July 19, 2025
On Thursday (July 17), we had another spectacular sunset.
I was intrigued by the dark shadow above the cloud edged with sunlight.
On Friday (July 18), Bruce got up early and put on coveralls. He went out to cut up branches into logs with the chainsaw. He wanted shorter logs to fit into the end of the garden bed.
I got up a bit later and headed out to the garden to harvest vegetables and check on the plants. I also wanted to see what Bruce was doing. He was at the new garden bed, putting in logs.
The bed is about 100 Square feet, with the wood piled between a foot and 16 inches high. Bruce still wants to fill in some spaces.
Bruce suggested I take a walk around the back pasture and take a look at the difference in the large branch piles. I was interested to see what he had accomplished.
Bruce cut up some more branches while I watched, then he headed inside. He was hot and sweaty from all the hard work. He took a shower to cool off.
I took pictures of butterflies and dragonflies.
I also saw a green metallic bee. These are a type of sweet bee.
I went back to the garden to finish harvesting vegetables. I harvested two small pumpkins, pole beans, cucumbers, zucchini, tomatoes, yard-long beans, and black-eyed peas.
The sweet potato vines are blooming.
I managed to step on a fire ant bed long and stood there long enough for the fire ants to crawl up my shoe and onto my leg. The fire ants started stinging me. I started to bend over, remembered I am not supposed to bend over, and I jogged to the patio. I sat down on the step and took off my shoe while squishing the fire ants that were stinging me on my ankle. I found fire ants all over my socks and shoes. The fire ants crawled on my arms while I was trying to kill them. I finally killed all the fire ants. I went inside and put “After Bite” on the stings.
Bruce was horrified. He knows how bad fire ants are. I told him I remembered not to bend over and it was so hard not to bend over to knock the fire ants off.
I am not allowed to bend over to put my head below my heart for a week after my cataract surgery. The fire ants were a test of will power!
I took a nap. Bruce said I slept most of the day. When I woke up, Bruce was doing more yard work. He took the mower by the fence so he could see how far back he should trim the branches of the bushes and trees growing against and through the fence.
I went out and talked to Bruce while he worked. After Bruce finished cutting the branches, he drove the mower back to the barn.
I walked over to the fire ring and looked at the passion fruit vines aka maypop.
Bruce made supper and we talked past sunset. We missed seeing the sunset.
This morning (July 19), we heard thunder. The sky was covered with very dark clouds. We had a light rain, so we stayed inside.
Nox wanted to play. She put her Kong on end and got a treat for the successful trick.
It’s going to be an inside day.
Blackberry Homestead 
I love reading about your days. Most enjoyable!
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I love reading about your days as well.
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Ug, those fire ants! Good thing you didn’t bend down. I love the Passion Fruit Flower – looks like fireworks! Your property looks very nice, and the garden is really producing!
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I hate fire ants with a passion! I love how beautiful the Passion Fruit flowers are. I have several vines growing wild by the fire ring. I am really pleased that the work I put into the garden is paying off. We just ate a small watermelon from the garden! Now, if I can just keep ahead of the Japanese Beetles, squash bugs and borers, the army worms, and tomato hornworms.
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This was a lovely recap of the day, and full of fun things–except for the fire ants. It is fun to see your place and all the variety of flowers, plants, and tiny little winged critters. I did spot the butterfly in the first picture, but only because I could see its legs! It must have had its wings folded up? The 2nd and 3rd photos were very nice to see it in total. That photo of Nox is just so cute, made me smile!
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Yes, the butterfly had its wings folded up. I saw it land on pine tree one. As I went to take a picture, it closed its wings. It was so hard to spot with the wings closed. I thought others might like to try and spot it. I was pleased I got a picture just as it started to open out its wings.
Nox makes us smile as well. She is our cutie.
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I saw a dragonfly today and thought of you. 😊. I rarely see them in this area.
Sorry about the ant bites!! ❤️🩹
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Thank you! Seeing a dragonfly is supposed to be good luck…it must not work as I got into a fire ant bed very soon after seeing dragonflies. We have so many dragonflies darting about. Even between the dragonflies and bats, we still have lots of mosquitoes.
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😂. Sorry! You got the Bad Luck Dragonfly! 😂
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🤣🤣
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Everything is coming together nicely. Nox is just so full of personality. 🙂
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Yes, we think so. Bruce mentioned just yesterday that we’ve had some failures, but the successes have outweighed them. Nox has always been a smart little dog and full of fun. Even in her old age, she is still fun. It is hard to believe she is 16 years old now.
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Failures are just a way to relook and re-evaluate things. It gives you new opportunities. Nox is 16? WOW She doesn’t act like it at all.
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Yes, we think of failures as experiments that allowed us to learn something. Nox has slowed down a lot. If we had bought Blackberry Homestead a few years ago, she would’ve been running around all over the place. Now, she slowly walks around. She still loves exploring though. 🙂
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We’re all slowing down a it these days. 🙂
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So true!🙂
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🙂 🙂 🙂
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Julia, Your place is looking better and better…………and prettier, thanks to your and Bruce’s hard work. Way to go! Howard
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Howard,
Thank you. Our next big project is the driveway. We aren’t doing that one ourselves, but writing a check.
Julia
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