I’m still eating my way through the pandemic. Pandemic Pounds are justifiable…things are sucky…eat ice cream…liberally. The variety du jour is Cookies and Cream. *swoon* Maybe I’ll get the ice cream freezer out and make some homemade! Of course…I’ll have to find the ice cream freezer first. *sigh*

It continues to be hot and sticky here in West Virginia. And one of the true upsides of that is…the grass has gone dormant. Well, it’s really more like…it’s gone crispy. Seriously, whereas just three weeks ago, you could sit and watch the grass grow, now there are large areas in the lawn that crunch under your feet when you walk. The only thing that seems to be growing in the lawn is the flowers on the clover. They pick their little heads up and the honeybees glide from one to another all day long. When it’s like this, we really don’t have to mow nearly as often. It’s been almost two weeks here at the Ponderosa and it still doesn’t need it. It’s been the same amount of time at the farm, but it is cooler there and in a holler so we mowed it yesterday morning before the sun got things too toasty. 

As I walked out of the house to go to the car, I heard a noise I didn’t recognize. I stood stock still and listened, running the sound through my memory banks. It was metallic but it wasn’t mechanical, per se. Was it coming from inside the house? Was it the sliding closet doors in the guest bedroom when Mr. FixIt was looking for a clean shirt? Suddenly, I heard it again and I knew what it was. The live trap! I’ve been trying to catch the really big raccoon that kept bending the trap up and escaping. The trap was set for the last few evenings with no results. Till yesterday morning.

There he was…in all his splendor! A brute of a raccoon. As I approached the trapped, I spoke softly to him, but he rammed himself into the cage, snarling and spitting at me. He was a monster! I picked up the cage by the handle and it had to weigh twenty pounds, at least. I had to hold the cage out away from me because he kept reaching his almost human-like foot out to get at me. We put him in the back of the truck, loaded the tractor up on the trailer, and headed to the farm. There is a pull-off out a two-lane country road on our way to the farm. It’s right on a river. There are no houses in the immediate vicinity…just a lot of countryside and hills. The perfect habitat for an errant raccoon who does not need to be eating my garden.

We lifted the cage out gently and set the opening towards the woods with the river beyond. Mr. FixIt had a long pole with which to gently urge the critter away from us, should he decide to come after us. I needed to open the cage, but didn’t necessarily want my hands near the opening. I happened to have a pair of loppers in the truck and I was able to hold onto the trap door and open it from a couple of feet away. We needn’t have been worried. As soon as there was an inch of space between that door and the trap, the raccoon took off like a shot into the tall grass, running down towards the riverbank.

Mr. FixIt and I congratulated ourselves on a humane transfer. Many people “dispatch” raccoons because they get into the chickens and gardens. It’s a country life…and varmints are often taken care of rather than go to the trouble of trapping them and moving them to other places. I have been known to do the same, but as I get older, and my heart gets softer, I let them live another day.

So, we had the raccoon. I found another beautiful bright orange box turtle when I was mowing. I only moved him out of the way of the blades. We saw some gorgeous birds…Cedar Waxwings. I don’t believe I have ever seen them before. They were hanging out down by the locks on Wednesday evening. They have a little tuft of feathers on the top like a Cardinal. But their feathers are so smooth and sleek with distinctive markings on their backs, wings, and tails. I was thrilled to see them. (The pictures of the bird and the turtle were lifted from the internet.)

I love how the flowers at the farm change during the summer. This weeks’ beauties are a beautiful scarlet-colored “Bee Balm” on the bank by the driveway. And the beautiful lavender “Rose of Sharon” over on the creek-bank at the corner of the house. My heart sings every time I get to go out there.

We were done and back home before noon and spent the rest of the day in quieter pursuits in order to stay cool. We are trying to stay on top of the watering to keep the garden going. Right now it’s twice a day. We truly need rain…a good soaking rain. I need to mulch the garden but I don’t want to use pine needle mulch or anything toxic. I have a huge roll of craft paper. I’m going to put a couple of layers out between the rows of tomatoes to try to keep some of this precious moisture in the ground.

❤️

“I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys.”

Song of Songs 2:1 NIV