And So On.......

Just stuff.

 This is my barn, the photo was taken a few years ago. Dairy barn becomes horse barn.

 

Baby Zing (WF Last of Roses), my orphan foal, born June 2, 2001. I think back to the seeming insurmountable task of keeping him alive and then getting him to understand he is a horse. He turned into more than I could ever have imagined or hoped for.

Zing and Kristina, his last trainer,  2012.

I had an eggplant to use.

We had a tornado alert last night, crazy wind and then rain. No tornado, but the weather was intense. I see this becoming our new normal. A small town in southern Minnesota got wiped out, a town I hadn't heard of. Tornados in May...not the old normal. We are adjusting what's normal.

It's a dreary, windy day. The horses love it, the no-see-ems have  hatched and are bothersome to them. Next will come gnats. Windy days are welcome in their world. It's also cool, another welcome as far as they are concerned. They may be desert horses, but they are from Minnesota. 

Monday

A bizarre sensation pervades a relationship of pretense. No truth. A simple morning's greeting and response appear loaded with innuendo and fraught with implications. Each nicety becomes more sterile and each withdrawal more permanent.

-Maya Angelo

Perfectly captures the times in which we live. 

Be Like Frieda

Frieda believes one should stop and smell the lilacs.

 

Sunshine, No Lolipops

I got three side dish meals from an eggplant gratin I made a few days ago. It's now gone.

 It took me years to learn to eat beef any other way than well-done. 

It's a bright sunshiny day. I'm not feeling as low as I did yesterday. Sunshine helps. I read an article a couple of days ago on protein. It seems seniors (I don't think of myself as one, but I guess I am) need more of it. And those carrying weight like me need even more. I'm incorporating cannellini beans in our lunch today with the remainder of the roasted peppers from a couple of days ago. I'll come up with something. 

Anyway....it's a beautiful day, I'm not in the depths of despair and one of the barn cats who went missing is home and just fine. He's not talking. Be happy, eat well.......

Civic Responsibility

Many of us are feeling a deep sadness and a sense of futility. I know I am. I've chosen to not write about it, I find I cannot. What I would say I've said so many times over so many years....and yet again, here we are.

So, I go to my place of some comfort.

Find your place of comfort. Come November, vote. Like someone's life depends on it.

 

Try to Find the Good

I was outside for part of the afternoon yesterday supervising Mark. I had lots of plans in my mind. My back cancelled them. I did take some photos, it's more difficult in sunshine to see what you are doing with a phone camera.

I planted these trees in 2008 along the indoor area, now hay and machine shed. They were small.

Keetah's out of here

We have compost that has turned to soil. Mark is adding fresh soil to the old water tanks I plant zucchini in. 

This was the outdoor arena. It hasn't been a riding arena since 2012, I used it as a large vegetable garden for four years, ending in 2017. The fence line became overgrown with wild grapevine, Mark pulled it off last month. So many of the posts had rotted and just toppled over without the support of the vines.  

Mark is too busy to get the fencing taken down right now. Realistically, it could be July before it's gone. 

These junipers grew so large. They and some of the other conifers are showing stress from the drought we had last year.

Madame Apple Tree. She is old and heirloom, she produces when she wants to. When she does the apples are small and sweet. Bill says he can't remember the tree not being there and Bill is 72. We need to cut the suckers out, they aren't helping the old tree.

So much horridness is happening in this world and this country I thought I'd take a little photo stroll through the good, the bad and the ugly at my home. 

 

Echo of the Past

 I was prompted to recall this post I wrote in 2009 when I read something on Boud's post yesterday. I had scrolled through my old posts when I restarted this blog, curious about what I had been thinking and writing those years past. There was a phrase I read yesterday about our not being able to see what is on the inside. How we can see something and think it's idyllic and wish. It brought this to mind. What was my inside 13 years ago.

   Excellence is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.

John W. Gardner

The blogosphere hosts an abundance of smart, educated, interesting and unique individuals. There is a range of Ph.D, JD, MD, you and me and everything in between. People who travel all over the world, often to far off places, people who live in countries not of their birth. People native to countries that I will never visit. Artists, writers, dreamers, smart, witty, urbane people who can delight you, make you think beyond your borders and people within your borders who through their intellect make you wonder about their lives and your own.

So as I explore these places, these often deeply personal spaces, sometimes flip and irreverent glimpses of life, I wonder at my own ordinariness. Where, I wonder, do I fit into this unbelievable arena of extraordinary? I read their words, I am pulled into their places and I think, whoa. I'm so ordinary. 

  Just Jules    is doing something called 'I Am' and you fill in the blank. I must put a photo of my response on my blog on white paper in black marker. Those of you who have followed me from the start know I am Wonder Woman and you know why. My answer got me thinking about my extraordinary ordinariness. How we are all extraordinary, but we don't look and see. We see the lives of others and we sigh. That is so much different from my ordinary life. And it is. It really is, and it probably is wonderful and exciting and fulfilling. But in some way it is also ordinary to the person living it.

I thought of my ordinary life. I thought about the things in my life that are extraordinary and yet so ordinary.

The ordinary things: giving birth to a child and rearing him to a kind, productive manhood. Or witnessing and sometimes aiding in dozens of lives being born to my mares over the long years. Listening to that nicker as mama talks to her baby for the first time, seeing that small body attached to so much leg struggle to rise and stay standing. Hearing the first suckling sound as baby finds the source of life in mama's udder. Watching them run for pure joy and being so fortunate to see them thrive.

Facing the extraordinary that sometimes happens in an ordinary life. Working in concert with volunteer firefighters to free a pregnant mare from a collapsed pole barn on a February morning. Feeling the rush throughout the body of relief when she is up and out of the wreckage and alive. Then the heartbreaking sadness when the filly she carried and nurtured dies at four months.

Ordinary on a breeding farm, but not in my core, to watch my foundation mare bleed to death after foaling her colt. Realizing I can't mourn the mare, I have her son to raise. Keeping him alive and raising him to be Zing. So I mourn the mare still, because I never got the opportunity to do it when I needed to. So I cry as I write about her.  And I wonder in amazement at the foal I raised to this gentle horse.

I have managed to stay married to my second husband for many years. This is not always easy, I think because it becomes so ordinary. Maintaining a marriage is ordinary and very extraordinary.

Being bitten, stomped, tossed, pushed, trampled, dragged. And I still like raising horses. An often ordinary day on a breeding farm. Watching the breeding horses talk to one another over the fence line and knowing its not all ordinary, sometimes it's magic. 

Holding an animal in your arms as it takes its first or its last breath, around here that is ordinary. And it is another moment of magic. The coming of life and the final wisp of breath as life leaves its shell. It's just as important to tend to dying as to arriving. Very ordinary, but so extraordinary. 

 Knowing I'm so much more than I ever thought I was, but realizing I'm less than I could be. And having to live with it.

And I am Wonder Woman because I am. I don't live in an exotic location, I don't spend my days with clever people. I spend my days with clever horses and annoying dogs. I go to these places via the internet and I yearn a bit for the lives so different from my own, these people who look beautiful, are funny and smart and chic. I look at my ever expanding waist, my feet encased in work boots, my gnarled hands with dirt under the nails and my wardrobe that consists of elastic waistbands and tee shirts. I tell stallions to put it away, I give a balding horse his herbs and hope he will be OK, I pull burrs out of manes, notice when they are sick, spend my life in their company. I often believe I speak their language better than my own. I made the call to live this ordinary life. They in turn made me Wonder Woman. I am deeply grateful.

Next Time I'll Bring the Wine

It was chilly and overcast yesterday, perfect for soup. But then, isn't everyday?

 

I thought I'd try a video, the soup always steams so much photos often seem blurred.

I have been finding it rather strange being here. I'm new, even though I'm not. I had a decade-long absence, I had a traumatic brain injury, I got older. I'm not the person I was when I started, which isn't unusual, but I didn't become this person along the way with those of you I followed from the start. I don't know your story for the past decade. I show up, life has moved on and I feel... odd. My life has been the square peg fitting into the round hole, but this is a different odd. Perhaps I'm drawn back in time, before smartphones, when I used my Mac exclusively, before I got dragged into Facebook because nearly everyone I knew here migrated there. Maybe because I dumped Facebook three years ago and spend very little time with Instagram, this has sort of become a return to the 2000s, leaving me feeling a little disoriented. Different from how I would feel if I had stayed all along? Anyway, I feel a bit like a stranger in a strange land, just showing up and I forgot to bring the wine.

So, I post food photos. I think I was more interesting once, but that could be memory making me more than I was. 

Life Things

These two are fast friends. They are Frieda and Keetah, so perhaps that was the start of their connection. They also have matching coats. Frieda rubs on Keetah often, there is no threat emanating from this big girl. Keetah did live with a cat before coming to live with us. Murphy, the cat, went to live with my son and has helped their very nervous cat calm down.

I got the bread making thing rolling again after a week of store bread. It was a high of 52F degrees yesterday, which helped prompt me. I tend to slack off on bread making over the summer. Somehow heating an oven doesn't have the same feeling for me when it's godawful hot and humid. Mark got happy when he saw the loaf cooling. He's so easily pleased!

Speaking of Mark, he spent all of yesterday and will do the same today, lopping saplings along the pasture fencing. We've always had to control the woodlands desire to spread but we have noticed a marked difference over the past eight-to-ten years. It's almost uncontrollable. Softwood trees like our warmer, more humid weather.   It's a lot of work for him.

The geldings got their first two hours on pasture yesterday. I have to let them get accustomed to grass, I cannot do it as gradually as is advised because there are too many of them, but I give it three days, increasing the time on grass by an hour per day. If there were fewer of them or if I had much more pasture land they could just be left on pasture and get used to it gradually, but I don't so they can't. When they are settled I will start the process with the mares. My stallion gets to do it the easy way, as he has a pasture to himself which is large enough his grazing won't affect the grass growth. It was much more work when I had up to forty horses here! Yes, I was not sane.

It's 49F degrees and cloudy, not springlike at all, unless we are talking Minnesota spring. Which we are, so never mind. I lit a fire last evening and will again tonight. I don't want to run the furnace. Which as I write this I hear it, so, yah.

I think I'm going to make soup for lunch. We have a crusty bread, it's chilly outside and Mark will have spent a morning working outside. Sounds like a good plan.

Ciao, bella

A Tale of Food

We had a nice, easy dinner last night of chicken, potatoes and onion made on a sheet pan.

I really appreciate the simplicity of a sheet pan and a moderately hot oven.

An interesting person, Boud, I follow had a link to a podcast I listened to   onbeing 

I found it interesting and I learned a couple of new things. I learned of microbiomes several years ago through a documentary on the gut and how absolutely important they are to our health. I didn't know there were these organisms living in the colon feeding on things like fiber and pointing out how essential to our well-being fiber actually is. And...how little is in the standard American diet. When I had influenza and then pneumonia I spent a considerable amount of hours streaming and much of that time was with documentaries, often about food and health.

I changed my diet after the financial crash in 2008. I had turned to mostly processed food after we moved here because I was so busy I had neither time nor energy to cook. I changed not because I was thinking of my health but rather my wallet. I was in the grocery store, picked up a jar of marinara and actually looked at the price. I knew how to make sauce. I knew how to cook. I simply had stopped. That was the beginning of my redemption. 

We do not eat highly processed food and haven't since that lightbulb moment in the grocery aisle. I make bread, whole grain, mostly, and try hard to get those vegetables in. The ones with high fiber and bright colors. I am insulin resistant and have been for years, but in all those years I have not tipped into diabetes. I watch my carbs and I do not eat foods filled with those things we can't pronounce that all come down to being sugar in one form or another. 

All of this is to get to here: I had results from an extensive blood panel  yesterday. Speaking to the doctor she said looking at your blood work no one would know your age. She said I am remarkably healthy. She said this knowing I am obese! I pointed that out, the response was the body doesn't lie. I told her I didn't know about that. So, I thought about this and then listened to this podcast and wondered if my dietary habits are why this obese person doesn't show the expected results of an obese person in blood work, nor did a stress test for that matter? I'm going to think so, because I can't think of another reason. My parents had multiple health problems, multiple medications by my age. I take no meds. 

The phrase "You are what you eat" was brought up in the podcast. It's true, isn't it.

Yesterday Mark got the composted manure on this flower bed and an area of foundation planting in the front of the house. I got a little more weeding done, as well. We had a light rain overnight, today is breezy, overcast and chilly. 

Morning glories reseed themselves every year and climb twine I tie to the electrical box. It's where the power line comes in, the box is front and center. Nothing I can do about that.

Dinner last evening was linguine with a sauce made from tomatoes I roasted and froze last year.

I got results from blood work I had done last week. I'm told I'm remarkably healthy according to my blood work. I said "tell that to my body". She said the body doesn't lie and no one would know my age based on my blood panels. I got the same response after x-rays and an MRI, no arthritis in my hips and very little deterioration of the lower lumbar. Yet, I can't walk any distance nor can I stand very long. Mark tells me it's Kate (my mother) sticking pins in me. He may be right....

Nothing Much

Warning....butter!

 And bacon fat.

Last evenings dinner, grilled pork chop, sweet potato and Brussels sprouts roasted in bacon fat. Accompanied by some butter. I never eat the whole chop, I usually use the remainder with faro and sweet peppers for another meal. I did eat that sweet potato, it was probably one of the best I've had. I bought them from Misfits and I'll buy them again.

It's another nice, cool day. Our neighbor, Bill, he who takes care of us, brought back Mark's chainsaw this morning and then proceeded to cut up a large limb laying on the ground. He is a doer.

Today will be another yard work day for me. Clients keep getting in the way of my wrangling Mark, pesky people. That's about it from here.

Girls Girls Girls

The girls in my life.

Keetah looking at me like I cannot be trusted.

I tried to get a photo of those magnificent ears, but a vehicle rumbled down the road just as I snapped the photo. The head pops up a little higher. She takes the job of guardian seriously.

Frieda the Brat Cat was not to be ignored. She wanted in on the photos.

 I then hear this one mewling. I had to take her photo from a distance. She loves to show her disdain for me and would have walked away if I started to approach her.

It's another nice day. We had rain overnight, the sun is shining and the temperature is cool.

Weeds, Wine and Wanton Ways

Nature has had her wanton way with me. I'm not taking it laying down. Well, sitting down, but she's getting my raised first. Yes, she is.

As you can see, the Minnesota Hurricane we had at the beginning of the month knocked over part of the fountain and loosened the flexible vinyl fencing. This flower bed is silently but desperately calling for help. I hear. I'm coming. Maybe tomorrow.

I finished the flower bed I was weeding yesterday. I didn't think I would, there was so much to do, but I did. I was so pleased with myself, it's been quite awhile since I have been able to do much of anything. This is a fist bump! I was tired and in no frame of mind to cook, so what I had planned got put on hold. Instead I made something that only took as long as boiling water and cooking pasta. I put some bread in the air fryer for a quick garlic bread and called it a day.

Today started slow. I went out for an hour of mowing in the morning, came in, heated soup and intended to do laundry. Instead I went back out and mowed the encroaching prairie I call lawn. I spent another four hours doing that. I'm not finished. It's a good thing I had kind of an interesting life for 41 years before we moved here because I certainly don't have one now! 

I am seeing light at the end of my tunnel. That I could weed the garden tells me I can weed another. And so on. I'll get there, I feel I will. I did heavy guilt Mark into stopping his fidgeting with farm equipment and weed a bed in front of the house. 

This is the news from my end of the world. My Big Dog wants to eat and think I want a glass of wine....

Weeds to the Left of Me, Weeds to the Right. Here I am, Stuck in the Middle With Weeds......

I spent an hour weeding this morning.

Saplings growing in the rambling rose. That's fun to clean up.. 

I was not exaggerating when I said my flower beds are a disaster. This is one of the better ones.

I'll be heading back out after I finish my tea. I am a slow weeder, that hasn't changed, so I'm not sure I will finish this today. Mark was going to weed but somehow has been distracted by vines. We have black clay soil which is about as bad as it can get. I have mulched my beds forever with composted manure. I know it sounds weird, but it works. Lay it on thick and it keeps the weeds down, the soil moist and it helps amend the soil, too. And...I have a whole lot of it just waiting for me.

I made soup before I went outside this morning. I actually thought ahead, so we had lunch waiting for us. Sometimes I have a brilliant mind. 

 

Isn't it Organic....

I took myself out this morning to buy tomato plants. I saw a private party selling them for $1.75/plant and the plant list had San Marzano. Unfortunately for me they sold the last five to one person yesterday. I did pick up: Rutgers, aka Jersey Tomato; Yellow Pear; Amana Orange; Black Beauty. I also got a zucchini plant.

When I came home I went online looking for San Marzano but they are sold out everywhere. I usually buy my eggplants online because I have a wider choice, so I did some online plant shopping: Midnight Queen and Black Beauty Eggplant; Summer Squash; German Winter Thyme, new to me; Sweet Basil, Italian Parsley; Albion Strawberry. I overwintered sage and rosemary, I'll go to the nursery next week for Italian and Thai basil. I also buy mint to put as a trailing plant in my hanging baskets on the veranda.

Look what I found when I was pulling out the dead wood from the Russian sage plant.

It's a tiny horse hair nest with a little organic material and a piece of blue plastic. It must have blown out of the Norway pine by that flower bed. Such workmanship!

I spent about an hour pulling weeds in one flower bed. I didn't get far. 

I have developed a intolerance for heat, even when it's not all that hot. If I feel ok I'll go out later when the garden isn't in full sun and put in another hour. Mark told me he will put off hauling manure until Monday in order to clean up the flower beds tomorrow. He's been dealing with trees and vines and all matter of organic mess. 

Plants are quite expensive, like everything else, so I am going to use what I have for my flower pots. I have an abundance of wild catnip and wild violets. I'm going to put these in my pots. I'll buy a few marigold and petunia plants, but the majority will be what I dig up around the farm. Even when they aren't blooming both of those plants have nice foliage. I cannot justify the cost of annuals. Before I can put the pots on the veranda (we got into the habit of calling the open front porch 'the veranda' because we have another porch, which is screened), I need to paint the ceiling and the floor. I started in 2020 and then my mother died and that was that. Last year I did nothing. We have a lot of catch-up around this old place.

I guess that's the report from the Northland today. If I survive the weeding I'll probably have more to say tomorrow.

Violets, Creeping Charlie and Swans

I never fail to be amazed by the seemingly instant changes in the landscape. Last week there wasn't a sign of life and now the wild violets are beginning to fill the spaces amongst the red twig dogwoods and the dogwoods themselves are leafing out. Last week they weren't even budded. In my past days of blogging I had a friend in Australia. She was dumbfounded by our climate, she truly could not grasp how someplace can have -30 F then be green and full of blooms a few months later. I have no idea, I just know it's my normal.

Minnesota Public Radio this morning had a conversation about Creeping Charlie and how to get rid of it. I embrace it, as well as all the wild violets which show up everywhere. I am no longer lawn centric. It would be impossible even if I wanted to try. Between the size of it and the desire of the natural landscape of woodland constantly inserting itself I would be driven mad with trying. I have a large patch of Charlie that's grown out from a tree line on the north end of my yard. I think it's lovely, with its lush dark green foliage and purple flowers. Another really large area is in front of the pole barn attached to the main barn. When this stuff takes over it chokes out the grass, e voila! I don't have to mow that spot. Mowing my lawn takes a minimum of four hours, I appreciate the help!

I know it's No Mow May, another impossible. I would need a farmer to cut and bale if I didn't mow all of May. I think it's a perfect idea for city lots but not for a couple of acres. When we lived in St. Paul most of my yard was garden, only enough green space for the dogs. That was almost 30 years ago!

We had another stormy evening/night yesterday. We have a large pond on the edge of the lower pasture at the moment. In the past when this has happened swans have congregated there. I'd like to see that again. Years ago I was in the barn and heard loud bird sounds that weren't geese. I went out to see what they were and it was at least one hundred swans flying northwest. I was awestruck. That was the first and last time I saw that. It was in the days before smartphones, so no photos, just amazement. The next few days will be mild, mid to upper 60s, so we can hopefully get some yard work done. We meaning he. I can mow.

I could ramble on forever, it seems, but I guess it's time to bring my chatter to an end. Until the next time....

 

A Humdinger

First I want to say that I found yesterday that comments from several people were going to spam. I'll make it a point to check that folder everyday.

We had  a BIG Storm yesterday evening. There were tornado warnings but we didn't have one come through. At first I thought the roaring sound was wind, which was intense, ranging from 50 - 80 miles per hour. The wind suddenly stopped but the roaring didn't, it was up in the atmosphere. This storm was intense. We had almost 2" of rain and some small hail. On my way to have blood drawn this morning we saw trees uprooted and a couple of trees sheared off. We were lucky.This photo was taken through the window so there is reflection but you can see the rain. More strong storms with damaging wind and hail forecast for tonight. It's been a wild couple of months. 

Stormy Weather, Bill and Out of Warranty

Dinner last night was good. Asparagus, fennel, a little goat cheese and fennel pesto.

Last week we had early March weather. This week we have July temperatures. I was able to mow the lawn for a couple of hours this morning, before a thunderstorm rolled in. I got a little over a third done. It's supposed to storm all evening and night so no mowing tomorrow. It just started to hail, poor horses. We didn't have any warning this was coming our way.

I think Covid has changed a lot of us. My neighbor, he who adopted us years ago because he felt we needed looking after, came over yesterday. He spent about an hour talking about the state of our country, the state of his family and whether the fields were dry enough for planting. Somehow the life seems to have been sapped out of him. I would guess he'd say the same about me. So much isolation is difficult. I'm a loner by my nature, but this much was too much even for me. I really hope the spark reappears in Bill and in me. Bill has made living in the closed society we found here better.

This round of storming just passed. The horses didn't have to endure much hail. I would have liked to finish mowing, but that's how it goes. 

I have an early morning appointment for a blood draw tomorrow and I think that will be it for the day. It's going to reach 90 degrees tomorrow, which is too much for me. I have heat intolerance, it started about six years ago. I originally thought it was medication I was taking, but I don't take any meds, not for five years, and I still have it. I think I needed an extended warranty.

So much for rambling thought.

Last evening we had cod baked in foil. Hiding behind there is quinoa. I usually fry cod, I think this would have benefited from opening the foil and turning on the broiler for a couple of minutes. It was good, but it presents a little off.

 

Today will be my annual Grade the Driveway Day. We have a few pot holes. I know I go on about the state of my property, but I have to again. Because it bugs me and my damn body won't allow me to fix it. I can sit on the skid loader, although I can't climb up now, I need a step stool...BAH! We were in winter a week ago and now the lawn needs mowing. I do not need a step stool to get on the mower.

That's about all I have here in crabby land. Oh, it's been hot and humid. Did I mention last week was still winter?

Deficit of Sparkle

A poor photo, but oh well. I changed my mind and made a tri tip roast instead of cod for dinner last evening. The roasted fennel and cheese would have benefitted from some feta. It's not always a win.

It rained hard all morning. Now it's just cloudy and windy. I'm in a blah mood, weather and isolation combined over so long a time add up to ennui for sure. It's Monday, so it's laundry day. The big excitement of my life!

I did talk to my son yesterday, that was nice. He's busy with work and his life. He wondered if Mark had a time set to retire. He didn't realize Mark is semi-retired. He will work as long as he still has clients, he enjoys the contact and it keeps his mind sharp. It also helps pay to feed 15 horses.

That's about it from here. I think something needs folding.

Fronds, Rain and Refrigeration

Last evening was our first homemade meal in days. The refrigerator saga came to an end on Friday.

I made pesto with fennel fronds, pan fried chicken and sautéed asparagus in the pan with the chicken. Easy-peasy.

It rained overnight and into morning. It's now just another dreary day in the Northland. I tried to weed a garden yesterday but couldn't. We have, perhaps, the worst soil; black clay. This stuff will suck you in and knock you down when wet. Then dry to concrete. It's nearly impenetrable when it is dry. I'll try again tomorrow. 

The refrigerator melodrama finally came to its' desired end late Friday morning. Two very friendly men took old faithful away and brought in, hopefully, new faithful. It has less cubic feet, fits into the space better and will force me into being more efficient with food. Overall, I am currently happy with it, once I figured out where everything works best inside. As I said, I can cook again. I have cod for dinner and will bake those fennel I got the fronds from with cheese. Mark acted like dinner last evening was the best he'd ever had, a few days of fast food was enough for him!

Time to mix bread dough and pretend to be productive.

Ciao Amiche 

Ago

This was the last year I had a vegetable garden, 2016

I had influenza the winter of 2017, I got very ill and then contracted pneumonia. I spent half of that year ill. I never really felt I recovered myself after that.

These lovely things are choking out what the grass isn't. This is a photo from a couple of years ago.

A photo of what the phlox is doing.

This is a couple of years ago, Last year the phlox had over-taken these, as well.

How I now plant herbs and vegetables. This is sweet little Mona, one of the barn cats. She refused to be enticed into the house. She has her own mind.

I'm heading out to weed a smaller flower bed. It's overwhelming when nature has had its way for a couple of years. We live in a place which wants to be forest. Parts of Minnesota are prairie, but large parts are not, it's forest land. We live in what would be a softwood forest. The trees and grassland never give in, they will not be conquered. The best we can do is hold it at bay. When we don't for a couple of years, we are conquered. I'm going to attempt to regain some ground in this everlasting struggle of human against flora, fool that I am.