I think I am losing it

Ok so I am doing my best to go with the flow but I have to admit its not been easy. I am wondering why we moved here, its been between 90 and 96 degrees, with the humidity it feels like 100 to 106, you open the door and it hits you like a brick wall. Not even 5 minutes and the sweat is dripping down your back, 10 minutes and your clothing is sopping wet, 15 minutes your feet slosh in your shoes and your eyes start to sting from the salt dripping into them, and no I wont mention the rash under my boobs!! . I know I stink, but since I have decided to set a limit of two showers a day I am just going to have to wait. I clean the stalls just before one of my showers as it’s a oven in there. And yet, I keep the horses in the barn because at least the flies are less in there then out in the fields. Speaking of flies, never in my whole life have I seen a horse flies the likes of the ones that live in this neck of the woods. I think I will rope one of those bad boys and just saddle it up, that is of course unless my saddle is to small for them.

Now if the heat is not bad enough, I have for the first time in my life , poison ivy, ring worm, you heard me, ring worm and my ankles are almost raw from scratching as a result of being bit by chiggers! What in the world are chiggers!!!! Tell me, why why why do we have ticks, snakes, horse flies and now chiggers, I see no good in any of theses and I want to know why! Oh and the other night on the front porch as I was talking to a friend on the phone I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. Something big and fast was scurrying all around the porch, I’m thinking a mutant bug of sorts, but to be honest, I could not take a closer look for fear I would lose my mind. When I saw it crawl up the side of Joel’s boot my first thought was huh, serves him right for moving me to this inferno !

Even the dogs are having a hard time, I ask them if they want to go out and they get all excited, we walk out the door and bam, they just stop, turn and stare at me. What , go pee then you can get back in. I try to take them for walks in the early morning because if it does not happen then its not going to happen. For those who know me you know how much I love mornings so you wont quite believe this but the other day I was already mowing the lawn at 7am you heard that right, 7 in the morning.

Now I would love to post this on the blog but I don’t have internet !!!!, again, and I think I am going to have a little nutty. I tell myself its ok it will be back soon , you should not be so obsessed with the internet but that’s all I have between me and the civilized world. Ok I am exaggerating but come on!!! cant I at least have my internet.

Ok I am going to take a deep breath, call the internet people and beg, then I am going to go and hose down the horses, then with great pleasure am going to grab the bottle of spray I bought and attempt to distinguish between the poison Ivy and real plants, I am going to kill each and every plant I find, I am going to take aim and laugh in its face, that my friends will make me feel much better. Not sure what that says about me but o-well.

Cloud photo, pre storm

Today I am going to share a photo with you. Most of the time the camera is a tool, the photos are used as reference for paintings or to show others what is going on in my world. A lot of the photography makes it into greeting cards and occasionally I get a photo that’s good enough for the wall. Today, I will share a photo that was not planed, by that I mean I did not realize what I had until after I took the image. We get a lot of thunder and lightning storms here and quite often the sky just before the storm is beautiful. This picture was taken while hearing the thunder and seeing the lighting but it was still a distance away. I promise you I did nothing to this image, I did not Photoshop it or alter it in any way, this is nature having fun.

Look at the first photo, do you see it? Now look at the detail in the second photo !

Hope you see what I see and think its a cool as I do.

Mimosa tree, my new favorite

Well we are almost there, the yard is almost back to where it should be and we can work on planed projects or do nothing if we choose, its awesome. We did hire someone who came with a cat and chipper, took three guys two full days but its done. Don’t get me wrong there is still a lot more to do but we can slow down, we can relax a bit, we can play with our horses and I can get in the studio. Best of all we can walk outside look around and discover all the wonder and beauty that surrounds us.

My friend came over this afternoon, it had stopped raining long enough for us to walk around and I saw something I have never seen before, the blossom of the mimosa tree. First off, I had never heard of a mimosa tree before we moved in here, the tree itself looked interesting but what I saw today was a real treat.

Today, for the first time there were blossoms. She told me to wait and take pictures when the whole tree was in bloom but I could not wait. What a wonderful, delicate, whimsical, fragrant and almost playful blossom this is. The world is just full of wonderful surprises but I think this is my new favorite.

Frog Pond

Well I worked on the frog pond yesterday ,this will be the 5th or 6th time, but who’s counting. And....this time I am sure its done, well not done, but to the point I can now just futs with it. During the aftermath of the storm I decided at the end of a very long hard day to see what was up with this little neglected pond by the barn. I ended up cleaning it out, layer after layer of mucky smelly decaying leaves. It was pretty ripe!!! Just what I needed, to get involved with yet another project.

The next day I emptied the rest of the standing water from it, I actually got inside and swam with the critters, it was the only way and I was willing to sacrifice myself! I then scrubbed it with a brush and filled it up with water. It was so cute, I put the floating glass balls from my old koi pond and wow not bad. Well now I think a fountain... , a few plants..... some gold fish and we will be done. ( did I really think that would be the end of it, I mean this is me we are talking about! )

So I go on the hunt for everything on my list, I came home with a small pump that has a fountain head and three very sick looking plants and no fish to be found. I could not find a pond store and the only pond plants I found were on the sale rack because they were on there last legs. Well after trying to put the fountain thing together, it had no real directions and I was just not getting it, I decided it was just a cheap one anyway and I was taking it back. I put the plants in and they floated, no kidding on there sides floating. My neighbor stops by and sees the floating plants and after some discussion we decide to just re plant them in bigger more stable pots. It worked !!! Not bad....

Joel talked me into getting just a pump and building a waterfall, well I love the idea but was afraid of the amount of work I would have to do, after all take a look around !!!! And this really is just a small tiny pond but ok. So I gather some rocks from around the property and I built a waterfall, l loved it loved it loved it. The bottom rock has a chanal in it with three outlets so its really kind of cool. When I showed it to Joel he asked if the water was all flowing back into the pond, well of course it is do I look that stupid?????.

So the next morning I go out to feed the horses and yep you guessed it there is no water in the pond, oh how I hate it when he is right ! I take it allllll apart and refill it with water, but with no waterfall. I also realized that the pond was not level and Joel, him again, said if I did not make it level I would never be happy, he’s right so instead I just walked away thinking later I will work on it later.

So yesterday morning my neighbor came by and said well I can help lets just do it. We worked on it for hours, removed all the rocks from around it, took the liner out, leveled the dirt, gathered more rocks and reassembled the pond complete with waterfall. I know I was driving her crazy when I said it was all to straight and not natural looking, but being the good sport that she is she just smiled and asked what I wanted to do. We just tweaked it a little added some pebbles to soften it, found some old "driftwood" and when we stepped back we were just delighted. Now I did had to warn her that I was going to change it up a bit and at first she did not understand, I had to explain that ’s just the way I am, I will futs with it almost everyday and maybe by the end of the summer I will be done.

So here we have it a little frog pond, I placed some frogs around it hence the name. Now I am thinking maybe in the back by the herb garden.......

Goldfish to follow.

Tic’s, spiders, snakes, oh my !!

Ok in my world there would not be bugs and crawly things they would be outlawed banished never to be seen again. Being new to this part of the world is opening my eyes to many things and some of them I would rather not see. I guess May is tick month as we had them on us every day. Some were just there crawling up with those tiny little legs and some actually bit us, I still have the marks from those little suckers. The first few times I had them on me I came unglued, jumping, swirling, spouting obscenities and basically totally freaking out. I got better, really I did, what choice did I have it was a daily occurrence. And the poor dogs, having tic’s is bad enough, but having to deal with a mother that is afraid yet tries to take them off well I am sure in there mind they would just rather I let the blood get sucked out of them. Sorry boys! Well I have noticed that there are not as many, some say it’s the heat I think word got out that I was on a mission to banish them and they are afraid of me, very, very afraid!!!!

Then there are the spiders oh my they are everyplace, in the barn , in the studio, in the shed and in every little nook and cranny of this house. The bug guy is coming today I don’t care what it costs I will not be bitten by one of those bad boys. I was told the other day that I needed to look out for this particular one as it will rot your flesh, oh just great !!! Now I have to learn the difference between the flesh eating spiders and the good for the garden ones, no, I don’t think so, make them all go away!!!

Now to top it off I walked outside yesterday and there in the lawn in the front of my house inches from my big toe was my worse nightmare. Don’t tell me they are good for this or that, no way they are bad and I want them gone. Please someone take them all away, you can have them they can live in your world you can even give them names, just take them away!!!! OH my!!!!!

The Big Storm

So what do most people do when they move into there dream home??? yeah they paint and decorate and organize and enjoy. But what happens when one week after they move in they get hit with a hurricane!!!!! to make matters even worse we don’t live on the coast! Not sure what the technical name is for it but they call it something when its inland. So now its been about a month since the storm and we can finally start to think about other things beside clean up.

We lost a lot of trees including the two 200 year old pecan trees that shaded the sunroom. Its ok really after we cried about it we looked on the bright side of things, we now have a clear view of the pond and the sun rises are magnificent. Plus who doesn’t want a new roof and fencing not to mention the retaining wall, lightning rods, horse fence and oh that smelly thing they call a septic...... just to mention a few. But we will have wood for the fire place for years and years and years.....

This weekend we will hire some help and get the limbs chipped, we will then clean up that mess and forget about trees for awhile. Lots more of them came down but we will take a brake and resume that clean up in the fall. Its really getting to hot.

Here are a few images from the storm

Trees on the roof-

Two pecan trees up-rooted

This is the old barn it used to be straight

Joel working on the cedar, it shaded the deck

Part of the fence around the house, if you walked around the whole house this is what you would see all the way around

Lots more but really all the same