Showing posts with label Rusty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rusty. Show all posts

Friday, January 25, 2013

Buffalo National River


Jo and I decided to take advantage of a mild January day by heading up to the Buffalo National River.  What we had in mind was a hike from the Highway 65 bridge over towards Gilbert.  Maybe we'd hike the whole route, then turn around and hike back.  Maybe we'd only hike part ways and turn around whenever we started feeling tired.



As it turned out, Jo and I did not hike very far at all -- only a couple of miles total.  When we came to the first unmarked fork in the trail, we chose wrong.  We looped back to where we started instead of heading on toward Gilbert.



Instead of hiking we drove down to to Shineye, a swimming beach popular with locals because it's not as crowded as the swimming areas at Tyler Bend or Buffalo Point.   On this winter day, we had the entire area all to ourselves.



Bucket was the only one wanting to go for a swim.  Jo and Rusty thought the lower fifties were still way to chilly for swimming and wanted to keep their feet dry.



And the river flows on.



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Sunday, November 18, 2012

Lettuce From Fall Garden Bed



Jo is harvesting lettuce from under the plastic and wire tunnel covering our fall garden bed. Rusty is helping.



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Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Garden 2011: Planting Corn



Jo planting corn while Rusty watches intently. Dogs believe dog treats are the one and only small items ever contained within small bags. One year we when we weren't paying attention, Rusty dug up and ate several of the green beans Jo had planted. We kept a watchful eye on him this time.

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Thursday, March 24, 2011

Garden 2011: Planting Spinach



Measure twice; plant once.
On Tuesday, Jo planted seeds of spinach, lettuce, chard and radishes.




All gardening activities must pass rigorous canine inspection. Rusty is handling that duty as Jo prepares to plant spinach seeds.




Opening the seed packet can be the hardest part of planting.




Spinach seeds.




Dropping spinach seeds into the furrow.




Gently raking soil on top of the newly planted seeds while being careful to not step on Bucket.  Following planting, Jo watered a little.  Now it's the seeds' turn to grow.

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Thursday, January 13, 2011

Afternoon Walk In The Snow

Jo and Rusty heading home on our afternoon walk.


We got a little bit of snow on Sunday, only a couple of inches.  Since then, we've enjoyed mostly sunny days, but our temperatures have remained mostly below freezing.  Not much of the snow has melted.

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Monday, October 19, 2009

Sweet Potato Harvest



We received our first frost of this fall Sunday morning. Therefore, Jo and I needed to get our sweet potatoes dug or risk them rotting underground. The first step in getting the potatoes out of the ground was removing the wire cover. Deer have been in the garden feeding on the protruding sweet potato vines recently, making wire removal much easier. We didn't have to trim off the vines to expose the wire.




This plant with a couple of modest sized sweet potatoes was about as good as our harvest got. Some plants had no edible-sized potatoes. We've had paltry sweet potato harvest for the past few years. We've also enjoyed some great harvest growing this variety. I don't know what the problem is. We need to do some sweet potato growing research and, maybe, change varieties.




"Where's mine?" says Bucket. She's stationed herself between Jo and the bucket of potatoes, hoping for a sweet potato treat either intentional or accidental.




Rusty is watch, ready to join Bucket if Jo starts handing out sweet potatoes. Both dogs got an undersized potato when we were through digging. Giving it to them any sooner would have guaranteed and increased level of pestering by the dogs as we dug.




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Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Wednesday Afternoon Walk: Deer



Several does were at the edge of the power line easement when we took our afternoon walk. This location is an often used road crossing point for the deer and can be seen from the house. Rusty checks the window several time per day to see if there are any deer for him to bark at.

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Friday, March 28, 2008

Road Work


First Caterpillar of 2008: CHECK

Thanks to the intercession of my neighbor, the county dispatched a road grader to even out the rough spots in our road out. (It helps to have a local on your side.) The road is much improved and I don't have to worry about high-centering the pickup or van. The places with the deepest ruts are still a little rough. As the grader operator said, he didn't have a lot to work with up at the top of the hill -- meaning that the rocks to dirt ratio was skewed too far in favor of the rocks.

Now we have deep ruts filled with loose dirt and rocks. A hard downpour would quickly wash them out again. A moderate rain would turn them into mud holes. Therefore, Jo and I have placed an order for a half dozen light rains and have specified that drying out time between showers be included.



Bucket has given her approval of the road work while Rusty is still checking things out prior to christening the improvements.

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Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Snow Plow

Bucket in the snow. (3/7/08)


Our recent snow was the most either of our dogs has ever seen -- or tried to move around in. Rusty's solution the the mobility problem was to proceed in leaps and bounds. He resembled a large, short-eared rabbit as he made his way through the snow. Unfortunately, I just wasn't able to capture his antics with pixels.

Bucket tried the hopping technique, but her legs are shorter. Bounding through the snow required too much effort. She eventually settled upon just plowing her way through.

Rusty soon discovered that walking behind everyone else was the best solution, but Bucket wasn't about to abandon her position in the lead.





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Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Along The Winter Creek




Sunday afternoon Jo and I and the dogs decided not to walk our normal route and walk along the winter creek that runs through our place instead. (The dogs certainly didn't object. Rusty and Bucket are always ready to go and don't really care where.) Walking the creek is more like exploring. You cannot manage anything close to a walking pace because of the steep sides and all the rocks and boulders strewn about.





The creek should be flowing this time of year, but we haven't received enough rain this year. There were just a few pools of water scattered along the way. There were also "pools" of loose, dry leaves where the water should have been. These leaf pools made walking even more treacherous. A few of the larger ones were waist deep. A pool of water you can see, but when you step off into a pool of leaves, you think you're stepping onto firm ground, but step off into nothingness instead. Both Jo and I fell several time. Fortunately, there were no hidden rocks where we fell and the leaves provided a soft landing. We completely lost sight of Rusty when he unknowingly jumped off into one of the deeper leaf pools. He quickly dog paddled to the surface and swam onto firm ground.





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Monday, November 26, 2007

Sunday Fog




We spent all day Sunday in the clouds. I don't know if there is a difference between fog and being in a cloud from a meteorologist's point of view, but I can tell you that they are the same when you are surrounded by them. If you stand outside long enough, you'll get wet – or, at least, very damp. I know from past experience that during a drive off our ridge and down into Bear Creek Valley, we would have dropped beneath most of the fog. Down in the valley it would have been much less foggy with a low, overcast sky.

In addition to the constant drip, drip, drip of water off the roof and trees, we also received some rain. According to our trusty rain gauge .8” fell in the morning and we received another .3” in the evening. That's not a great deal of precipitation, but every little bit helps – and it was a slow, gently rain that all soaked into the ground.

Sunday was the kind of day where Rusty and Bucket motivated Jo and I to get a little exercise that we otherwise would have gone without. We would have been content staying warm and dry in the house, shop or studio, but the dogs expected an afternoon walk so we ventured up to the gate. The trip wasn't bad, though we did get a little damp. Jo and the dogs got wetter and had to cut short their morning walk when rain began.


Bits and Pieces from Sunday, 11/25/07:

I cleaned and repaired a rabbit cage so that we could move a couple of our young rabbits. It was an unusual cage-repair session in that I survived without getting wounded. I seldom make it though a rabbit cage repair session without scratching myself on the wire or pinching myself with the pliers at least once.

The squirrels are really cleaning out our birdfeeders this winter. They're always something of a nuisance, but this year I think they are worse. The squirrels have little else to eat. The late freeze we got last spring while most of the trees were just beginning to leaf out and bloom means there there is very little mast this fall. We don't even have any honey locust pods for them to nibble.

Jo got her pots glazed and the kiln loaded. Unfortunately, not everything she wanted to include in this firing would fit into the kiln. She figured and re-figured at least a half dozen times, but there's just no way she can get another glaze firing done before our next show.

Weather: High = 42º. Low = 35º. 1.1" rain.
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Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Our Dogs Are So Mistreated That ......




Our dogs are so mistreated that...

We don't even feed them and they must survive on bell pepper scavenged from the garden.
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Friday, November 02, 2007

Pepper Harvest




We've only experienced the very lightest of frosts so far this fall, with only the most tender of vegetation getting a little leaf burn. However, the weather forecast called for temperatures at or near freezing Thursday night. It was time to harvest what remained out in the garden or risk losing it.

Peppers were the main crop we had to harvest. Various hot peppers (jalapeño, poblano, salsa) went into plastic bags and directly into the freezer. They'll be fine for cooking. I'll eat a lot of fresh bell peppers for a week or so. I don't particularly like them cooked and Jo doesn't like them at all. The cayenne peppers I'm drying and will grind into pepper flakes.

Jo also picked all the tomatoes that were still on the vines. Some will go ahead and ripen, many will end up back out in the garden compost and we will probably have some fried green tomatoes.

(Note: The weather forecast was wrong. Imagine that! The temperature never dropped below 40º. Oh, well. Picking all the peppers was a job that needed to be done and we had a nice, sunny day for that chore.)
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Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Bright Orange Dot



Another good title for this post would be "Why Dogs Don't Make Good Photographic Assistants". Although I took this photo when I was still about fifteen feet away, I know it's a Gulf Fritillary butterfly. I did get a closer look without my camera and , besides, my identification guidebook says "there is no mistaking this butterfly for any other." (I love it when ID guides make statements like that.)

When I first saw this bright and beautiful butterfly out in the garden, I just watched for a while. I figured trying to get into the house and get my camera would be pointless. The butterfly would be gone when I returned. However, when the butterfly just kept hanging around, I decided to try taking a photograph. I got the camera and headed back out into the garden. Bucket decided she just had to come and greet me and, of course, she chose to come running down the aisle where the Gulf Fritillary was alit. When the butterfly flew, I figured that was the end of that. However, the butterfly returned to the same spot a few minutes later. I picked up my camera to try again, but only got off this distance shot before Rusty decided to blunder down this particular aisle. This time the Gulf Fritillary did not return.
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Sunday, June 17, 2007

Green Beans



We can finally stop holding our breaths and start counting our green beans. For the first time in two years it looks as if we're going to get plenty of green beans to eat fresh and put into the freezer.

Saturday's first picking was light, but there will be a larger harvest in a couple of days. Then comes a couple of stay-up-half-the-night-snapping-beans harvests. These Contender bush beans do tend to get all their production done in a relatively short period of time.

In case you are wondering: "Yes" we did have fresh green beans with our supper. "No" it is not possible for Jo to pick beans without Rusty and Bucket "helping". And, "yes" Jo always wears longs white gloves when picking green beans.

Actually, those aren't gloves Jo is wearing; they're a pair of my old socks with holes cut in toes so Jo's fingers will stick through. Jo is allergic to the green bean plants. Wearing protection on her hands and arms plus washing thoroughly when finished picking is enough to keep her from breaking out in a rash and itching.



Bucket and Rusty are right proud of the green beans they picked.
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Friday, April 20, 2007

Lettuce Planted

Photo by Marvin
April 18, 2007


Jo set out some transplants for our first crop of lettuce. She also planted some lettuce seeds into the garden for the second. Rusty supervised.
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Thursday, March 15, 2007

Helping In The Garden






































From March, 2007

Eager and reliable help in the garden is always appreciated. Bucket and Rusty are always eager to go to the garden, but their reliability is suspect.


The basic personalities and priorities in life of the two dogs come through loud and clear in these photos. Rusty is the one who craves affection and has come over to Jo for a hug. Bucket wants to eat something and thinks the plastic bag may contain something edible instead of the strawberry transplants that it actually holds. (Click on the photo of Bucket to enlarge it and you'll see that there's no doubt that eating is what she has on her mind.)
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Wednesday, March 14, 2007

No Strawberries This Year



One strawberry bed done and one to go.



I seriously doubt that we get any strawberries into the freezer this year -- not unless we buy some berries from a roadside produce vendor. After several years of good production, very few of our strawberry plants made it through last summer. I don't know if it was something we did or didn't do, the extreme dryness of last summer or if it was just the plants time to go into decline -- that happens with strawberries -- but it was time to start over with some new berry plants this year.

Jo ordered the new plants and was expecting to hear something regarding their shipping date. Instead, Federal Express delivered them Tuesday. The new arrivals needed to be planted in the garden ASAP, but of course, we had not done any of the necessary bed preparation yet. The strawberry beds were full of weeds. Time to start revising our daily agenda.

Jo began working on the beds, turning the soil over with a spading fork. She looked as if she was enjoying herself so much that I just couldn't resist joining in the fun. We eventually worked out a system where I turned over the soil and she broke up the soil and removed the weeds. Later, Jo went back and raked down the beds.

Turning over those beds should have been relatively easy. The soil has been mulched and amended enough that it's fairly loose -- as compared to the rest of our soil, anyway -- and we removed the rocks when we originally build the beds. However, a nearby sweet gum tree had found the nutrient rich soil of the strawberry beds to be an excellent location for sending its roots. Everyone knows that trees and gardens really don't mix, but having a couple of trees around the perimeter adds to our enjoyment of the garden, so they will stay, although the fate of that sweet gum was debatable while I was fighting with its roots.

We got both strawberry beds turned and raked down. Wednesday Jo will haul a little manure and plant the new strawberries. We may get a few berries this year, but it will be next year before they really start producing fruit.

The worst thing about the whole project was that even after all that time and work, I didn't get to check an item off my "To Do" list. Dealing with the strawberry beds hadn't even been added to my list yet. Oh, well. It's done.
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Thursday, March 08, 2007

Warm Wednesday Afternoon


With the temperature getting close to eighty degrees on Wednesday afternoon, Jo changed out of her sweatshirt before we took off on our afternoon walk. We took the camera on the walk because on Tuesday I'd spotted a dog-tooth violet bloom, the first we'd seen this spring. We didn't have the camera with us Tuesday, so we wanted to photograph the bloom Wednesday. However, the bloom was gone.

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Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Chainsaw: Rusty Lends A ... Ahhhhh ... Hand


I sat my chainsaw out on my "splitting stump" so I could work on it a little more. Before I got to work, Rusty came along, lifted a rear leg and peed on it. Although it expressed my sentiments exactly, Rusty's contribution to the cause didn't help get the saw running fast enough to cut any more than all my tinkering has.
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