Full spring

Busy with pretty much zero attention paid to the world outside my own little patch of paradise.



So we're 32 days from the first day of summer and it's finally become full spring here. Delightful. overnight air temps are falling only into the 50's while daytime highs are touching 80 or better.

Bull snake

Yesterday was quite warm and sunny. The air temperature touched 85 in mid-afternoon before a stout south wind blew moisture laden clouds up from Oklahoma or Texas or some place. The clouds were accompanied by cooler air. The product of this meteorological admixture was cooler air and less sun -- go figure. No rainfall at all, which is disappointing, but nature delivers what she delivers.



Yesterday was also filled with good solid physical labor as I deconstructed much of an old corral to harvest railroad ties for the fencing project.



The ties are far from pristine or perfect. They've been in the ground for 50 years at least, and many of them were entirely rotten below the soil level. They'll still work for what I'm doing and have the advantage of being "free" rather than $20 per tie at the farm supply place. Free in the sense that I have to expend diesel fuel and muscle power to harvest the things.

The mental and physical labor of this kind of ranch work is very important to me. The mental aspect of thinking and planning and executing is a challenge. As with everything else, ideas and plans must be constantly tweaked and altered to fit into nature's reality. The brain work is good for me, and helps keep the cognitive agility going. The physical stuff is a blast. It's good solid muscle building work with lots of sweat and scratches. It makes me tired and makes me feel weak by the end of the day but in the morning my body is ready to hit it again. Stupendously wonderful. My ape-lizard machine is a bit fucked up with this nerve stuff, and the pain is a challenge to bear. Still, bear it I can, bear it I do.

Working out in nature's prairie springtime is a delight.

I transplanted a hackberry a couple of weeks ago. It had grown naturally from seed and was kinds-sorta well established after 4 years. However, it was growing in thin soil over a concrete slab and there's simply no future in that. I was reasonably sure that transplanting it would kill it, but I decided to try anyway.

new growth!

And nature came through.



Springtime sunset.



And morning drive bullshit.



Sights and sounds of a lovely May morning in Kimball County.



And now it's off to do life stuff.

Be well and embrace the blessings of liberty.