 
• Trimmed away all the plants that were leaning over the Boardwalk - Sweetspire, Mexicali Rose, and Turk's Cap.
• Pulled up Blackberry vines that were growing amongst my cannas next to the Orchard and cut back some that were leaning over the cannas. 
• Pulled weeds, pulled weeds, pulled weeds.
• Made Spanish Bean soup and beef broth on Sunday.
• My husband shot and cleaned a rabbit.  I made rabbit ragu on Sunday evening for dinner using the broth that I simmered all day.  I thought it was delicious, but traditional ragus have clove and cinnamon spices in them, and my husband cannot abide the flavor.  The rabbit carcass was thrown into the woods.  Rocky found it and carried the head around proudly in his mouth for most of the morning.
• Cut back lantana around the pool.
• Started clearing out the flowerbed outside the master bedroom door, but it was too hot to get it finished.
• Mopped and cleaned the mater bathroom.
• Headed back to Houston on Monday morning.