The camellia in the border garden along the house wall continues to be prolific. I brought in two blooms for the breakfast table, and many more remain on the tree as a daily joy.
Mike and I wrestled the large dog house out of Spots’s pen with the tractor and hauling chains. The house is about eight feet across with two doorways, and it was built for the ages. Mike attached the chains to heavy steel eyelets that he screwed into the frame. The wood was rotted, however, and we ripped eyelets out of the frame a few times maneuvering the house through the narrow gate. Another biblical parallel.
Mike hoisted the dog house onto the bucket of the tractor and drove it straight down the hill to his house. He also took down the steel fencing, a 8-10 foot long wire fencing panel, and two pallets that we hauled out of the pen. Spots misses his sun deck. Mike has thought seriously about buying two more goats as companions to Spots and mobile lawn mowers around his house. The steel fencing will give the goats a specific area to munch on and can be moved after a section is eaten down.
Mike mowed the entire area where Gerry planted the olive trees, from the edge of lawn around the house as ar down as the creek. He also has begun pruning back the olive trees to encourage growth and bearing. A real olive grove is in the making, twenty-four mature trees in all.
The (newly) dwarf oleander is already showing new growth. As predicted, the new growth emerges from three leaf clusters. I even thought I saw new flower stems.
A Year at the Snake 