A Little Time Outdoors

This afternoon we acted on an invitation to visit an acquaintance's 4 acres of woods and wetlands. It is another beautiful spring day. She showed us her bulldozer; she loves pushing down trees, moving dirt to make trails. Her next project is a gazebo in a grove of trees. She will be busy all through her retirement years if her health holds up.

As we drove the gravel road back to her house, the sign Caber Woods appeared. She said a caber is a Scottish pole and because her wetlands have lots of poles (dead limbless trunks), it is an apt name.

Her mother is a neighbor of ours at Grace Village Robin Hood condos; however, I saw this family occasionally as the parents served as missionaries over the border into Mexico the same as my aunt and uncle. Linda's husband later worked at Grace College when we were employed there.

They bought the property almost 20 years ago, putting a double wide trailer on it. About 10 years ago they removed the trailer and had a manufactured home set on the grounds to which they added a garage.

We saw Linda about town, but it was a few weeks ago when we attended an introductory meeting about ACRES Land Trust at Grace Village that she told us about her property and invited us to come visit.

It is not far from Highway 30, but is peaceful with lots of birds, turtles, frogs, and other critters. She has a big shady patio as well as benches and chairs in the sun to enjoy the outdoors.

More work than I would want in retirement, but it is a nice haven for her mother and aunt to while away time.

Linda has flowers well-suited to naturalization. One plant I asked about turned out to be lamb's ear. She has volunteer plants poking up. She told me I was welcome to take some. Maybe next week I will go back and get some as my portulaca that was just starting to peek through the soil apparently has died from all of the standing water in our heavy rains. The Lamb's Ear could propagate and become a ground covering replacement. Doesn't bloom until summer though.

Do you have any experience with Lamb's Ear? Will it spread so much that I will be sorry I planted it?
I need something besides bare dirt and  weeds behind my condo.