Gone Fishin'

Jay, Jeff, Tim, me and Lily did a little fishin' last Sunday on our pond and on our neighbor's pond.  Okay, I didn't do any fishing this time and neither did Lily, but we were busy entertaining each other.

The fields are blooming with paintbrush right now and are just beautiful.  We haven't had as many other wildflowers blooming this spring as we usually do and I miss them.  

Jeff and Jason did the bulk of the fishing.  Jeff hated fishing when he was a kid.  When I asked what changed his view, he said that no one ever told him fishing was just an excuse to sit in a chair and drink beer.  Once he found that out, he was hooked.  

  We've had lots of bees this year - and we're glad to see them.

Lily's feet hurt in her boots, so she took them off (well, she fussed until one of us took them off for her, but it's all the same, right?)

This fishing set-up, below.  Shermie was protecting everyone from attackers that might get us while we were facing the pond.

This is the first keeper fish of the day - but he's a  big one.  Catfish.  Given the drought a couple of years ago, we didn't think any of what we'd stocked in our pond was still there.  But the catfish were definitely there.

 Jay practices "catch & release" on this little guy.

We went to the neighbor's pond to haul out some of their big ole' catfish.  They have some grandaddys in there.  

By this time, Lily was getting kinda tired.  

She sat in the chair and just played with a little bag.

These were some of the big guys caught.

  All-in-all, the catch that day was probably about 15 - 20 pounds of fillets.  

 All done.  On our way back to the house.

It is amazing to have our own pond to fish in.  And going home with pounds and pounds of fresh, farm-raised catfish to eat is a great feeling.

Around the Ranch

Ms. Gray decided to have her kittens this past Wednesday.  She had 4 little babies that look pretty much exactly like her, but they seem to have a little bit of a stripe.  There are a couple of boys and a couple of girls.  Very sweet.  She had them on the deck in the back of a somewhat broken ceramic vase/pot.  It's perfect place for them.  More pictures as they grow each week.  We'll keep at least two of them, but the other two are available for adoption to a loving home. 

This weekend was "deadheading" weekend.  Meaning the roses had to be deadheaded.  This is before their trim.  There were massive blooms everywhere - the scent as we walked out the front door was heavenly.  This is our third year with the rose garden and it's looking great.  Because of the mealy-bug infestation last year (although they didn't get the roses), we've been putting Neem on everything in the garden since the first green shoots starting growing.

I had a huge wheelbarrow full of rose petals that had been trimmed.  Because of the spiders (I saw a couple of Black Widows while I was trimming) and because of the Neem, I decided not to keep the petals for sachets.  Also - there were so many I would have had pillow cases full of petals, not pretty little sachet packets.

Post trim.  What's left are the roses that have just bloomed and the buds that haven't yet opened.  I didn't take any off this time for cut flowers as I won't be home to enjoy them.  I figured Tim would enjoy them more in the garden than in the kitchen.

And we started to have our first crop of Strawberries!!!  Yum!!!  Right now we get a bowl full this size each day.  By the end of the season, we're going to have to be making strawberry pies and preserves to use them all!