Much Better Weather in March

We have had much better weather. We had a deluge type rain early in the month with several inches of rain in a short period of time. This type of rain really gullies the road and as wet as it has been most of the gravel and caliche was too wet to make immediate repair, but when it starts to dry you can get some material that sets up almost like concrete. You have to catch it just right though. We decided to make a major change in the view from the front of the house by cutting down the large cedar tree in the center of the circle in front of the house. It really opened up a wonderful view. You can now clearly see four different mountains from the front of the house. After cutting down a big tree we always wonder why we didn't do it sooner. The tree is being recycled as we are using the cedar logs to make a screen in front of the pool equipment and I was able to use the cedar top as a drag to sweep and repair the road. I bet we end up cutting down the other cedar tree in front as then we would have the two huge Texas Live Oaks as the only trees in front. It would also really open up the view of Gary Mountain directly across from us.

The new ranch entry is already finished. The fence crew came and began clearing the fence line and setting the posts. The welders showed the next day and we had a nice four rail pipe entry and gate in 2 ½ days. I really like it. The gate is also made from the same pipe so it looks great and custom made. The weather was very nice so of course we spent several days clearing and cleaning around the new entry. The entire entry area looks much better. It's simple and clean just as we wanted. I think we may extend the pipe fence down the fence line two more sections. If we do we'll have an old pile of debris from the 1970's to clean as it would be seen, but we'll save that project for the summer.

During the process of building the new gate I discovered a new talent or skill. The art of dowsing. The main water line for the area water co-op follows the county road just inside my fence row. It goes somewhere under the area we are placing the new posts for the new entry. We requested that the line be marked, but that was never really done until the end of the first day so we had to determine the location of the water pipe so that we wouldn't hit it and knock out the water for everyone in the area. One of the crew started using a diving rod to find the water line. That really fascinated me as I've always been interested in that since I saw it done as a little kid on the farm in Oklahoma. They were confident and continued the work. I was at the gate working late moving the cedar they had cut when the water man came by to flag the line. He also used a diving rod. I had him instruct me on how to do it and did some sample finds myself. That night I really researched the art of dowsing and tested it for a few days. It would have come in handy when we couldn't find the water line when we ran water to the new wildlife tank this fall. I'm pretty confident in my new ability and it's fun.