Now where is my Escargot recipe?

As our northern friends are moving into fall, we are moving into spring here on the bottom part of the world. A welcome transition too. We have had some days up into the 70s the last couple of weeks, but it is still down in the 40s most every night. Today got up into the mid 60s, but already tonight it is 45 with that penetrating cold humid breeze coming off our river. By the way, I haven’t mentioned the river much, but it is 140 miles wide at its mouth. We live 5 miles from the river.

Slimy snail pictureToday was the day to start preparing the yard for spring!

We started by using a pair of garden sheers to clip the small patch of grass outside our fenced area around a tree. The rest of our roadside space is barren since the two trees cast such dense shade that nothing grows under them.

Then it was time for the main yard. I got our son hooked up with the weedeater and he got lost in the monotony of his work so that he couldn’t argue with his sister much. Can’t say it took all the tension out of their relationship, but it gave him something to focus on and gave us a small break from the bickering.

I busied myself with trim work and doing a bit more pruning on some trees and plants. It is too late in the year to do too much more of that, but I don’t think I damaged anything. Mostly I tidied up our Laural trees and our gigantic Bird of Paradise plant. I need to get a nice picture of that sometime. Our fruit trees (plum, peach, lemon, kumquat and orange) are all ready for the growing season and are putting out flowers and new leaf growth.

Our daughter followed me around picking up branches, twigs and weeds to carry out to the bio-waste pile in front of the house.

Steph took advantage of us being outside and swept and mopped the floor. She also washed windows, pruned bushes and beat rugs.

Bucket of snailsThe fun came when we got onto the porch to uncover and clean the table. We knew what we would find. The snails seem to love either the wooden table, or the black tarp that covers it. Have you ever tried to get a snail to let go of a table or tarp he considers home? We gathered up about 30 snails into a bucket and deposited them with the branches and weeds out front. I don’t envy the guys who will pick all that up by hand in the next few days.

While we still have a ways to go to get everything ready for spring, we accomplished a lot today.

Monday we have a group of friends coming over for a Sign Language Class fellowship. We expect about 30 people here. Our front yard will easily accommodate that many. God has blessed us with a very nice house to use while we are serving here. This is our first opportunity to host a large group of people, but I hope it won’t be our last.

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