Being a writer has its frustrations. One of my greatest frustrations is life. Perhaps I should clarify with a few examples.

The ducks have a feeding area contained within a 10×10 chain-link enclosure normally used for dogs. While my wife and I were out of town for the week, I left the door to the enclosure open so they had free access. The only time I close the door is at night to prevent Wascally Waccoons from eating up all the duck feed. There are enough Raccoons that they can eat two 50-pound bags of feed in one week. At 14 dollars a bag, this is not desirable. My feeder will supply the ducks for at least a month. I have seen the Racoons munching away at midnight by using my automatic trail camera.

Knowing I would have to refill the feeder, my wife obtained extra bags of feed yesterday. Today when I filled the feeder, I noticed a new hole in the shade awning that covers the enclosure. So, closing the door would be of no help to keep the glutenous Wascals from eating us out of house and home.

The fix was easy enough in principle. Complete the metal screening over the awning I had started before the trip. About two hours later, I had the new barrier in place. But that was two hours I hadn’t planned on spending that could have been used for writing.

Later in the day, I checked out my pear tree. I wanted to see how much the pears have grown. When I looked, I remembered that I wanted to try using my Woot Balls, I mean Root Balls to try rooting some of the new growth. I purchased these last summer from a Facebook ad. (From that experience I do not recommend purchasing from a Facebook ad.) The concept is that you prepare a branch by cutting away some of the bark. (But not all the way around. That would kill the branch.) Then you surround that part of the branch with wet peat moss. The balls hold the peat moss onto the branch. Sometime later in the year, there are supposed to be new roots in the ball. Cut the branch off and plant a new tree. Honestly, I have my doubts. But, since I spent the $25, I at least have to try. These two pictures below show the process and the result. I hope it works!

Finally, just a bit about myself. I need to write a Bio page; just another thing for the to-do list. My wife and I live on 40 acres of land in mid-state South Carolina. It is a farming community in cotton country. I try to maintain about three of those acres. Due to injury, illness, and corrective surgeries, we lost about three years of maintenance to the property. We moved down from Wisconsin in 2010. We learned quickly that nothing really dies off here during the winter. And you can’t kill something by cutting it off at ground level. The roots will send up new sprouts as soon as possible. A seed becomes a 4-foot tree by the end of the summer. It’s a constant battle. So I am now in the catch-up phase of yard care.

But that’s OK. As I do my stuff around the yard I am always looking for little things to keep me engaged. To the right is one of those little things. I have seen them before and am fascinated to think a spider could be predominantly green. This little guy is less than 1/4 inch long (about 5 mm). It is a magnolia green jumping spider. As I was trying to photograph, it was running around the top of a fence T-post.

Thanks for visiting. I need to get back to writing.