I said ‘planting,’ not ‘planning’

We’re installing some new fencing. At the neighbor’s suggestion, we’re making an ‘alley’ through which machines and cattle can pass to the back of the property without disturbing our yard or garden. The other side of the property is too steep (from the road) and sometimes too wet.

The alley lies, of course, presactly where I planted fruit trees. Those that survive summer will now need to be transplanted in fall – meaning May. To the other side of the property.

Let’s just skip that bit of bone-headed non-planning and admire the wire work.

Well, how about that?

After several hours of weed-eating in the hot sun yesterday, clearing a line for the fence people, I arrived this morning only to find that my neighbor had brought over his tractor and mowed the back yard. About an acre.

Just because it needed doing. As soon as the fence is done, he can again turn his cows loose beyond it on our property, so it’s a nice informal trade.

Cat energy returns

After burying cats Zeus and Mr Peepers (and dog Karma) in the last ten months, we’ve had just two dogs, and while I’d like to say the house has been quiet, when one of them is a Shih Tzu, that possibility simply does not exist.

Meanwhile, it was inevitable that cat energy would return to the house, and here it is. Did nothing but sleep yesterday afternoon. He’s rested now.

No name yet.

Fruit we will never eat

The fig tree by the barn has lots of figs on it. The neighbor told me that from his three fig trees, last summer he ate three figs.

The parrots got the rest.

Apparently the introduction of tall non-native trees to Uruguay allowed birds to nest safely above the range of comadrejas (possums). So now the birds are free to ravage crops. Pigeons are equally a problem. Actually, the real problem is that both birds are dumb; were they crows, you could hang a dead one near your crop and the others wouldn’t return.

A friend hunts them, partly as a favor to a farmer he knows. Nail one or two, and there’s barely time to reload before the rest return to the exact same spot.

Volquete #2 se va

I was there when the truck arrived to remove our second ‘dumpster.’ I know the driver  because I had one at our house in town, and also because he refilled the oxygen tank when our son was doing glass work here. He told me he was ‘breaking his head’ until he realized I was the guy who lived in town, not another American who lives in Las Vegas (seriously), a few kilometers up the coast, who drives the same car I do.

No, I replied, he’s actually German, and his wife is Dutch. Smallish world.

The empty volquete was pushed aside to allow a delivery of fencing materials. Before filling it, the two workers and I jockeyed it to line up with the gate. When he removed it, the grass underneath was flattened and not too happy, however much happier than being cooked by the harsh sun on the metal bottom of the empty container – notice the yellow patch to the left. Who’d a thunk?