Is this Chicago?

Holy Tornados, Batman!  What's with all this wind?  We haven't been out to work at the farm this week because it's so windy and dusty right now.  Then there was the fire on the river yesterday.  I didn't get a picture, but it was only a few miles from the farm, blowing our direction so everyone in town smelled like Smokey the Bear.  I still don't know what was burning, but I hope is was all the stinkin' foxtails that are growing knee high around here.

Sorry -- didn't mean to sound like a bummer.  I do love weather, but some weather I particularly enjoy while I'm doing a specific activity.  For example:  It is delightful to quilt when it's raining or windy.  It's fabulous to go to bed at night during a thunderstorm.  Curled up reading when anything wet is coming down outside is great.  However, this Arizona native does NOT enjoy being outside when it's windy or lightening.  I don't mind being in the rain if I'm not on my way somewhere and I need NOT to look like a drowned rat.

Oh right - this is supposed to be a blog about our farmhouse.  Well, since there hasn't been much happen since the Posse came for the Great Muck-Out Weekend (#1).  We've only been back to water, weed and walk.  The photo at the end of this posting is our favorite path.  We have four Lady Banks yellow rose bushes right near the front gate of the Big House, then along the fence in the front yard we have two honeysuckle bushes.  We also have an almond tree I planted last summer and a new little apricot tree that's all by itself in the back yard.  So I try to water twice a week.

Since Hunnyman works so many hours, it has fallen to me to do yard maintenance.  I'm mostly OK with that, but I won't be out there once it gets hot.  Hot makes me grouchy.  So I need to capitalize on this weather (when the wind's not blowing).  I would rather pull weeds than poison them.  My most long time friend Nancy put it very eloquently when she offered one day to come pull the weeds in my front yard when we lived in Tempe.  It was more of a request.  It wasn't that she was a neighbor fearing her property values were shrinking due to the heinous nature of my yard; she really just likes to pull weeds.  She said there is something very gratifying about grabbing a weed right close to the ground, getting a fist full and feeling it slide out roots and all.  She's right -- it is extremely satisfying.  I figure that's why I would rather pull than poison.

A curious thing about the little apricot tree in the back - as I watered it last summer, I turned the hose on and let it run slowly.  When I went out an hour (or maybe six - I might have been quilting) later, an area about five feet square was now about 6 inches lower than it was before I watered.  It was most curious and unsettling.  We had developed sinkhole - a big one.  Then I saw the tail end of a snake slipping down into the chasm.  Yes, besides the newly lower real estate area, it appeared the sinking still may not be done.  I deduced that area of the back yard is basically a shelf about 6" thick and who knows how far back it goes before it becomes solid?  Seriously -- CREEPY.  Half of the well around the apricot tree had sunk, so I had to make it much smaller.  And, I don't leave the water running back there very long any more or walk on the iffy area.

So, back to snakes and weeds.  Well, last weekend while I was watering, I was pulling some weeds.  Hunnyman always kills them with poison but part of the yard is off limits because Sandy (Deuce) wants to put in a big garden in the fall.  I'm pretty sure Hman stays within his allowable kill zone, but the wind does it's own thing with the weed killer.  So, there are plenty of weeds at the farm should ever Nancy run out in Tempe.

On my first blog, I listed all the structures and promised to give more detail later.  So it's a good time to start.  I estimate that the front yard of the Big House is about 60' deep and maybe 100' wide.  With the exception of the plants growing near the fence and a few heirloom hollyhocks in one far corner, it's all Arizona native ground cover (dirt).  Wind + rain + dirt = weeds.  That's the prevailing formula for the farm yard right now.  When we were living out there, I was trying to work in little pockets to prettify the place (that's a Safford word).  But as much time as I spent on it, it's still a big dirt yard with a few things growing at the perimeters.  This picture was taken two summers ago.  I know that because the big tree behind the house is gone.  It had some rather disturbing problems, so, sadly, we had to take it down.  That's another story for another time.  Anyway, if I took a picture today, except for that tree, it would look much the same.  That's Wyatt in the yard.


Oh yeah - The Snake.  I had been out tromping in the tall weeds in the backyard in my shorts and flipflops pulling the tallest weeds.  That's sort of a mind game I play with myself -- I have to pull at least 30 weeds before I can do what I really want to do, which is plant something or paint something or sew something -- and I always pull the tallest ones first.  So I pulled about a 15 gallon bucket full of weeds and walked around to the front of the big house.  I still had a hand full of weeds because I'd filled the bucket (I'm waaaay past my 30 quota at this point).  In the front of the big house, I keyed in on the biggest, greenest weed and thought I would get rid of it.  So I reached down and just before my hand got about 1" from the ground I saw the snake.  SCARED THE *@#! OUTTA ME!  I remember saying, "Holy Crap, that's a snake!" (or something like that).  There was no one there to hear me but I felt the need to vocalize what I saw.  I didn't know what kind of snake it was, but it was coiled and apparently, sleeping.  It didn't move (yeah!).  I dropped my weeds and backed up.  I stared at it from all angles and then went and got my camera phone.  Those suck.  You can't tell what you're really taking a picture of.  I wanted to try and let Hunnyman see the markings.  I didn't want it to be a rattlesnake.  I decided I'd just leave him alone.  So I moved the hose to the next thirsty recipient and went back in the house and did a little more sewing while I continued to water.  I was there for a good 3 hours longer and every time I went outside, I checked and that snake was still there.  Asleep.  (maybe he's dead...)

So when I got home I looked him up on the internet.  It wasn't a king snake or a bull snake.  It wasn't a coral snake or a garter snake.  Yep - it was a rattler.  So, Hunnyman went out before he went to work the next morning and he was gone.  You know what that means?  He wasn't dead after all.

The morale of this long and winding story is that I will no longer pull weeds in my flip flops and dishwashing gloves.  I will have my steel toed rubber boots, my long leather gloves and a shovel close by.  I knew Hman would ask why I didn't kill that snake, but I didn't want to kill a good snake.  A rattlesnake, on the other hand is a different story.  Besides, I don't know if I could drive a shovel down into a snake if he wasn't bothering me.  My favorite sister-in-law Janet can -- she whacks rats and frogs (and snakes) that have the misfortune of getting caught in her back yard.  And she does it in her flip flops.  She's like a superhero.  I should make her a cape.  

I hope you have a groovy weekend full of gentle breezes, maybe a little rain and a lot of whatever toots your horn.

Love to you all!