I'm Sooo Excited! Work around the Ranch

Remember the song, 'I'm so excited, and I just can't hide it'?  That's how I feel right now.  We've lived on our small ranch in Central Texas for 17 years and in all that time I've never had a sidewalk to walk on to get to my car, the end of the house, out the back door or anything.  Well, this week and last we'd reserved to do a bunch of work around our house. For several years we've had a problem with 'critters' getting under our house. The worst are the skunks. I can't tell you how many times we've been woke up in the middle of the night by the smell of a skunk spraying because they got scared, mad or whatever. And it's ALWAYS under our bedroom. :(  Back in March our friends came up and helped us redo all around the bottom of the house with new skirting to keep the main part of the house unaccessible.  However, we still had the bottom/around the deck open so critters could still get under the house.  So last week, we took down all the rocks around the bottom of the deck, built framework, attached aluminum flashing down to dirt level, then restacked the rocks around the bottom to give it a more finished look.  We also built some new steps out of 250-300 pound limestone rock we had to replace the old wooden ones that kept giving and were actually trying to come apart.  But, to redo the front of the deck involved moving my Sage and Rosemary plants that had been there for at least 10 years. Now these were supposed to be Prostrate Rosemary, but as you can see from the pictures below, no one told them that. They were at least 3-4 feet tall and wider. I had started out with 2 Rosemary plants and dug up at least 5. I replanted them out by our yard fence and hoping they all make it. 3 of them look pretty good, but not sure about the last 2.  We'll see. The hummingbirds, butterflies, bees and other birds love them when they bloom, so really hope they are ok.  While we were at it, we decided since the front of the house and yard was already torn up, we ought to go ahead and make a sidewalk from the deck to the end of the house and across the end in front of where we park our trucks.  I had checked out stepping stones and we decided the red brick looking ones would match everything the best.  It took 60 stones to make this and we'll be going back this week to get about 30 more so we can go ahead and carry the walkway/sidewalk around the back of the house to the back door. That way we can get all the way around the end of the house on a walkway instead of in the grass/mud. That way my high heels can stay cleaner and I have less of a chance of tripping/stumbling over the uneven ground and rocks in the yard.  No matter how much I rake, we still have rocks. Seems to be the only thing I can 'grow' well with all the grasshoppers around.  So here's a couple of pictures of what it looked like when we started and what it looks like now. I have plant to replant the front bed with some drift roses that actually do stay fairly small, some daylilies and guara for the wildlife and that way it won't cover up all the rock work we did. I'll post pictures of the finished bed after it's done.  Now I need to work on getting my pots planted so I can put them up along the front of the house and my flower bed in the back around and between some cedar trees. I'm trying to eliminate some flower beds to make it easier to take care of the yard.
Stay tuned, I'll also be posting another book review for Kalmbach, 2 video reviews for Interweave and some Sea Glass blog hop/challenges I'm participating in for ZNETshows, plus a Seasons blog hop for Pine Ridge Treasures.  Got a lot on my plate right now.  If you're interested in any Stained Glass, Mosaics, Fused Glass Kreationz for your Home or Garden check out my shop, KayzKreationz. I'm working on getting more listed, plus my Beaded, Wire-wrapped Jewelry. I've also had a little help on the grasshopper front this week since we've done this work. This guy's been visiting the yard every night for grasshopper dinner. Yay!

The Turkeys are Back!

I was so excited.  While getting some work done around, in, and outside the house we heard our turkeys gobbling out back.  Went to look out the window and there they were!  Somewhere between 8 and 10 of them in the pasture behind the house.  We hear them quite often, but this is only about the 3rd time or so we've been able to get some pictures of them.  The deer were not sure they liked the turkeys being out in "their" pasture.  LOL  And I don't think they quite knew what they were and what was going on.  Or that they trusted them.  But my hubby was able to get some pretty good pictures of them in the pasture. 
We do wildlife managment on our small 30 acre ranch and it is so exciting and gratifying to see that our efforts are paying off.  We have to plant grasses, seeds, plants and other food supplies.  Plus provide water and shelter to attract the wildlife. Since we have a small acreage, we mainly manage for small wildlife, butterflies, birds, etc.  Although we have lots of deer, they don't consider our acreage large enough to manage for them.  But they've never been trying to drive down my drive in the evening and watching the 10-15 deer that are ALWAYS along the road and in the pasture on either side of the drive.
Hope you can see them and enjoy the pictures.