Where There's a Will, There's a Way

I have a piece of property whose back line fence seems to have evolved over the years. It appeared to have a wire farm fence with t-posts at one time and when the house was built a chain link fence was put in just inside the farm fence that was never taken out. Over time three large trees and some much smaller ones made it difficult to remove the fencing so that I could extend my TREX fence around the rest of my backyard. I have been wanting to do this for about a year and it is finally about to happen due to a house being built behind mine. The neighbor to be is nice, we both agreed that replacing the two old fences with TREX made sense.

Since the soon to be neighbors are hiring and overseeing many contractors they offered to coordinate the removal of the trees. Two out of the three big trees proved not to be a problem for the tree company that was hired. The third one was a large double trunked tree that proved to be most difficult, it had a couple of nasty surprises waiting for the stump grinder. It appeared that a t-post from the farm fence was growing through one of the trunks of the tree. The tree company ground down the stump from the neighbor's side as close as they could get to the stump. In addition a cemented in post for the chain link fence was partially surrounded by the tree. The tree company workers had to stop so as not to damage their equipment.

Since the tree company only cut out the section of chain link fencing they needed to get out of the way for access, my husband and I disassembled the rest, except for the fence posts, now that the trees were out of the way. At this time we did not attempt to do anything with the remaining portion of the tree and t-post since nothing seemed to want to budge.

The company who will be installing the new TREX fence gave it a try next. They had a bobcat that assisted in easily plucking the cemented in fence posts, that had not been cut off, out of the ground. Unfortunately the one at the remains of the double trunked tree did not have any fence post sticking up. The bobcat was no match for the stump and inclusions, so the fence company left after smoothing the grade where the fence would go, except for where the double trunked tree remains were.

The new neighbors did not have any luck finding a contractor who would remove the stump with the concrete and t-post seemingly embedded in it so almost a week ago, my husband and I decided to see what we could do ourselves. We loaded up our small chain saw, shovels, axes, pry bars and an assortment of other tools. Since we have not had any rain for so long, the first order of business was to wet down the ground to help with digging. I did some hand work removing soil around the t-post and eventually was able to ascertain that it was actually in a pocket of dirt with tree on all sides. My husband worked on removing portions of the stump with a small electric chainsaw. I used some hand tools and a shovel as appropriate to clear away newly exposed dirt. While doing this is actually when we discovered that in addition to trying to remove the t-post, we also had the remains of the base of a fence post to remove too.

I won't go into much more blow by blow descriptions of each step in the removal process. Suffice it to say that it took most of the day but in the end we were victorious. Now the tree company will be able to come back out and properly finish grinding the remaining tree stump that we did not need to take out to get to the t-post and concrete post base. (The first photo was taken after we had removed a portion of the trunk and cleared some dirt. The second photo was taken just after we got t-post out. The concrete came out before that.) We were wiped by the end of the day but pleased that our hard work had paid off. After the concrete was out, we took a break while soaking the ground again and visited our local snow cone stand.

Name That Job!

What do all of these critters have in common with regards to an important function they perform? If you know or have an educated guess, please answer in comments below. (Hint: The senate passed resolution 580 in 2006 creating the first National ______________ Week in June of 2007.)

Milkweed on the Move

The milkweed pods on the green milkweed, Asclepias virids, in my pasture are splitting open to allow the seeds inside a chance to catch a puff of wind and ride to a new location in hopes of establishing a new plant. This past weekend I watched as the silky puffball of threads attached to each seed were pushed this way and that by the wind. Occasionally one would let loose and a seed would begin its journey from the mother plant to a bit of earth to nestle into.

Another common name for this green milkweed is green antelopehorn. The problem with common names becomes clear when you try to figure out what type of milkweed a given plant is. There are several with common names of green milkweed or antelope horns. What they all have in common is that Monarch butterflies search them out as the host plant for their progeny. When Monarch larvae eat milkweed they

sequester toxic cardenolides in their bodies. This makes monarch larvae and the adult butterflies they turn into taste bitter and develop a level of toxicity for potential predators. Monarchs' bright orange coloration is thought to warn off predators from eating them and taking on the ill effects of this toxicity. It is thought that other species of butterflies mimic this coloration to trick predators into thinking they are toxic too.

However, there is a delicate balance that must be met in order to survive growing up on such a toxic diet. The toxins are produced by the plant as a defense and the Monarch larvae must avoid the sticky latex sap containing the toxins that is exuded when a milkweed plant is chomped on as well as not ingesting too much cardenolide. I came across a very interesting article describing this delicate balance that you might want to read too.

Two Photographic Art Prints Selected for Exhibit

Last year I told you about a new botanical art group formed in North Texas that I joined. They have formalized the name of the group to the Botanical Art Collective of North Central Texas and are about to open their first juried 2D art exhibit at BRIT. Members could submit up to four pieces for consideration to be included in the exhibit. Two of mine were accepted, a Mother's Day rose and a close up of a branch covered in a variety of lichens.

The opening reception will be held this coming Thursday, June 14, 2018 from 5:30 to 7:30 pm. Unfortunately, I have a City budget meeting that begins at 6 pm that night so I will have to view the exhibit at another time and miss getting to talk with everyone at the reception. If you are also unable to attend the reception, the exhibit will hang from June 14 - August 9 and BRIT is open to the public Tuesday - Friday 10 am - 4 pm and the first Saturday of

the month from 9 am - noon.

Having seen some of the other member's works, I am expecting this to be a fabulous exhibit. The name of the exhibit is Botanical Art - Flowers, Fruit and Fungi. This exhibit is a celebration of the world of botany and will feature depictions of flowers, fruits, seeds, vegetables, fungi, and grasses executed in a variety of mediums by local artists. Come view the exhibit and explore the joyful intersection of two distinct yet closely related disciplines - botanical art and science.

Update: My bluebonnet print was selected to hang out with the other bluebonnets in the welcome center for the duration of the show.

I have now had the opportunity to view the exhibit. As I expected, the artwork is fabulous and most of them are for sale if you find one that wants to go home with you. A portion of the proceeds helps support BRIT. The artwork must remain at BRIT until the end of the show.

Design This - 26 Music Note Keychains

Sometimes everything falls in place for an unusual request to be able to be fulfilled. Earlier this year, I just happened to look at my emails much earlier than normal on a Friday morning and found a rush request. Someone had seen my music note keychains in my EclecticSkeptic Etsy shop and wanted to know if I by chance had 26 of them ready to ship so she could receive them the next day. I did have two keychains shown in the listing to choose from, however those were the only completed ones I had. I do generally have extra stock to make up more of many of my items so I checked to see what I had

on hand. Luckily, I had just enough of the easy open flexible keychains but I did not have quite enough of the eighth note charms. I did however have some sixteenth note charms that my potential customer was happy to have me use. I looked at my schedule and figured that if I could start on the keychains after my morning meeting, I would be able to complete them in order to get them packed up and to the post office in time to get next day delivery to my customer's location. Luckily my customer was watching for my response and after a couple of convos to tie down details I was able to put together a custom listing for her and send her the link. I told her if it was paid by the time I made it home from my meeting I was about to head out to, that I would be able to fulfill her request in time. (Click to enlarge the photo.)

Just before my meeting ended, my Etsy app made that lovely cha-ching sound to let me know my listing had been purchased. I got home and got to work in an assembly line fashion to create 26 new keychains to fulfill the order. As I got started, I remembered the 16th note charms were actually connectors so I had to find gemstones with a larger and smaller size to make those work. It was a bit

of a free upgrade but since I did not have 26 eighth note charms, I was happy to do this. Even with a couple of small things I had to attend to during the day, I was able to complete, pack and ship this order in time, not with lots of time to spare but I got it done. Now, I held my breath in hopes that USPS would fulfill its next day shipping. Happily the package was delivered prior to noon on Saturday.

If you ever need multiples of any of the items I have created, please contact me to see if I can help out. It would be a good idea to give me more lead time than I had on this request however. There really seemed to be an aligning of the stars so that I could turn around this order in such a short time frame.

As I looked for replacement eighth note charms, I found a supplier who carried golden ones in addition to the silver tone ones I originally stocked so now I can offer my music note keychains in two colors, silver or gold. I made my first golden music note keychains using picture jasper and a tan and black dalmatian jasper.