The Kingdom is Shaping Up

 I've been doing some work to my kingdom lately.

For one, I just put up my hop trellises.  The goal was to not have to buy any lumber or hardware; instead just using scrap pieces that I had in the barn, and although they aren't exactly beautiful, they're functional.  Come late summer I'm hoping to have hop vines hanging off of the deck, and come fall to be hopping my brews with the freshest, handpicked, homegrown hops.  This is going to take local beer to a whole new level.  I'll be enjoying fresh brewed ales while lounging under a hop vine.  It's an experience, really.  If you're one of those people who claim to actually enjoy your little Miller Lights, it's just too advanced for you, so go put on a pink button-down and watch Entourage or something.

Anyway, the rest of the place has really taken off.  I feel like I'm a traffic director for mother nature sometimes.  Back in the summer of '08, I said fuggit' and bought two bullfrog tadpoles from a garden shop down the road.  Evidently one was male and the other female, and now there's at least a dozen bullfrogs in my fish pond.  It's cool to hear them at night and everything, but I need them to sack up and cut back on the mosquito population.  More on that in a moment.

I'm all for some of the simple pleasures in life.  If you want to see some discovery channel type action, just stand still in my yard for a few minutes and let it unfold.  The other day I was watching two lizards fighting along the edge of a pond for a few minutes.  After a bit, two eyes appeared in the water right below them, and a frog leaped out trying to grab one.  Unfortunately he missed, but how awesome would that have been?  For that brief moment, it was like I was a little kid catching anything that moved down at the crick.  That's right, we say "crick" instead of creek in Pennsylvania.  If you didn't catch frogs and snakes growing up, you missed out, so go do it this weekend.  Especially if the snake is shaded with light and dark browns in a camouflaged pattern; be sure to go after that one.  Anyway, all of this commotion has attracted the newest member of the group, Reeves:

Reeves is a shitty hunter, but I still like him.    Maybe he just didn't have any role models growing up.  Instead of sneaking up on the bullfrogs, he just slithers right up to them like he's approaching a buffet.  As far as I know he's batting zero, but he may have a few notches on his belt.

The chain will probably carry on further from here.  I'll try not to be surprised if the hawk scoops him up one day, but I hope it's not for a while---the bullfrog population is getting out of line.

Since the frogs haven't seemed to do much damage on the mosquitoes, I've decided to take it a step further and build a bat house big enough for about a hundred bats.  Why sit there in reactive mode, swatting away and showering yourself in deet, when you can call in the cavalry?  Own it.  Turn the hunters into the hunted.  One bat can eat 1000 mosquitoes every hour.  I'm trying to figure out where to put this bat house, and at this point all things are pointing toward right up on the back of my house-house.  Jensen is less than thrilled, but she's still cool with it.

Aside from that, it's officially wedding season again, and by year's end I believe we'll have been to another 6 weddings.  That's 5 in 2010, 6 in 2011, and another 6 in 2012.  Three beach trips lined up within the next month or so.  Life doesn't suck.