And the Jungle Is Less Wild

August 1, 2026

On July 30, in the late afternoon and early evening, Bruce used the leaf sweeper mower attachment for sweeping the hay from mowing. Bruce used his soaked water vest to keep cool.

While Bruce was sweeping the yard, he saw a mouse. He said the mouse ran away from him and stuck its head in a hole.

With its head in the hole, the mouse seemed to believe Bruce couldn’t see it. It was wrong! Bruce was able to get right next to it and take a picture. As Bruce tried to get a different angle, he accidentally kicked the mouse’s tail and the mouse seemed to be startled and ran away.

Bruce dumped the grass clippings aka hay into two piles. One pile was created by the burn pile and the other was an extension of the grass pile next to the compost bin.

With the sun setting, Bruce wanted to show me the chipping results.

Bruce showed off the work he did on Pine Tree 3’s branches while I weeded in the morning.

He used the pole saw to cut the branches in one pile. He dragged the cut branches to the waiting to be chipped pile and then chipped them.

I loved seeing the sunset behind the house.

On July 31, Bruce felt lazy in the morning, but I was ambitious. I started weeding the big front garden. I saw so much wildlife! I also saw one of our neighbor’s calves.

Seeing the hummingbird feeding on the Lantana flowers was thrilling! The Lantana is doing its job, attracting butterflies and hummingbirds. While digging up the nutsedge aka nutgrass, I disturbed a toad. She was magically there when I reached for a grass stalk. I must’ve disturbed her burrow. You can see her partway out of her burrow. I am glad I didn’t stab her. The toad watched me for a bit with a disgusted look, before hopping away.

I pulled a lot of weeds. I stopped here because Bruce called me in for supper. 

On August 1, I woke up at 4:30 AM, and just could not get back to sleep. Just after sunrise, I headed out to check how much rain we got overnight, it was only a few drops. As I watered the bucket brigade, the blue bird kept watch from his home.

With the bucket brigade watered, I checked on the garden. I picked some tomatoes and three cucumbers from the second planting of cucumbers.

Giving up on the idea of rain, I went to the front to pull up weeds from the flower garden.

Bruce came out with a herbal tea for me, while I was pulling weeds. I took a break to drink the tea.

I will soon have to move my side photograph point to show my weeding progress.

I came in and had a tomato sandwich. Tomato sandwiches are so delicious with garden tomatoes.

I stared writing this post and just couldn’t keep my eyes open. I laid down and zonked out. After I woke up from my nap. Bruce came in to let me know what he had been up to during my nap.

Bruce started a back up of his computer, then he started sharpening the chain on his chainsaw. He did eight strokes for each section. He tried sawing on Pine Tree 3. The saw was cutting better, but needed more sharpening.

And now, I am all caught up again.