Spring has sprung!
At least for this week! It's warm enough today to wear shorts and a t-shirt outside,
most of the snow has melted, and the puddles are much smaller. Where we live is a bit of a low spot,
so the dirt road gets pretty soft. Yesterday, 4wd trucks were slowing to a crawl in front our our
place. Today, traffic seems to be at normal speed, and we even see pffts of dust.
The horses are happily grazing in their portable paddock - Dick refers to it as the "moveable feast".
One of the cool things about it is that I can set it up in a drier area that has already drained and
not destroy the lower stuff for later.
I found a ladybug nest - hundreds of ladybugs swarming in the wet
leaves near a rotted log.
The other sign of spring - ticks! I found two on Tex. Yuck! Lucky for you, no pictures of those!
Many years ago, before Wayne came, someone had bulldozed a huge pit. Wayne used it for burning
for several years and it was still huge. Dick piled the burnt tin cans and broken glass and old farm
junk at one end, and we continued to burn at the other end. The problem was, it was a prime place
for mice and rats and rabbits to hang out. The dogs loved to prowl the pit, and had been cut
several times. We considered fencing it off, but the vermin problem remained. Dick decided he
would fill it in, using the huge dirt pile that had been 'dozed out. We have a 8 cubic foot "dually"
wheelbarrow. He hauls in sets of 4, usually 3 sets. That's 96 cubic feet of dirt!! You can see from
the photo that he's moved about 1000 cubic feet by now. He's only filling in the end with the un-burnable
stuff; we are leaving part of it open so we can burn our numerous dead trees. As a side benefit, he
discovered that he can set his archery target on the wall of dirt that remains and have a safe backstop to
catch any stray arrows.
