May 2014

In May spring finally came on strong. It started us off with the spring of the caterpillars. They were everywhere and you could step outside and hear caterpillar dropping raining down on everything. Our pecan trees suffered so much leaf damage that they actually leafed out again in places where they originally did not have any leaves. Needless to say we did not get any pecans this year. We did learn what caterpillar killers were since they were very common this May. Cloud might go after a caterpillar or the caterpillar killers either one. She is an unusual cat sometimes. We had four large butterflies on one of the lilac bushes one afternoon.

Troy and Elizabeth spent some time hunting mushrooms. We found some blooming wildflowers and then a few mushrooms.

We had a new addition in the blueberry patch.

Ann got some flowers for Mother's day.

One afternoon we went to the Victoria Glades Conservation Area for a walk. It turned out to be more of a tick walk than anything else. The ticks were very thick and we stopped to pick off ticks literally every two or three minutes. It was the Tick Walk...

We went to Michigan for Ann's nephew Mark's wedding and to visit Ann's family.

Troy received his second call for bee removal. These bees were going into this house through a hole in the bricks around the gas line. That made this project a little more interesting since Troy could not use the smoker. The bees were also getting into the house and were becoming trapped in a window.

Troy was able to set up a system so the bees could get out but not back into the house. He placed a "bait hive" (see below) near the entrance so the bees would have a new home. He was able to place that just before we went to Michigan for Mark's wedding.

We did have one funny incident in May that was a little unexpected. The girls were washing dishes and got one of our plates stuck in pan. The plate was stuck so tightly that even a knife blade would not fit between the plate and the pan side. It took a little work but Troy was able to get it out.

© Copyright 2014 Troy Hart - All rights reserved.