Beetles and Spiders, Oh My!

We live on the Ponderosa with all sorts of little varmits, usually in a state of peace and harmony but this week we have declared War!  We each have our own individual battles going.  Peanut is waging war on the Japanese Beetles!  

Here's one of the pesky creatures on my sunflowers.  See that huge piece that has been eaten from the leaf.  His weapon of mass destruction  is a sprayer full of Sevin and he is not afraid to use it--on the garden on the shrubs any place one of these little beetles are spotted. While he fights the bugs, I fight the spiders.

This one is right outside my back door and seems to be catching other pests.  It's web is so intricate that I hate to tear it down, so it has been given a little reprieve and I named her Charlotte.  As long as she stays put we can declare a truce.  Other spiders are not so lucky.  They are everywhere.  I find them in the window sills and the door frames but the worst ones are those you don't notice before you walk through them!

 

My weapon against them is my little two gallon shop vacuum.  Their webs are no match against the suction power of my Craftsman Clean and Carry!  

But today there was a new battle, one that called for a weapon of mass destruction!  

This plaque hangs right beside our door and there was a funny buzzing noise coming from it.

And here is what was responsible for this noise. . . 

I am now making it  my mission to put dirt daubers on the endangered species list. The battle was messy and even involved the water hose set on power wash and a golf  club!

 But these critters are allowed on the Ponderosa any time, they have free reign, if only they fed on beetles, spiders or dirt daubers!

All you need. . .

To make a little boy happy, all you need is a stick and a river!  He'll play for hours!

Gonna Need a Nap

After this perfect summertime lunch we are going to need a nap!  It takes a community to create a lunch this good.  The beans and squash are from our garden.  The tomatoes are from my Mom and Dad's garden.  The corn is from our neighbors' garden.  The cornbread was made by me and the potatoes came from the grocery store!  No restaurant around could serve any better lunch! But the kitchen sure was a mess!

Anticipation

Remember Carly Simon's hit song, Anticipation?  Went like this:

Anticipation, anticipation
Is makin' me late
Is keepin' me waitin'

(If you are too young for Carly you may remember this song from a ketchup commercial)

Since what can we eat next is our motto on the Ponderosa, here's what we are anticipating!

Sunset on the Ponderosa

Garden Report

We have squash, lots and lots of squash! The squash harvest is huge!

We even grew some conjoined squash!

The King Visits

The King of the Ponderosa recently visited for a week and ruled the place by doing all the things he loves like. . .

water sports. ..

going bare foot. . .

telling stories. . .

driving his Gator to check out the Ponderosa and watch the hay being baled. . .

celebrating a 90th birthday with his special friend, Lola

playing computer games until you just fall asleep. . .

throwing rocks in the pond. . .

And having the best time in the world with his P-pa and Nana .

Junebug Jamboree

Life on the Ponderosa has been mostly quiet until Saturday morning. As we were doing some chores in our garden we looked across the yard and saw 87 million June bugs flying around. Seriously, they were coming out of the ground in swarms! If you walked around in them you got hit. I tried to make a video, but it does not really show how many there were. I have never seen anything like it! They were in our lower front lawn and around the hay field, but they stayed in that area and did not come close to the house or garden. My video will not post so, here's a picture!

Update from the Ponderosa

Here on the Ponderosa, the 87,000 birds we live with are multiplying. . .

Blueberries are turning blue (the harvest so far has been two for my mouth and one for Peanut's)

The lilies are showing out. . .

Farmer Gibson is having his 10:30 snack and

and I am growing flowers in a bucket on my porch which officially makes me a little old lady and I'm okay with that!

How Does Your Garden Grow?

It's been so long since I made a post that I almost forgot my password when I logged in. Life has been overwhelming and there is so much to do in the spring that I deserted our blog. But school is about to end and that means more free time for me! Our newest project on the Ponderosa is a garden. It's about two weeks old and I check it every day to see what's growing and whether the dogs or deer have made tracks through it. It's in our yard--we have plenty of yard--no one should mow that much, so we took a little corner and started plowing. Peanut started with his equipment, trying to plow up the ground.

It wasn't really doing the trick so we did the only thing a person could and that was borrow stuff from our neighbors.
Now our neighbors have all the equipment we need and they are very good at sharing. We love our neighbors!

Larger John Deere, tiller attached in back and now we are in business.

Ready for planting.

After a quick trip to the farm supply store we were ready with tomatoes, squash, blueberry bushes, watermelon and cantaloupe. A brief visit to my Dad's scored us some green bean seeds and lima beans left from his garden.
We have added okra, replanted watermelon and cantaloupe(hail the day after they were planted) and some marigolds. The green beans are up, the lima beans are starting to pop from the ground.
Stay tuned to see what happens, we've already had to battle the elements and I'm certain some critters are going to cause trouble, so there should be plenty of garden stories!

Record Setting Rainfall

We don't normally have creeks or

waterfalls on the Ponderosa, but. . .

after this record breaking rainfall on Sunday night, we now have both.

By daylight the water had receded, but you can see how hard it ran, pushing the leaves out of the ditch as it flowed down the hillside.

At one point it had to run and cover the driveway here because these limbs are too far from the tree line to just fall.
This is no big deal because after seeing the devastation around Nashville picking up a few sticks and walking on some soggy ground will not bother us!

More Adventures Off the Ponderosa!

This is the only damage we have on the Ponderosa--right now! We just returned this morning after a strange day in Nashville yesterday! We returned the King of the Ponderosa to his home on Friday and meant to come home on Saturday, but the rain started falling and would not stop and we decided it best to wait it out. We woke up this morning saw it was clear toward our house, but that more rain was west of Nashville. We hit the road right after 6:00 A.M. and made it home without any rain, wind or flooding! The pictures below are some of the scenes we saw yesterday around the area where our children live. Stephanie and I actually had to take an alternate route home when we went to Walmart for a few groceries!