Hello, You Fool, I Love You. Come Join the Joy Ride -- Roxette

We had a very productive Saturday.  At least compared to the last couple (when we were sick).
We finally had the all the fluids changed in the tractor and everything greased up.  It was time to fire it up!!
After clearing the engine of bad gas (that it was shipped with) she fired right up and then the fun began.  Required: One hour running in each gear (6 forward and 2 reverse) with no load.  Another hour using the PTO.

Keith ran it for an hour and then... surprise... he let me drive it.  I ran it for another hour.  Joy riding on the tractor... if you can call going 2-3 miles an hour joyriding.

While we did that the kids picked up junk, moved the burn pile, took the garden fence down, weeded strawberries and caught bugs, snakes and lizards.

We started a fire to get rid of all the bushes, sticks and whatnot from clearing out the blueberry patch. I told the kids that for every 10 scotchbroom plants they pulled up they could throw something on the fire. 

Now scotchbroom is a piece of work.  It blooms this time of year, a splash of yellow in a sea of brown and green.  But its blooms' arrival is anything but heralded.  It is an non-native weed that spreads easily, quickly and thoroughly.  It's pollen is big and heavy (this is the reason they brought it in-- to plant by the freeway-- they didn't count on the big trucks still being able to spread the pollen).  And if someone has seasonal allergies, it is a pretty safe bet that scotchbroom is on their list.  Of course, like all noxious weeds it is a bugger to get out.  The tap root goes down 6 or 8 inches and sends a lot of smaller roots out.  If they are big enough it takes 3 people to dig and pull to get it out.

Well, it wasn't too long before the fire was completely forgotten.  I don't know why they had so much fun with the scotchbroom but I aint complainin'!!

We had hot dogs and marshmellows over the fire for supper.  Then sat back in the dark and enjoyed the fire.  It was a perfect summer day:  hard work, good food and relaxing in front of the fire.

Then Monday (yesterday) I told the kids we were going to pick 2 people to do dishes and everyone else was going to work outside for chores.  This was greeted with a rousing, "Hurrah!!"  The kids played while I drove the tractor some more (as long as I dared leave them relatively unattended).    The dishes people hurried fast and finished quickly.  We then divided into two groups. One group would tackle the scotchbroom and the other would work on weeding the strawberries for 20 minutes.  Then we would switch.  At the end we would compare piles and see who got the most weeds pulled.  They went with a vengence.  They didn't even care that we didn't actually get to comparing the piles.  Didn't matter who won. 

They were grateful when it was time to work on supper.  I built a fire with a couple of kids, while a couple others washed vegetables for dutch oven stew.  While we were waiting for the fire to produce enough coals, Kristina wanted to keep doing scotchbroom (we had come up with a system that made it... I can't quite say easy... easier to pull them out and she was excited about it).  Not one to waste desires to work, I jumped up and worked with her.  And we worked.  And we worked.  Pretty soon others saw us having fun and joined in.  Coals were ready (Keith becomes the cook outdoors) and we just kept working.  I was tired but didn't want to waste any of her eagerness.  Our goal was to do to the cable box... then to the big rocks.  I finally talked her into quitting to eat and because it would be 10 minutes until it was too dark to tell which was scotchbroom and which was blackberries. 

We had dutchoven stew, cobbler and then everyone crashed.

While we are definately losing our war on scotchbroom, I'm calling the battle for us!!!