Helping Penny Fetch with a Sythe

Another long hiatus between posts! We've been out there nearly every weekend, watering the orchard and garden, and harvesting both the wild and grown bounty. We canned a dozen jars of seedless Dewberry Jelly, then a July surprise - when we returned from a vacation in Santa Fe we found a huge bounty of ripe wild Mustang Grapes. We harvested a 5 gallon bucket which turned into 33 jars of some of the best grape jelly I've ever eaten. Yummy!

Today I watered the orchard and garden, harvested two watermelons, and drip irrigated the dozen blackberry and raspberry plants. While watering the orchard, I used the ball thrower to toss the ball for Penny to fetch - her greatest fun on the land. However, one errant throw bounced into the Mustang Grape Copse where grass and shrubs grew too thick for Penny to get the ball. It was the last of the red balls so I decided to take a scythe to the area to find the ball.

Scythe in overgrown copse border.

 Ten minutes of whacking brush later, I achieved a clear area and a pile of cut grass and shrubs but I couldn't find her very bright red ball. I didn't think it went that far in!

Scythe sitting on pile whacked vegetation.

Cleared area, but no ball!

I decided to take the pictures for this blog and told Penny, "Find the ball, Penny, find the ball! She walked around what was the border of the area and I turned to take the scythe and grass photos, then I looked up to see Penny nosing deep in the brush where her nose did what my eyes couldn't - they found the ball!

Penny found and retrieved the ball from deeper than this.

So I provided a bit of assistance with the scythe to help Penny get back her favorite toy.

We went for a hike and found that the pond still has water and one of the creeks still trickles quietly. I'm hoping the expected El Niño fall rains will come early enough to prevent the pond from drying. So far it's held water continuously for over two years. I've never seen so many frogs in one place in my life and there are lots of small fish in the pond too. If we get some rain in September we might go three years without the pond drying out!

During the walk, I spotted and picked up an unusual flint object which I believe is a tool. It has notches on the sides that fit extremely well in the thumb and hand, and a series of chip-outs at the tip that make this have a sharp serrated point. I don't think these could have occurred naturally.

Notched grip faces at top and serrated point at bottom of this object which I believe is a tool.

Imagine a slightly smaller hand holding this with base of thumb in one notch and thumb in top notch. It is extremely comfortable to hold and the pointed serrations at the bottom extend beyond the bottom of the hand.

I sure do look forward to the day we find an arrowhead out there. This is the second of these notched tools found so far.