Love is in the air?

 

Glad we didn't come into the property from the pasture gate. This turtle is laying eggs in one of the ruts. It rained most of the day today and made the ground soft enough, I guess.

You all be safe and God bless!

Mowing in May

So we decided to mow the pasture today. Lately I have not been having good luck with the mowers. Hubby wanted me to use our old tractor. I was a little rusty since middle son has been doing the mowing since he got here. Hubby helped me get the tractor started, I was heading out and noticed the left rear tire needed air. Then I had to look around to find the tire pump end of the air compressor. Couldn't find that, but youngest boy remembered where the portable air pump was.

Got that done and about a third of the 5 acre pasture mowed (with hubby's help on his tractor), when my tractor just quit. Shut the PTO off, let it sit a minute, tried again, nothing. Did this several times. Hubby came over. We tried a few more times. Nothing. We'll look at it tomorrow.
He told me I could use the riding mower. Got started on that, and the front right tire needed air. Then after some more mowing it needed gas. Got it filled, and it wouldn't start. Tried several things, then realized it was operator error, haha. Forgot to shut off the mower deck when I shut it off to fill the tank. Ugh!

The best part about mowing today, was we had as many as 15 helpers eager to fill their tummies. These egrets are not afraid of mowers. They will walk and run in front of tractors ten times the size of ours, if it means a meal. And it usually does!

And we had a little lady who just had to get in the way.

But as you can see it was a gorgeous, if windy, day.

In 2011, I ordered two hazelnut trees from Stark Bros. Nursery. Only one survived and decided it was going to be a bush instead of a tree. I did some reading, and this is normal for hazelnuts. Hubby kept thinking about pulling it out, but procrastination won over and I may finally get some hazelnuts this year!

We did get the pasture mowed, which was nice as we may get some rain tomorrow. Just in time for it to grow a few more inches. :)

You all be safe and God bless.

Hot hot.

Prayers for West Virginia.

We have been doing afternoon/evening fishing because of the heat. We caught 2 yesterday and 3 today. Just pan fish, but we both like those. They fry up well.

No pictures of the fish, just pictures of the lake, and a turtle that kept checking us out yesterday.

It's hard to see the turtle here. sort of lower left, but in the green area just above the white reflection. Sorry. Haha. I can see it because I know where it was. It kept popping its head out. Then it would go under, swim a bit, and pop its head up again.

It's a little more clear in this picture. Not sure why it kept checking us out, but it did.

Changing to afternoon/evening fishing isn't perfect at 90 plus degrees, but it has helped a lot.

And today we got to help a turtle. We selected a spot to fish - I'll try to get pictures next time - and we saw this big splash. When we got out to the tree we were going to tie up to, I noticed a trot line tied around it and going down into the water. I looked down and a turtle was caught on one of the hooks. I had to use my cane to grab the line because it was wrapped around the tree maybe 6 inches under the water. I tried to pull the line up, but another hook was hooked to an underwater stump. I got hubby to come help and he cut the line to the hook that was hooked in the turtle's leg. Then we cut the trot line off the tree and brought it home to throw away.
For those of you who don't know, a trot line is a long line with hooks every few inches. The hooks are baited and tossed into the water, usually for catching catfish. The line is supposed to be tagged with the person's information, and checked daily. It should have been removed when the person finished with it. Who knows why it wasn't.

I have a mild sinus headache right now, but it was a really nice day for fishing.

Hope you are all having a blessed weekend!

A little update

When I first saw this yesterday, I thought it was a mushroom and went about my business. A while later, I realized two things.
1) There is probably a fire ant colony in the mulch of this watermelon hill.
2) It was not a mushroom, but a turtle egg; because now it was covered in ants helping themselves to the unexpected meal.

Turtles from the bayou come over to lay their eggs in the pasture or yard if we let the grass grow much. Crows and ravens are quick to dig the eggs out. I am guessing that there were probably two crows fighting over this egg and it got dropped on the watermelon hill.
Today, it looked like this. All cleaned out.

Found another eaten egg out under the Stewart pecan tree.

Don't think we've ever seen any of them hatch; but if they hatch at night, we wouldn't see them anyway.

Hope you all have a wonderful week!

P.S. Blogger is being a brat and not showing me any blogs. Going to try clearing my cache and hope that works...