Weekend Update

We were able to get away from office work enough to finish clearing an area around a big Spanish Oak on the road up to the house. It sure opens up the view when you come from the county road. We don't want any visitors to accidentally take the trail up the mountain and not the road. Another nice tree saved from the intrusive cedar. We had to knock down a large mound from when they scraped some of this area in the 1970's. Good top soil in it. Hard to work down since cedar had grown up in the mound, but we did spread most of the top soil and seeded it with some bermuda grass seed. Thank goodness the tractor is back. Also cleared some shumate (a local type of sumac tree) from around the cabin. It really looks much better. We did get about .25 of rain this week, but everything is starting to dry out. Supposed to rain next week so that will be needed.

I did prepare a small garden behind the pavilion. I set some tomato plants and some watermelon. I think the tomatoes will be fine, but not sure the watermelon will survive the wildlife. Last year we had tomatoes until mid-November. Hoping for same success this year.

Felt very sorry for a wild turkey hen. She must have just lost her nest or babies to something. She was going around madly looking for her brood. Ignored us and went from place to place searching and calling. She carried on for several days.

I was also able to start taking photographs of various wildflowers this week. Some only bloom a few hours a day and it has been interesting reading about them in the Texas wildflowers books. I'll start posting them soon.