If that was not bad enough all the ant mounds I got rid off have come back exponentially.
When I did, I noticed that the little yellow flowers were once again in bloom...how odd, whoever heard of afternoon flowers?
The pomegranate tree is coming back to life after the ants almost killed it...
We even have one that grew on its own without me ever planting it.
The pecan tree in the front is not doing well, again the darn ants have been the culprit. Even the cactus and cacti have grown taller and soon will have flowers and/or fruit.
Of course those pesky mesquite trees have already started to have pods and some have started to fall...that only means more work for me :-(
This concludes the tour of our weed infested yard :D
Good night. May you all have Terlingua Dreams.
I used to gather up mesquite pods and eat the "beans". Go's good with rabbit.ha ha ha ha prickly pear jelly for dessert with ash cakes. The desert provides! ha ha ha ha ha
ReplyDeleteMr. Rat I absolutely hate mesquite trees or pods or anything to do with them...well maybe not everything...the wood makes for a nice warm campfire while in Terlingua.
ReplyDeleteMy mother likes prickly pear but I am not fond of it either. What I do like are cactus or in Spanish "nopalitos" delicious after you cook them and chop them up with tomato, cilantro and white cheese.
Eating cactus is a great way to lower you blood sugar. Indeed the desert provides. Thanks for dropping by :)
Raking mesquite beans every day ruined my childhood summer memories! (But the cows loved them)
ReplyDeleteLuckily we did not move out here until I was in high school and my father had to deal with the yard work. I found a way to disappear when that took place :)
DeleteMaybe if I raked the darn things daily it would not be such a hassle but mother has so many trees it's a chore and my bad back does not help.
I can tell you one thing....dealing with these mesquite trees, pods or anything to do with them has been a challenge. If I had the extra cash I would hire bulldozers and uproot everyone of those suckers!.
Find someone that process the beans in to flower and get them to rake them up or maybe even pay you for them?
ReplyDeleteI wish that were possible Tffnguy...there are so many mesquite trees and mesquite pods all over this part of Texas that I doubt they would be interested in ours.
DeleteA lady friend of my mother said that as a young child they were very poor. Her family would collect the pods and pulverazie them using a stone called a metate and would make atoles (a mexican drink kind of like oatmeal) and bake little breads with them.
Do not know anyone who would go to that much trouble these days.
Do a google search on mesquite bean flour and see what you find. There are communities that the people get together and harvest and process the beans for flower. Don't know about the drink, but maybe they can be used to make wine?
DeleteI just came over through your link on Walter's blog to look at photos of your yard (I still say it's pretty) & I don't know if you get notified if someone posts on a page this old here, but I have one of those handheld leaf vacuum/mulchers that sucks up leaves, grinds them up into little pieces and collects all the leaf litter in a little bag, such as this one:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.worx.com/en-US/worx_trivac_wg500.aspx
Not sure what brand mine actually is - might be Black & Decker but several companies make them, both electric and gas powered. I recommend the electric because you don't have to hassle with a gas can & yanking a starting string and all that stuff. You just plug in the exterior extension cord, flip the switch & start sucking up everything.
I'm too lazy to use it very often, but it would work well if I weren't such a slacker & I bet it would work for your mesquite bean pods too. It's somewhat heavy, though, especially when the bag gets full. Plus it slings over your shoulder, so I don't know how it would impact your bad back. But I can speak from experience it's a lot easier on the back than raking which is just murder on my spine because raking (& sweeping!) motion tends to twist it.
This little machine doesn't vacuum up heavier rocks but it will sometimes get gravel. Strangely it knows to spit those out. Make sure Ralph isn't in shooting distance, lol. And you can even reverse the motor and use it as a blower for cleanup.
I still get notified even if they are old posts..
ReplyDeleteMust say I had never seen one of those vacumn/blower machines and I too would have to get an electric one because I just don't like to mess with gasoline. Might need to look into it.
Another thing we have plenty of is rocks...Ralph when he shows up...just watches me work whether it be hanging clothes on the clothesline or watering the trees. So, I don't think he would be within shooting distance...jajajajaja. For a young cat he is rather lazy :D