Scarlet Tanagers and Foxes

Day 2 of Memorial Day Weekend.  On the drive up Friday night, I kept thinking to myself - I just don't know if I can keep this up anymore?  Here we are on our 10 year anniversary of living up here and I am feeling a little overwhelmed.  I know the last two years have been a little crazy and there has been more then the normal happening in our lives.  However, it still doesn't help me not feeling that I get a little exhausted thinking about how much work it is to keep up the house and gardens up here.  Being behind a second year and with yard maintenance, house upkeep and daily chores - I just don't know if we ever get the chance to relax anymore?  After Tim went to bed last night, I sat up for a couple hours not quite having a panic attack but just feeling that we will never get caught up.  I know it's an aspect of life but this place is supposed to be where we come to get away and relax?

We got up early and I started mowing.  With how large the property is, I have to break the mowing into  chunks of work.  Today, I was only mowing the front and side yard and that took me over two hours.  I will do the back yard next weekend and then the garden and garden beds after that.  It was tiring and my hands were tingling after two hours.  Tim planted potatoes, horseradish, herbs, ferns and shade plants, and then started weeding.  I set up my Dad's memory garden for the summer and propped up the fencing for the two fruit trees I planted next to the garden.  We stopped there and put up all the deer fencing back in the garden shed and took showers and had some lunch and spent the afternoon relaxing before Tim started dinner and I went to weed for a couple hours.  Sat in the backyard and had a conversation with my Mom in San Antonio on the phone.  I really wish she would come up here for the summer but she is so afraid to be far from her doctors.

While we sat in the living room,  this gorgeous Scarlet Tanager landed in a tree limb in our front yard.  We see them occasionally and I think they are one of the most beautiful birds up here.  Tim and I are determined this year to follow local birds and get to know all the different species better.

We had dinner - Tim made his baked brown sugar chicken with red pepper sauce, gazpacho and kale salad - yum.  We watched a couple movies and went to bed.  I sat up and got anxious and sitting in the dark of the living room ticked off in my head all the things I had to get done today.  I spent a restless night and got up early to have coffee.

As I stood there in our living room looking out to our front yard and listening to the birds chirping - this red fox walked out of the woods and across our driveway and back into the woods.  It was so beautiful and I haven't seen a fox yet up here.  It's things like that that make me realize how amazing life can be here and for the moment ward off feelings of giving up.  I will just have to get used to being overwhelmed, I guess.