LET THERE BE LIGHT, Part 2

Two blogs back I wrote about cutting a tree down in our front
yard. It was called "Let there Be Light". Well that was the first of
the story. Now we have the rest of the story:
Once that big tree was cut down, we knew

what we wanted to do with the tree stump.

Here Johnny is cutting it into a chair shape.

It's finally the shape we wanted, so Johnny sanded it and
put a finish on it to protect it from the weather.

It turns out to be a handy place to sit,
(that's our granddaughter, Kayla, with her dog),

or rest after a family game of Four-Square,

(that's our daughter, April, on a visit from Kansas),

and a natural stop on the way to get a drink after shooting hoops.

(That's Elliott, our grandson).

And it's a great place to gather for photos

(that's us with our granddaughters). 

Now we have more sunshine in our front yard and may be able

to grow some grass instead of moss,
and we also have an "interesting" chair
inviting anyone to stop and sit a spell.

ONE NIGHT A YEAR

It is from the cactus family.

It is called a NIGHT BLOOMING CEREUS and will bloom

only one night in the year. You had better hang around when a bud looks

ready to open.

The first time we ever saw one was in Indonesia when a friend introduced

us to this very unusual plant.

We took great care with the plant and stayed up till midnight,

an unusual event in our little Indonesian village.

But it was worth it! It blossomed forth and emitted a beautiful,

sweet fragrance. By morning, the large, white flower had wilted.

This is only a memory to us now.

I thought this to be a tropical flower that only bloomed in

hidden areas of a tropical forest.

But, lo and behold, friends here in East Texas, shared one of

these same plants with us. They let us keep one all through its

blooming period.

The long flat leaves were loaded with blooms. Here is what it looks like.

And now it begins to open up.

It's nearly there!

And it was worth the wait.
Apparently, these versions of the Cereus do well here in East Texas.
The blooms lasted longer, more than one night.
The plant we had  had many, many
buds and blooms on it for us to enjoy.

LET THERE BE LIGHT!

We hated to do it, but we had to remove a tree from our front yard.

We couldn't get grass to grow because there was so little sunshine and

lots of shade. We grew moss instead.

It is expensive to hire professionals to do this, so Johnny and Johnathan

and friend Paul worked together to accomplish the task.

Not that I didn't have every confidence in these men,

but I left home while the deed was done!

But I've managed to get pictures:

The men gather with various tools to begin the task.

The tree comes down, a perfect landing,

missing house, flower beds, mailbox!

With the help of the truck to guide its fall.

Success!

Johnathan saws up the tree and carts it away to sell as fire wood.

Johnny cleans up the chips and sawdust (with Cookie's help).

Yes, we meant to keep this stump.

We have a plan!!

Stay tuned for part 2 of "The Tree".

SATURDAY DRIVE

It was a beautiful spring day and I had a yen to get out see some of the spring flowers. We could have made a full day of it, making a circle drive through three nearby towns. But neither Johnny nor I wanted to take that much time.

So we just drove on the country roads around Longview.

Here is what we saw:

We never tire of these East Texas roads.



The Lanceleaf Coreopsis is one of my favorite wildflowers.

Indian Paintbrush

As we drove through the countryside we came upon some goats.

I wondered if they made goat cheese there.

I'd like to get some, if so.

The striking Indian Blanket, the state flower of

Oklahoma where I was born.

Coming to the end of our drive, as we were heading home on the

busy highway, we laughed at how many wildflowers

were right there, visible for all to see.

Here was a long stretch of the Indian Blanket wildflowers.

Now, we are moving deeper into June and the hot weather.

Different flowers are beginning to bloom.

But we will remember that cool(ish) Saturday spring drive.

 

Yard Work, Part 2

To our surprise, Noel and Molly, along with Carl and Elliott (Johnathan is out of town) came over Saturday evening. The plan was to have supper together, however, they came prepared to work!

These pictures tell the story.

Noel brought his riding mower and took care of our considerable side yard, plus some of the outlying areas.

Carl used our lawnmower to mow our front yard.

And Molly uses the weed eater to trim and neaten up all the edges we've ignored!

She even tackled the cracks in the brick walkway, digging the grass out with her hands.

Elliott awaits his assignment of moving good grass to bare areas in the lawn.

Oops! The electric cord got weed wacked. Time out for repairs.

While waiting for the repairs to be completed, Molly finds a neglected flower (?) bed and gets to work while Elliott passes the time with his skate board.

And then Elliott finds the grass that can be reused elsewhere.

YIKES! A copper head was found in the yard! Thanks to Carl's brave spirit, he killed it! Thank you, Carl.

See his smashed head, mouth wide open?

Can you spot the headless copper head?

Thanks, Norwoods, for a job well done and for the bonus of ridding the yard of danger!

 Everyone cooled off with a good supper together, some games and a little work on the jigsaw puzzle

 that's always on the game table.

Summer yard work

Confession is good for the soul.
This is sort of embarrassing.
But we're being totally honest, here.
We are learning to take care of our considerable yard.

We live on a large lot, and WE are the ones taking care of it. Just like everyone else, I guess, but this is something we've had to get used to. On the mission field, we often had help keeping the yard, or else we were living in an apartment.

But now, it is all up to us! So besides keeping the lawn mowed, what else do you do? Planting flowers isn't as easy as it sounds. You have to know where to plant them (sun, shade, etc.). You have to remember to water them. You have to weed  them. And fertilizing helps (which fertilizer? How often?). Not to mention..... we have 46 oak trees in our yard that drop billions of leaves every single year! And that is not even counting the hundreds of trees on the surrounding property around our house. So we are learning as we go.

Here are some BEFORE pictures. Hopefully, next spring and summer I will be able to post the AFTER pictures.

And here's hoping you will see an imrovement.

Come back next year, and see if we were able to make any improvements.
See you then!

Poison Ivy Update

It was brought to my attention that we were not targeting poison ivy, according to the pictures I had posted earlier. Our daughter-in-law, Molly, is highly alergic to it, so knows what to look for. We walked through the yard and found the culprits.

We just wanted to clarify this...the main thing we want to look for are the "leaves of three".  For my benefit, Molly quoted the ditty that helps us remember. Only line 2  is legitimate. The additional lines are provided by Molly, purely for our intertainment!

Leaves of two...good for you
Leaves of three let them be,
Leaves of four eat some more
Leaves of five let them thrive
Leaves of six pick up sticks
Leaves of seven, you have died and gone to heaven.