We went up to the farm last weekend to try and get the bahia (weeds that cows like to eat called hay?) because they're taking over the grape vines.  You can see below that the poor vines are getting lost in the overgrowth.  I can't mow up close to the vines because of the drip line and the fence line is about 12 inces behind the grapes.  Absolutely no where for a mower to go.

So, I had this great idea that since we had gotten so much rain over the past week, that the weeds would be easy to pull out, then we could put down weed block and cover that with straw (used as a mulch).  You can see from the picture above that there's a lot of weeds (180 feet).  I calculated maybe we could do about half of the vines on this trip.

Well, I never thought about the root structure of bahia.  It grows all the way down to H -E - double hockeysticks.  I took the shovel and tried to remove the top layer of grass and it was like digging in concrete.  The tip of the shovel came to a screeching halt at the base of the weed and sent major vibrations all the way up both arms.  It was absolutely horrible.  After about an hour, Mike decided I had suffered enough and came over to help out (he was much better at the weed removal than I was).  Men have bigger muscles, what can I say?

Well, after about 3 hours, this was all we accomplished.  A section about four feet square - NOT a single inch further!  I get depressed just thinking about going back for the next trip.  And the best news?  It's already hitting 100 degrees outside.  If you don't get out by 6:30 in the morning to work, you'll have a heat stroke.  Because, by 10:00 a.m., I am done.  I don't mind hard work - but I know when to quit.  

So, it's gonna take all summer to pull these weeds. Here's the starting line, and you can see wayyyyyy down there is the finish line.  Let's see, 4 feet a weekend and 180 total feet means it going to take how many weekends?  Hahahaha, I take it back!  It's going to be Christmas before I get through!

Today we're checking out family pictures.  You can just call me Grannie Clampett.  Who else rides around in a recliner in the back of the pickup truck?  It really was comfortable!  Actually, we were bringing the chair back from our son's house and made a side trip by the farm.  My awesome husband Mike is in the center and my cousin's husband Ben on the right.

Below is a picture of my brother on the left, my dad, mom and me. I only have one brother (he's the best) and no sisters, so it was always just the four of us. 

 Here are two of our beautiful granddaughters.  Ryllee is four and Finley is one.

Here is our third granddaughter Sophia (also one) and our son Chris.

Next time, we'll show more pictures of hay and stuff we dug up out of the woods.  Wow, sounds like a good time!

Mother Nature - right in my front yard.  We drove in from work last week and there they were - Mom and Baby standing by my garden.  The baby had to be just a few hours old as it was nursing from the mother.  And the mom would lean over and lick the baby.  We've seen lots and lots of babies over the years coming through our yard, but this was the first time I've ever seen one nursing.

They both just stood there about 3 minutes while I leaned out the car window and took pictures with my phone.   I had to put that fence around my garden to keep the deer out -  they would eat EVERYTHING down to the dirt. So, of course that's where they like to hang out!  I know they just watch me from the woods and wait to see if I forget to shut the gate so they can sneak in to the garden.

You can see the baby just standing between the mom's legs (it's facing backwards).  I love summer when all the babies come out to play.  I hope they all learn to run fast - hunting season will be here before you know it!

Have you ever checked out the magazine racks at Lowe's or Home Depot?  They have the greatest magazines that you don't find anywhere else.  For example, Mother Earth News (the original guide to living wisely), The New Pioneer (the complete guide to self-reliant living) and last, but not least, The Backwoodsman (the magazine for the twenty-first century frontiersman).


Mike found an article about a walking stick that originated in the Carpathian Mountains of  Eastern Europe.  It's called a Valaska and is multi-purpose tool as well as a walking stick.  A Valaska has an axe head for a handle.

 The Carpathian Mountains were supposedly home to wolves, werewolves, vampires and other nasty creatures.  I can see where an iron axe-head might come in handy.  But, if you're just wandering in the East Texas woods, there are other boring creatures for you to deal with -.  coyotes, wild boar, bob-cats.....  Ha, that makes me laugh - like you would fend off one of those with a stick.  Just pull out your 9 mil and shoot the darn thing.

So, Mike wanted to make his own walking stick.  He ordered an axe-head and trimmed his plain walking stick to the length he wanted.  You hold the stick by the axe-head as shown in the picture above.  He refused to stand in the picture and model his creation.  He cut the length to just at hip level.  You can find walking sticks at country stores that have brass heads or other fancy decorations.  I can see a city guy with a fancy cane, but what good is that going to do you out in the woods?  That's right, get a manly man cane!

So, if you're out in the woods, walking with your Valaska stick and you get a wild hair to chop wood, well, there you go.  A perfect gift for every man.

We finally got a septic tank installed at the "goat farm."  I don't know how you feel about that, but it was a great day!  We take our travel trailer up to the farm on weekends and up to this point, we have had to run a contained system every time we're there.  For those of you who don't know what that means, it means all the sink water, shower water, and potty water stays in tanks under the trailer until we head to the house and swing by the truck stop to dump the tanks.  When the tanks are full, that's it!  The party's over!

Mike and I were part of a motorcycle ministry for years and we traveled to bike rallies where you were happy to get "biker baths" (that would be a box of baby wipe's instead of a shower).  That said, we had a head start on running contained in our trailer.  Still, you get in the shower, get wet all over, turn off the water, soap up, then turn the water back on and rinse off real quick.  We were able to stay four days before we had to leave to dump our tanks.  

I have waist length hair and I can wash it in about a gallon of water when I need to!  But, it still takes an hour to comb out! Mike has really short hair (o.k., no hair) so for him it's not an issue.

Anyway, we decided we had suffered enough and would like to stay at the farm for longer periods of time, so we had the septic tank put in.

Here's the line being dug next to the metal building.  We installed a 32 x 32 metal building to park the trailer under.  It makes such a difference in the summer time when the trailer is parked in shade instead of the burning sun.

Here's the 200 gallon tank going in.

 Here's the drain line extending back to the tree line.  For you city dwellers who just let the city take care of your "drainage", it's different out in the country.  There is no city "drainage".  ( I'm trying to be delicate about this).  When we build our house, we'll put in a big septic system with the double tanks and aeration system. For our small trailer, we can use the single tank. 

And here at last are the hard workers sitting around having a venison sausage cookout after they finished the job.  That's my dad on the left - such a sweetheart!  (He'll be 84 this year, so we didn't make him work, he just came down to check things out).


We went up last weekend and used our septic tank for the first time.  It was so awesome to take a shower and just let the water run. 

Mowing again.  Our pasture is full of bahia and coastal grass.  Years ago, they ran cattle on our property and this stuff just grows forever.  We had the field cleared with a bulldozer and the next spring, the grass was back.  We didn't even have to water!  Anyway, to show my ignorance, I thought you only found bahia in pastures.  So after mowing the "goat farm", we drive up in our driveway, and I notice something familiar growing in the ditch out front of our house.  That's right, it's packed with bahia.  It's that weed looking plant that sticks up above all the other grass, and it's seed pods grow in a "V" shape.

 I mowed the front of the "goat farm" property with a riding mower, so I could cut close around the pecan trees, fig trees, orchard and grape vines.   Did you know that when the mower deck hits the bahia seed pods, there's a puff of pollen that shoots into the air, then all the seeds follow.  Me and my mower (that's my good English -  my mom the English teacher loves it when I use incorrect grammar) were covered in seeds by the time I got through mowing.  They were about an inch thick on the deck of the mower.  Now I see why you can never get ride of the stuff.  It truly suffers from over-fertilization!

 We also had the Groveton Mill Supply come out and fertilize and kill weeds.  Technically, bahia is a grass and not a weed.  HA!  You try to pull it up by the roots - they go all the way to China.  The picture below is a true weed.  It's called bitterweed.  I don't know if that's an official name, but that's what the old guys call it.  If your cow eats bitterweed, then her milk turns bitter and you can't drink it.  I guess the weed doesn't taste bitter, because they really like the stuff!

 On the bright side, some weeds make beautiful flowers.  Here's one that I couldn't get any closer to because a bug flew out at me and I had to run off.  

I saw a beautiful lonely bluebonnet last month right before I ran over it.  It was an ACCIDENT.  I was on top of it before I could stop.  I cried for an hour........ really.  Please don't let me go to jail.

This has nothing to do with the farm or kitchen experiments, but we saw something exciting yesterday and I wanted to share it.  We were heading down to Texas City for a beach party for our 4 year old granddaughter and we cut through NASA to get there.  As we pulled up to a red light right in front of the gates, there was the space shuttle that's coming to Houston for display.  It was still on the barge.

This is the shuttle that was used for astronaut training in Florida.  It was put on a barge and shipped over here for display at the NASA Space Center.  It had just pulled up at the dock and was just sitting there.  We sat through this REALLY long red light (for the first time, I actually enjoyed sitting at a red light!) and I took pictures the whole time.

I remember watching the first shuttle land that went up into space back in the early eighties.  I was living in Bay City working at the Diamond Shamrock office and I went to my cousin Lynda's house on my lunch break and we both watched it.  I remember it like it was yesterday -  watching history really makes an impression on you.  I know this might put me in the "old" category, but I also remember watching the first man walk on the moon!

I guess now we've moved into another era - with private companies sending men and supplies into space.  And you know what?  America is still the greatest nation on the face of the earth and those companies will do a great job.  God Bless America!