Monday - June 5, 2006
Mom and Pa are working on their property in preparation for building a house, too. They've selected the location for the house and have a pretty solid vision of how they want the landscaping. With this in mind, they are planting various shrubs, flowers and saplings so the growing will be a little more mature by the time the house is done. They've walked hill and dell in these parts and found many of their plants at the old abandoned properties around this area. Lilacs, irises, mums, clematis, johnny-jump-ups and forsythia rootlings have found a new home here. Occasionally, Mom will buy a bedraggled plant on sale and nurture it back to life. Maggie gave Mom and I two miniature roses for Mother's Day, but by the time we arrived to visit they'd pretty much died. We believe they were forced to bloom and open for the holiday and didn't have the strength to live. However, a small amount of green remained, so we brought them home. Sure enough, with tender loving care, a transplant into enriched and fertilized soil, and some careful watering they are coming back to life.
Scraping a home from the wilderness is an interesting process. As we use the modern tools that make the job easier, I find myself in awe of the pioneers who did this with so little in the way of industrialized machines. A bulldozer can clear an acre of 50 year old trees in a matter of minutes. The tiller, the box blade and even the grabber tool that breaks up the clumps of soil make our lives easier.
I've seen new houses go up in suburbs and marveled at the efficiency of three months from breaking soil to moving in. I've seen desert blossom overnight when landscapers take bare earth and plant carefully grown greenhouse flora to look good the very next day.
As we wrest my homestead out of the woods, trying to leave as much intact as possible, I wonder if the pioneers had it right. By celebrating every blade of grass, every shrub that grows a flower, every plant that bears fruit, I realise that my home is a work in progress, a place that will be nurtured with my own two hands to create with the tools God has given me. The irises lost in the wilderness by a heap of abandoned bricks are now lovingly tended by my Mom. The wild honeysuckle at the edge of my road leaves a fresh fragrance in the wind every day and an old rose at the back of my property is so gigantic it is its own hedge. We've cleared only some of the land to maintain our wooded paradise.
On Mom and Pa's property, Pa has carefully carved a dirt road meandering around the back of his acreage. When you wanter back where the wild things are, you are shielded from the sun under a leafy canopy of trees. The scent of earth and green growing things scents the air and once in a while you catch a whiff of some wildflower. With this sense of peace comes the knowledge that in our carefully planned niche we've destroyed some of the life that surrounds us. By bringing the soil back to life with new green and growing things, I understand now why gardeners and farmers feel that working the earth brings us closer to God.
Philosophy aside, watching my dogs grow into the beings they were meant to be is a fascinating experience, too. Echo and Flint were spoiled house dogs, only let out occasionally on leashes or our miniscule backyard in Texas. Now they are becoming what my Pa says are "real dogs." Flint is a faithful little fellow who wants to be with his humans and pretty much listens and obeys all the human commands. Echo is not. We believe that somewhere in her ancestry, and very recently at that, had to be a wolf. Her stance, her ever alertness to her surroundings and her predator mode are mind-boggling. People in the know who've worked with wolves and wolf-hybrids assure us that this puppy we got from the pound is probably half-wolf.
If she has the opportunity Echo will chase ANYTHING that runs. This includes rabbits, Mom's cats, armadillos, turkeys, deer, raccons, possums, squirrels...and box turtles. Echo is completely amazed and fascinated by box turtles. She finds one just about every day on our walks. She paws and grunts and snorts, trying to get the closed up little shell to open up so she can see what it is. At no time has she ever tried to bite, eat or slay any of the beasties she's chased. She simply wants to play.
In Texas, a baby squirrel fell out of a tree and dropped at her feet. He landed on his back and when he saw Echo nosing him, he began kicking and screaming for Mama. Echo backed off with a look of hurt surprise and like a person who's never held a screaming baby, she cast about frantically for someone to come help it. When Richard picked it up, dusted it off and put it back in the tree, she relaxed and tried to get it play the game they always played - the squirrel running on the top edge of the fence and Echo running back and forth below it.
Despite her predatory instincts, I suppose Echo is so well-fed it never occurs to her that the prey can also be dinner. To her the chase is a game to be played, no harm, no foul to either player. With that in mind...
The box turtle that Echo flushed on our walk...the poor little beastie was terrified and clammed up so fast I'm not even sure he was open in the first place! They are currently everywhere as their annual migration is taking place. Many a motorist can be seen in these parts stopping on the side of the road to either help a turtle cross or turn them right side up after being swept over by passing cars.
The deer are gourmet eaters of certain flowers. They especially love roses - petals, stalk, thorns and all. With daisies, it's a different story. They only eat the petals. Imagine, dear reader, if you will, a young doe thinking of her Bambi and solemnly saying as she eats the petals..."he loves me, he loves me not, he loves me, he loves me not..."
My tomatoes are growing! This plant is the heirloom Roma tomato famous for rich Italian sauces.
Echo eats grass while Mom and Pa plant the hydrangea. Both Echo and Flint have a strange habit. It was evident in Texas but is much more prevalant here. When I let them out of the pen to romp in the grass, both dogs immediately nose out the tenderest young grass shoots and begin grazing like cattle. They will eat grass for several long minutes. As they romp and play they will stop to chew on any fresh blade of grass they run across. I was told that this grass-chewing usually means an upset stomach in dogs and cats, but they eat well and never seem to have any type of indigestion at all. I make homemade dog food for them as we're fairly certain Flint is allergic to gluten (he had indigestion, gas, couldn't eat and threw up a lot for the first 6 months we had him). Echo will NOT eat the homemade dog food unless it has collard greens or spinach in it. People do not believe me when I tell them this. Richard will vouch for the fact that Echo starved herself for four days when I forgot to put collard greens in her dog food. As I've said before, my dogs march to the beat of different drummer.
Flint rolls in the grass. Although Flint is rolling in this photo, he will also do this exact same pose if someone says "roadkill." I figured everyone uses the term "play dead" and so I taught my dog a different command.
Mom and Pa are working on their property in preparation for building a house, too. They've selected the location for the house and have a pretty solid vision of how they want the landscaping. With this in mind, they are planting various shrubs, flowers and saplings so the growing will be a little more mature by the time the house is done. They've walked hill and dell in these parts and found many of their plants at the old abandoned properties around this area. Lilacs, irises, mums, clematis, johnny-jump-ups and forsythia rootlings have found a new home here. Occasionally, Mom will buy a bedraggled plant on sale and nurture it back to life. Maggie gave Mom and I two miniature roses for Mother's Day, but by the time we arrived to visit they'd pretty much died. We believe they were forced to bloom and open for the holiday and didn't have the strength to live. However, a small amount of green remained, so we brought them home. Sure enough, with tender loving care, a transplant into enriched and fertilized soil, and some careful watering they are coming back to life.
Scraping a home from the wilderness is an interesting process. As we use the modern tools that make the job easier, I find myself in awe of the pioneers who did this with so little in the way of industrialized machines. A bulldozer can clear an acre of 50 year old trees in a matter of minutes. The tiller, the box blade and even the grabber tool that breaks up the clumps of soil make our lives easier.
I've seen new houses go up in suburbs and marveled at the efficiency of three months from breaking soil to moving in. I've seen desert blossom overnight when landscapers take bare earth and plant carefully grown greenhouse flora to look good the very next day.
As we wrest my homestead out of the woods, trying to leave as much intact as possible, I wonder if the pioneers had it right. By celebrating every blade of grass, every shrub that grows a flower, every plant that bears fruit, I realise that my home is a work in progress, a place that will be nurtured with my own two hands to create with the tools God has given me. The irises lost in the wilderness by a heap of abandoned bricks are now lovingly tended by my Mom. The wild honeysuckle at the edge of my road leaves a fresh fragrance in the wind every day and an old rose at the back of my property is so gigantic it is its own hedge. We've cleared only some of the land to maintain our wooded paradise.
On Mom and Pa's property, Pa has carefully carved a dirt road meandering around the back of his acreage. When you wanter back where the wild things are, you are shielded from the sun under a leafy canopy of trees. The scent of earth and green growing things scents the air and once in a while you catch a whiff of some wildflower. With this sense of peace comes the knowledge that in our carefully planned niche we've destroyed some of the life that surrounds us. By bringing the soil back to life with new green and growing things, I understand now why gardeners and farmers feel that working the earth brings us closer to God.
Philosophy aside, watching my dogs grow into the beings they were meant to be is a fascinating experience, too. Echo and Flint were spoiled house dogs, only let out occasionally on leashes or our miniscule backyard in Texas. Now they are becoming what my Pa says are "real dogs." Flint is a faithful little fellow who wants to be with his humans and pretty much listens and obeys all the human commands. Echo is not. We believe that somewhere in her ancestry, and very recently at that, had to be a wolf. Her stance, her ever alertness to her surroundings and her predator mode are mind-boggling. People in the know who've worked with wolves and wolf-hybrids assure us that this puppy we got from the pound is probably half-wolf.
If she has the opportunity Echo will chase ANYTHING that runs. This includes rabbits, Mom's cats, armadillos, turkeys, deer, raccons, possums, squirrels...and box turtles. Echo is completely amazed and fascinated by box turtles. She finds one just about every day on our walks. She paws and grunts and snorts, trying to get the closed up little shell to open up so she can see what it is. At no time has she ever tried to bite, eat or slay any of the beasties she's chased. She simply wants to play.
In Texas, a baby squirrel fell out of a tree and dropped at her feet. He landed on his back and when he saw Echo nosing him, he began kicking and screaming for Mama. Echo backed off with a look of hurt surprise and like a person who's never held a screaming baby, she cast about frantically for someone to come help it. When Richard picked it up, dusted it off and put it back in the tree, she relaxed and tried to get it play the game they always played - the squirrel running on the top edge of the fence and Echo running back and forth below it.
Despite her predatory instincts, I suppose Echo is so well-fed it never occurs to her that the prey can also be dinner. To her the chase is a game to be played, no harm, no foul to either player. With that in mind...
The box turtle that Echo flushed on our walk...the poor little beastie was terrified and clammed up so fast I'm not even sure he was open in the first place! They are currently everywhere as their annual migration is taking place. Many a motorist can be seen in these parts stopping on the side of the road to either help a turtle cross or turn them right side up after being swept over by passing cars.
The deer are gourmet eaters of certain flowers. They especially love roses - petals, stalk, thorns and all. With daisies, it's a different story. They only eat the petals. Imagine, dear reader, if you will, a young doe thinking of her Bambi and solemnly saying as she eats the petals..."he loves me, he loves me not, he loves me, he loves me not..."
My tomatoes are growing! This plant is the heirloom Roma tomato famous for rich Italian sauces.
Echo eats grass while Mom and Pa plant the hydrangea. Both Echo and Flint have a strange habit. It was evident in Texas but is much more prevalant here. When I let them out of the pen to romp in the grass, both dogs immediately nose out the tenderest young grass shoots and begin grazing like cattle. They will eat grass for several long minutes. As they romp and play they will stop to chew on any fresh blade of grass they run across. I was told that this grass-chewing usually means an upset stomach in dogs and cats, but they eat well and never seem to have any type of indigestion at all. I make homemade dog food for them as we're fairly certain Flint is allergic to gluten (he had indigestion, gas, couldn't eat and threw up a lot for the first 6 months we had him). Echo will NOT eat the homemade dog food unless it has collard greens or spinach in it. People do not believe me when I tell them this. Richard will vouch for the fact that Echo starved herself for four days when I forgot to put collard greens in her dog food. As I've said before, my dogs march to the beat of different drummer.
Flint rolls in the grass. Although Flint is rolling in this photo, he will also do this exact same pose if someone says "roadkill." I figured everyone uses the term "play dead" and so I taught my dog a different command.
posted by Merry | 12:34 PM
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