Jammin

I have been lucky enough so far to get about 20# of strawberries out of our little bed thus far this June. I've made a fair amount of rhubarb strawberry & plain strawberry jam, and we've enjoyed fresh strawberry pie and lots upon lots of fresh berry eating. This makes me look forward to years ahead when the raspberries begin to produce!

The house finches that took up residence in our hanging fern are now empty nesters; just in time for a third family of birds to begin nest building in our little orange birdhouse. I believe they are house sparrows. It won't be easy to keep up with those babies since we can't seen inside the house to look into the nest. But I'm happy they are pleased with the sunny digs.

We were bummed last week to find out that our application to the Dallas County board overseeing funding for homeowners wishing to do soil quality restoration through native plantings was denied. We have a really great plan to replace the backyard with native turf, then line the fence with native landscaping that attracts butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds (and the deep roots keep run-off from heading into the pond, thus the watershed protection). It's costly to get the work done and we were the first to ever apply to Dallas County for this, though Polk county has been funding homeowners for this type of work a whole lot. We were told there was up to $6,600 available for our project. We asked for $3,500. They had some sticker shock and said no. The response was, "Please understand this is a board made up of rural farmers. They get paid much less per acre in subsidies for their land than you are asking for for your 1/10 of an acre. They didn't say no, just no for this year until they have additional explanation."   So... now we have to decide if we apply again next year and just swallow our pride and kill off the clover with traditional chems this year, and continue in our holding pattern, or pay for some of it out of pocket. Yards. Phooey.