Category: Waiting Out the Virus

We have been luckier than most during the past year’s shutdown – lots of remote outdoor space in which to do things. Henry has been busier than the proverbial one-armed paperhanger with projects around the property….. Robbie has struggled to find productive things to do.

Our new partner in isolation is Raider the dog, who was kindly loaned to us by Henry’s son Cliff, wife Laura and family. He has been a fantastic companion……

This post will highlight some of the other creatures that have been a part of our lives during the pandemic.

Birds….. lots of them, lured by the copious amounts of seed set out in feeders and perhaps some of the protection provided by structures near the house.  Here a nest of baby wrens hatched in a nook in the carport.

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A little owl considered building a nest in the porch rafters, but was later scared off by Henry’s energetic power-washing…..

Bluebirds came early in the spring to take a quick bath…..

From the reptile group, this chicken snake threatened the baby wrens; fashionable farmer Henry rescued them…

A coral snake curled up on a boulder in the woods….

Baby copperhead hibernating…..

And what a showdown between two little lizards!

What could all that be about? Oooooooh, here’s the prize……

Mammals, too, have passed through our neck of the woods. Encounters include a couple of skunks, with unfortunate outcomes all around.

A lonely little opossum was lucky enough to be simply relocated.

Not so lucky….. the armadillo that Raider dispatched.

And a curse on the feral hogs! Henry put up an electrified fence around the main part of the property, but this little marauder and a few of his friends wandered into the meadow in full daylight. He will root no more.

Hope you all were able to hold it together with some happiness and hope through the last year. Signs are pointing to better times soon, with the rollout of the vaccine and a ramping down of violent political discord.

Future posts will look back at some of our other activities over the past year……

Meant to include a few more animal photos in the last post…. including this lovely butterfly that took a ride on Henry’s jeans.

A striking catalpa worm and his friends made short work of the leaves on the catalpa tree.

And moles are burrowing away under the yard. Henry has been pursuing them, almost like Bill Murray in Caddyshack…. short of blowing up the meadow. They are intriguing little critters, albeit destructive.

Of course, one of the reasons the mole is not welcome is that it interferes with landscaping/agricultural activities. Like so many, the enforced isolation led us to plant a fairly ambitious garden, a portion of which is shown here.

Beans, purple hull peas, tomatoes, squash, watermelon, cantaloupe, peppers, eggplant, radishes, pears and okra…… some of it in great abundance.

At its peak, the summer squash yielded as much as 11 pounds…… IN ONE SINGLE DAY!

In this household, wasting food is a sacrilege. The challenge, therefore, is how to use all of this fresh produce. Pickled squash, grilled squash, fried squash, squash fritters, squash soup, steamed squash, squash casserole (several recipes), dried squash, squash chips, roasted squash, squash bread, anyone?

Food was prepared and consumed with a sense of urgency while the next batch ripened. Of course, we gave quite a lot of it away…… once friends and family had had enough, other beneficiaries included Henry’s hired helpers, the local food bank, the UPS driver, and our postmistress, Sharon.

Here’s an action shot of the pea-shelling operation, which Henry precariously but effectively rigged…

We even grew sprouts and mushrooms on the kitchen counter….

The prize for best use of home-grown produce, however, goes to this very effective incorporation of pickled okra……. into a Bloody Mary!

Next time – a few other pandemic activities……

A large landscape operation began in the fall with clearing the meadow in order to sow some new seed. The house overlooks the area, which is about 5 to 6 acres, slightly rolling and lightly wooded. Henry spent the better part of two weeks on the back of a tractor, tilling and reworking the turf….. even repetitively rolling a huge log across it to redistribute and smooth the soil. (Photo courtesy of the motion-activated game camera.)

Here is the result…… neat as a pin…. (this is a panorama shot with the house visible to the left.)

We spent a lot of time selecting what we wanted to grow. One area was sown with a mix of wild grasses and flowers native to this area; another strip near the house, wildflowers and micro clover; and across the rest, oats to feed the deer during the winter, with crimson and white clovers and a mix of about 20 different low-growing wildflowers.

The weather was dry and uncooperative at first; eventually, however, Mother Nature gave things a boost and we are off to a nice, albeit patchy, start.

Two arctic blasts passed through in January and February, with unprecedented cold and thick blanketings of snow!

Perspectives are a bit off from one photo to the next, but you get the idea.

Speaking of arctic blasts, just a couple of bits from that experience. Here is the electrical wire along the driveway to our house, inoperative due to heavy ice (and downed lines elsewhere in the area)….

Henry’s nearby son and his family were stuck without power or generator. We picked up and conveyed a generator through the night along remote roads to the rescue! A beautiful and spooky experience. Had to stop several times for Henry to cut down obstructive fallen branches with a chainsaw.

The birds were voracious…. and ate about 110 pounds of seed in just over a week. Here they are feeding. One tries to fly through the door to the warmth of the house!

Ice formed on every surface, including this baby pine tree that bent over in defeat…

Our wildlife camera yielded lots of photos of deer, coyotes…. and hogs. The former will hop over the new electric fence, but maybe the gal in the photo below will be fearful.

Hopeful that this spring will bring delight and color……. just a few of the flowers that have peeked out so far.

Cheers until next time!

As a builder and forester, Henry has found time during the pandemic year to take on many projects around the property……

Here he is with his sidekick Isadoro pouring concrete for the floor of the wood shed.

Looks like fun, but this process took many hours of planning, preparation and execution.

Cutting down dead or dying trees is exciting, but also requires judgment and experience to insure that the tree falls in the right direction, rather than crushing a bystander or the pump house….. (This one accidentally took out the zip line.)

The woods surrounding the house ideally get burned once a year, to cut down on the undergrowth and promote a nicer environment for the deer and human inhabitants. This usually takes place near dusk, as the wind drops and falling temperatures and rising humidity keep the well-planned flames under control. Quite a beautiful sight.

And I helped!

(My contribution to the effort included monitoring the progress of the conflagration and clearing straggling fingers of flame – called catch-outs – in addition to having a beer when all was said and done.)

Henry fulfilled a long-held dream of renting a cherry-picker so that he could prune surrounding trees himself. This scheme went temporarily awry when he got stuck about 60 feet up in the air – with night falling, cold encroaching and me unable to figure out how to operate the mechanism that would bring him back to earth.

(Son Clay came to the rescue…. eventually.)

Many of you know that Henry is a rock hound, and typically brings many pounds of rock, sand, dirt, and other geological specimens home from our trips. Significant investments were made in rock-polishing equipment to enhance some of these treasures. Henry added a sound-proofed room on to the barn to muffle the constant roar!

I engaged in a few homely pursuits in addition to the challenge of processing and preparing bushels of home-grown bounty. A couple of knitting projects (the second one stalled a bit, but still under way)….

An obsession with Japanese ramen led to some experiments, and a modest on-line spree to find the right kind of bowls…..

Leisure time included flights in the powered parachute when our schedules and the weather cooperated. The video shows birds on nearby Lake Nacogdoches.

The homestead from the air….. and a sunset over the lake (from ground level).

Time for relaxation …..

(Henry is enjoying the massage chair we had to have after experiencing them on our trip to Japan. Delighted that we got it – almost every night we each get a treat. If you have room in your house, it is well worth the investment, especially for creaky old people!)

Granddaughter Lily helped with some personal grooming…..

Tragedy struck one night after dark on a July evening. I was rounding the house briskly after a 4-wheeler outing and tripped over a garden gnome that Henry had positioned in the yard to cover up a piece of pipe that he feared someone would trip over. Yow!

(Trust me – this evil ogre is invisible at twilight. Dog added for scale.)

My wrist was surgically repaired with a plate and pins that I will carry forever more. All better now!

Like everyone, we had a chance to do a few Zoom meetings.

We are still working on our Zoom skills…..

Alarmed over speculation that there might be attempts to interfere with the voting process in the US presidential election in November, we volunteered with the nonpartisan Election Protection program. Our role included monitoring several polling stations in Nacogdoches and providing information to voters about the process and eligibility.

Raider helped too. We saw not a scintilla of evidence of fraud!

….. And that’s it! Our pandemic year in 4 blog installments.

We are now fully vaccinated against the virus. Still want to know what that will mean in the near and medium term, anxious to get out in the world again. We are resigned to the wait, and will be embarking on more agricultural efforts this summer. The next blog post will look at those preparations. Stay well and positive!