On Walkabout in December

The girls and I explored the yard, this morning, while Husband was out shaking off cabin fever at the mall. It was a bit of a dreary morning but the girls and I were having so much fun that we didn’t care.

Oh, Pearl is a cutie.

Go baby GO!

Look at that hair!

This bluebird house is a working apartment in the season but I need to do some research on what I need to do to maintain it without running off the blue birds.

The barn needs a ton of work but we knew that when we bought it.

The trim needs to be replaced and we’ll be adding aluminum siding to the front and back. I’d love to keep the wood but that just isn’t practical. At least the shape will remain.

I had the chance to scope out what needs to be trimmed along the fence line but will probably wait until spring to start hacking away at it. We have native Cedars serving as windbreaks but I don’t know if the ones with berries are a different gender than the berryless ones, or a different species. Husband would know or I could look it up.

The backyard doesn’t have trees beyond the Willow Oaks we planted last summer and we don’t know if they will survive. However, we have Post Oaks, a Bald Cypress, a nice Sweet Gum, several soft Maples, Pines and some Ornamental Pears out front.

The Pear trees, Pines and Maples aren’t going to stay, over time. The Pears are large and near the end of their lifespan so they’ll go, soon, on their own but we'll surely help them along. Dead trees aren't attractive and dying trees are worse.  The Pines and Maples aren’t nice trees so we’ll say goodbye to them when the time is right. They will probably go before the Pears do.   We want to bring in some Caddo Maples, an indigenous hardwood Maple that has a lovely shape and color. As for the Cedars, people tend to love or hate them. They can be sticky, draw webworms and are a fire hazard. However, we fall into the category of Cedar lovers so we’ll probably end up planting more to close up a place on the north side of the house to provide additional privacy and a windbreak.

We have a pump out front. I kind of like it.

Look at these faded roses.

The girls love the yard and barn.

Especially Evelyn.

The cows and horses across the street meandered over when they saw me with the girls.

I don’t know if they were just curious or thought I’d feed them. The cows were much braver than the horses, which held back. Perhaps they had better sense. The girls had to bark at them.

Evelyn got so excited, I had to make her lay down to get herself under control.

Pearl was astonished. She has never seen Evelyn get into trouble and Evelyn got into trouble three times, today. First, she ran out the gate without permission. Then she barked at the cows like a fool. Finally, she ate my son-in-law’s Christmas present. Husband saw the remains and assumed it was Pearl but, no. I’d had to take away that particular package from Evelyn four times. She liked the way it smells.

Pearl has not bothered any of the presents and, in fact, will be losing her crate this evening because she has decided she simply is too big a girl to remain confined. She hasn’t had any accidents since we got here and has been very good about not destroying things so we’ll grant her wish.

I thoroughly enjoyed walking on the Bermuda grass. Back in Virginia, the grass is pretty and green but quickly becomes saturated with mud. Not here. The grass goes dormant and yellow/brown but will lush right up as soon as spring starts knocking. In the meantime, it provides a spongy walk and strongly resists getting muddy.

I noticed the Pear trees were putting out buds.

That is typical Oklahoma stuff.  It gets warm and the plants are fooled into thinking spring is on the way, then they get zapped at the next freeze.  My grandmother always fretted that we'd lose a whole crop of whatever budded but we never did.  So I don't worry about it, now.   

Nature is resilient.
While I was out walking, my father-in-law stopped by to work on something out in the workshop. I promptly asked him to put handles on my quilt presser (my large block of wood that I set on top of my blocks right after I press them to get them to dry flat). He didn’t have large enough screws but promised to pick some up from the hardware store later this afternoon.

An old friend of Husband’s dropped by and they went back out shopping at the gun store and the grocery store. Manly men that they are, they brought home eggs and bread. I can hear them down the hall chatting – not the words but just the low rumble of good friends catching up with the occasional male chuckle thrown in that makes the walls hum and the house feel safe.

Long years ago, Husband opened a fortune cookie and liked what was predicted for him. He has kept that fortune paper sitting on the window sill for several years. While I was walking in the yard, I glanced down at a fluttering piece of paper and bent to retrieve it. It was the fortune that had somehow blown out of our boxes and landed where I would find it. Here it is:

From the fortune cookie to God’s ear.

Happy Quilting,

Penny, Evelyn and Pearl