As beautiful as it is here on Marshmallow Ranch, it doesn’t come without its issues. Besides being so far away from everything, there is just SO much to do to even begin to keep up with the maintenance of five acres. Mr. FixIt and I have taken to walking around the property of an evening to see what’s showing up. We flushed a baby bunny from one of the pollinator gardens last night. And we found a hole where something has burrowed in at the edge of one. Too big for a mouse or vole…too small for a bunny or a groundhog. Perhaps I need to get a trail camera out there to catch whatever it is.

Invasive Species: Chinese Yam

As we ventured up the hedgerow, I noticed rapid new growth on a vine I first noticed last year. Cinnamon Vine or Chinese Yam (Dioscorea polystachya) is an invasive species that I now need to go about trying to eradicate. It is a lot harder to get rid of unwanted vegetation without using chemicals, but I refuse to put chemicals on this ground. I’ll make up a batch of vinegar, salt, and Dawn dish soap and kill the vegetation, then I can go about digging out the roots. They grow and reproduce, not only by tubers in the ground, but also tubers that look like little potatoes n the vine itself. This isn’t going to be easy. I don’t know if we can live long enough to make a dent in what needs to be done here to be a good steward of the land, but we’ll do our level best.

Elderberry

In the meantime, an Elderberry bush has shown up intermingled with the Flowering Quince and Forsythia bushes. I don’t mind having those. You can make an elixir with elderberries that supports the immune system. And, the pollinator gardens are looking beautiful in their own right. The grasses stand a good two feet deep and all look so healthy. It just makes me so happy to walk down the paths I’ve cut through them, holding hands with my sweetheart.

As I sat here last evening writing my post out in the camper, my eye was drawn to the scene outside the screen door. Just before dark, the lightning bugs rise from the grass on cue. One of the evenings, I need to have my tripod ready and see if I can get some time lapse photos of them. The pool is looking really good. We are starting to see the bottom and the new sand is filtering it much better. We’re adding chlorine daily but there are other chemicals we need to use as well. We’ll take a sample into the pool place today to see what we need. We bought the last two boards (for now) for the deck. We’ll replace them as needed.

So, there’s a lot to keep up, but oh…the rewards are many. Listening to the tree frogs. The barred owl up the holler. The occasional night bird. The soft evening breeze feels delightfully cool. The smell of faraway rain. These are the rewards for jobs well done and make the doing worthwhile.

There is peace here.

🐝

“So we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?””

Hebrews 13:6 ESV

#Peace, #Work, #CountryLife