Active {Five Minute Friday}

I am desiring to have a garden again. I miss growing things.

I tried raised beds thinking it’d work against both the insidious grass and the gophers.  The grass and weeds took over no matter the precautions I took, which included weed fabric and hardware cloth.

I tried a regular garden in the ground for several summers and it just got to be too much for me fighting against the grass that seemingly grew overnight.  I was hurting so badly and exhausted. Due to this fact along with the knowledge that we were going camping in the middle of the critical growing season, I decided to take a break from gardening.

I am now chomping at the bit to grow a garden again.  But, I’m going to try something different, which is elevated garden beds.    I plan to have one or two elevated beds under (or near) the crepe myrtle trees for the shade-loving plants and a few out in the direct sunlight.

I’ll still have to tend to the plants regularly; but, hopefully, my fight against the insidious grass will be over.  At least, they won’t be able to sneak into the garden beds from underneath.

I’m looking forward to going shopping for some wood and supplies along with building some garden boxes.  I plan to purchase and build them one-by-one.  Hopefully, I’ll have at least three if not more by the time growing season rolls around.

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Framers Friday: Your World

Stack of Fabric

A haphazard pile of quilting fabric waiting to be put away.

I had a tough time deciding between three different pictures and finally just went with this one for my submission.

Lime Ride 2 & 3

Both shot Downtown San Antonio, Texas

By the way, I would NOT advocate riding with earbuds.  You’re in the middle of busy traffic and do not need to be distracted.

I did not spend a lot of time on these pictures.  But, I am proud of these as they show the progress I’ve made.  Maybe a year or two from now, my attempts will be spectacular? The title is taken from the brand name of the scooters.

Deep {Five Minute Friday}

Stuck Again!
(Shot with Canon Camera on October 10, 2019, for 52Frames’ “Your World” Photography Challenge.  This is a distant alternate.}

The earth is extremely dry from a long drought.  The land is now sinking sand.  It did not help that the property was overgrown. The yard tractor would stop and sink down in the earth.

When the tractor got stuck the first time¹, it sank deep and I had great difficulty getting it to move again.  I first tried to use sheer muscle power to make it move.  It would rock back and forth but not budge.  I grabbed a shovel. I made a little trench behind the sunken tire. I then tried to push it back out of the pit.  It worked like a charm.

The next-to-the-last time I managed to get stuck required me to dig deep inside for a solution as both digging a trench and putting a board down did not work.  I tried going backward and then forward. The tractor moved maybe five inches before getting stuck again².

I wasn’t going to give up.  I refused to give up.  However, I took a break as I was exhausted. I pondered and prayed for a bit while examining the situation.

I realized that the right side may not be getting the traction needed to get it moving properly.  So, I came up with a solution.  It’d be dangerous as it’d require me to place a foot on the left planter bed beside the tractor and push which would allow the right side to gain traction.  The first time I tried this, it moved a fraction of an inch and then the motor cut off. I sat there feeling discombobulated wondering why.

I remembered I couldn’t get off the seat due to a safety feature that automatically cuts the motor. So, I kept my butt planted in the seat the second time around. That did the trick. I finally freed the thing.  I immediately got off the tractor with the feeling of utter joy throwing my hands up in the air with a Hallelujah.

(Shot with my Android phone and cropped.)

It’s amazingly weird to discover after two days of mowing and five times getting stuck in sinking sand that I am a lot healthier than I was two years ago or even a year ago.  I can do things physically I wasn’t able to do a year or so ago.  I think being active with a weekly photography group has done wonders for me physically and mentally.

1. We have gophers on our land. I suspect it was an old gopher mound that caused it to sink so deep the first time.
2. The picture at the beginning of this post shows the situation.

Framers Friday: Minimalism

Grace and Elegance

Here is what I wrote:

The majority of my mini-group liked this image and said it fit the theme best. I agree with them even though I fear it will not be unique enough. (I have a feeling there will be a lot of flower submissions). I am not a huge fan of roses nor am I a fan of cut flowers. I did purchase these to play around with minimalism and photography. Thanks to all my mini-group members who helped me choose. (The title is a few words for the meaning of this particular color and shade of the rose).

I had an extremely difficult time deciding between this one and one other.  I hope I don’t have such a close decision to make in the near future.  It wasn’t easy at all.

Hold On

Shot during 52Frames’ Minimalism week

I spied this dragonfly as I was heading back indoors.  I immediately grabbed my macro lens and took a few pictures.  I really like this image for personal reasons as it spoke to me with the clouds underneath him from a distance.

Listen {Five Minute Friday}

{Abby Gail doing a low five on February 4, 2018}

My cat, Abby Gail, is a smart cat that knows a few tricks such as sit, stand, high five, low five, wave (hello/bye), and spin (turn around in a circle).  However, she can be a stubborn cat outdoors on a leash.

When she’s outside, she can get bound and determined to eat some grass¹.  I’ll tell her “leave it”.  She’ll ignore me and continue to seek out grass. I know she has heard me by the flattening of her ears.  I’ll say the command again, gently pick her up and move her away a few inches. She’ll go right back to seeking out grass.

It’s hard to keep your patience with a determined cat with a one-track mind.  It’s a constant training endeavor because you’d think she has it down and then it all goes out the window.  It’s difficult to keep my patience with her. I keep telling her to “leave it” over and over all the while gently picking her up and moving her away from her intended target.

I’ll eventually say “time out”, pick her up and place her on one arm.  She reverts back into her kittenhood days of expression. She’s limp as a rag, growling and with lashing of the tail all the while calmly looking around. She despises being picked up without her permission.²

I’ll walk a little ways from the spot and then, after a few seconds, I’ll ask her if she’ll be a good girl? She usually meows a pathetic little meow indicating she heard me and I’ll put her back down.  More often than not, the “time out” worked because she will not go back to seeking out grass.  This is one method I use to get her to stop eating grass.

The last time I put her down after a “timeout” has stuck in my memory.  She started walking with her tail high in the air with a bounce in her step which indicates she’s happy.  However, after she took a few steps, she stopped suddenly, turned her head and deliberately hissed at me and then continued on her merry way.  She made me laugh!³

Abby Gail has taught me many things including patience and understanding.  She also caused me to think and wonder about many things.  God is certainly much more patient with us humans than I am with my stubborn cat who refuses to listen.

1. 1.  If she didn’t have such a bad reaction almost every time she eats grass, I’d let her have at it.  But, more often than not, she gets a belly ache with meowing and eventually throws up.  She’s the first cat I’ve had that throws up after eating grass the majority of the time.  All my other cats rarely did this.  If it wasn’t for this fact, I’d let her have some grass.
   2. Her behavior is why we never sought to rehome her as a kitten — not many cat-loving people would understand this or put up with it. They’d react in fear or dump her.  She cannot help her half-wild nature.  Abby and I have enormous trust in and bond with each other.  I’m glad we do because she didn’t hesitate to react with a tug on the leash and a command (“come”) not too long ago. She stayed by my feet when a hawk flew way too close checking her out.
   3. This event actually happened a few days ago and I think this is why I’m writing about her this morning.