Yesterday was probably the last day till spring with the thermometer hitting 80 degrees. Rain was scheduled to arrive in the wee hours this morning and with it come the more seasonable temperatures. This late stretch of warmth afforded us the opportunity to finish up a few more projects around the Ponderosa. 

West Virginia is lush and green with annual rainfall that rivals a tropical rainforest. Consequently, plants grow like crazy here and if you don’t stay on top of it, you can soon feel like Jack and the Beanstalk. Such was the case with the North end of our house. We have a huge hydrangea bush that took up a full third of the wall and wrapped around the front corner. There is an old television antenna and, unfortunately, a combination of wild grape and Engelmann Ivy climbed it to the top with abandon. The base of some of those vines were a full three inches thick and woody.

This was one of the many jobs on our to-do list and it finally got bumped up to first priority. Last Week, Mr. FixIt and his buddy Harry fixed the soffits under the eaves to keep the critters out of the attic this winter. That’s when they decided to tear out the vines and hydrangea this week. Actually, I didn’t realize they were going to scalp it quite this much. I was working inside and my sweetheart asked me out to see their handiwork. The nice thing about West Virginia…it won’t be too long and there will be growth again. We’ll need to salt the ground where the grape vine is because it’s harder than the dickens to kill.

We still have to get the antenna down, but they needed a third pair of hands so it will just have to wait. We’re getting rain today…1-1.5 inches, to be exact. So it will be an inside day. Time to get those shelves downstairs cleaned off so I can store all these beautiful jars of food I canned this summer.

We ended the day with a trip to get Chinese carry out. We sat in front of the old one room schoolhouse and had a picnic while the sun set over the ball fields. It was a good and productive day. Farm life…even just a little five acre plot with a barn cat…is a good life. It’s the life I’ve always dreamed of.

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“My friends, be patient until the Lord returns. Think of farmers who wait patiently for the autumn and spring rains to make their valuable crops grow.”

James 5:7 CEV