We have some lovely wooded areas on our property at Footlights made more accessible now that the undergrowth has been cleared away.
Larry and I spent a bitterly cold morning tidying up some of the trees that had been battered and ripped by the land clearing machine and left looking as if huge herbivores had been feasting in the branches.
I followed in Hubs’ chain saw wake and pulled out vines and thorny brambles from the junipers and bois d’arcs and cleared away the larger branches for future firewood.
We have honey locust trees that sound succulent and appealing. The name derives from the fruit of the tree which is a flat legume containing a sweet pulp eaten by grazing herbivores.
In reality this tree is far from charming, unless you are a warrior, its branches are dotted with long, sharp thorns that penetrate boots and bury themselves in tender flesh when accidentally trodden underfoot.
Yesterday I noticed they don’t only grow on the branches, they also spring straight out of the trunk making a forbidding statement!
In the old days these thorns were used as nails, I can understand why!
The week before, on a slightly warmer afternoon, we finished pruning our fruit trees.
We decided that we didn’t need them to grow to huge proportions as our peach tree had at our last house.
We wanted to be able to easily reach any fruit they produced and to that end we cut them back quite severely,
in the hopes that future crops may be bountiful.
There is a beautiful wild pecan nearby that I enjoy gazing at when it is in leaf, it settles my racing mind with its regular proportions and speaks to my sense of order.
This week I snapped it with its bare branches and unlike a lot of the trees on our land that look wild and crazy in their nakedness, this one naturally retains an elegant beauty even without its mantle of green, or help from a pruning human hand.
I watched as a cat streaked in front of us, Charlie, my walking companion, was in hot pursuit. The grey feline took refuge near the top of another tree,
and peeked through a natural fork in the boughs to watch us walk by.
It had gone by the time we returned.
A small cedar caught my attention along my dirt road. Hanging from its branches are what looked like miniature cones,
I took one home with me only to discover they are in fact bag worms that have dried up and died.
Nature is so very varied in its beauty.
Well hello there! My name is Vivienne McNeny.
I am an empty nester exploring life as a Boomer…you could say I'm happily Boomering along!
As a homeschooling Mum I have finally quit the job of role model and mentor to my four children. I do what I want to do, eat when I feel like it, enjoy life with my blue eyed cowboy and clean my house once a month or so whether it needs it or not!
In true English form I write about the emergence of my true identity now that I can no longer hide behind my children as their Mum.
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