I am so, so very far behind in my land work both at home and at the new property. With only one day a week to get the work done at both, and the weather being all over the place, I keep freaking myself out that I will never make any kind of measurable progress. If Nature had a corner, I'd be in it sucking my thumb and whimpering.
But. I forced myself into the side strip of land at my current residence when I got home from work on Saturday. Being stuck inside a stinky, dirty space 4-5 days a week with lots of people that could describe as the same, I'll take fresh air and nature any time I can get it now. You may recall from a previous posting that this land is a bit of an easement. We can use it, but the railroad can come at any time and do what they want with it. It's not large by any means, but just large enough to hold many PIA (pain-in-the-ass) invasive plants and trees that then make their way into my yard. I took this project on in the Spring of 2020 while recovering from shoulder surgery. Regular physical therapy wasn't doing everything it was supposed to, so Mother Nature provided me with her own.
I got home from work Saturday and hubby was still mowing the yard because they had worked out first. I assumed that dinner hadn't even been thought about yet, and he was supposed to cook it. I wasn't going to. Nope. Best to just stay outside and pretend that I wasn't hungry. As soon as I stepped on the border, a neighbor lit up a huge burn pile. Some curse words left my mouth, but I wasn't going inside! I'm tired of always having to work what I want to do around others while they are continually doing what they want to do. Luckily the smoke and smell wasn't too strong, and since it felt like Fall, I just kept telling my body that fires provide warmth.
Hubby and I chugged a beer while standing in the cold, under the trees, smelling crap burning; and did a quick catch up on our days. Then it was time to decide what to pull. I am SO glad I made myself get out there! The Dame's Rocket will be blooming soon and I always prefer to catch plants before that stage, making spreading seeds a little less likely. Some of the plants closest to the train tracks were large already! Up to my thighs, if not higher. Here are some pictures for reference.
I also noticed the most bizarre looking tree! Possibly cut, and not treated, when it was one trunk, it then most likely began to sprout again and grow into a few trees that are connected. Google Lens said it was a Siberian Elm, but I checked with a Nature group I belong to and someone mentioned that it might be a White Mulberry. HENCE, why I have said, please do not rely on one source to help you i.d. something! Don't be afraid to use several sources, it really does make a difference in getting a correct i.d.
This tree is not a native one, and it has a grapevine wrapped around it as well that can kill trees. While it is not high on my list to take care of immediately, if I want this area to become more native, it will need to come down. And you know my artsy self, I can always use the wood for projects.
And yet another bizarre barked tree next to it that I still have yet to identify.
There's only a handful of trees/shrubs that I can identify with confidence. Familiarizing myself is the goal, and for me repetition is key. In anything I want to learn, I have to get exposed to the knowledge over and over again, and most times hands on situations are even better for me to learn. And then I have to keep that going or I will begin to forget what I have learned along the way. Don't feel bad if you can't identify everything you see, or do it at the drop of a hat. We all start somewhere, we all have different ways of learning and remembering. Just that we are willing to at all speaks volumes.
Sunday morning, Mothers Day, found us several hours into a wicked rain. It was in the forecast to possibly be mixed with snow, and 30 MPH gusts of wind. While I was really craving being outside, and on my new land, I admit that I was not feeling it being outside in that kind of weather. I don't mind the rain at all, but I can't handle the wet, cold weather. It makes my body hurt so badly, and frankly, I've had enough body pain in the last year and half. Thank you, very much.
We debated. Should we go? We both had projects to work on, and mine, in working with invasive plants, are always time sensitive. Mother Nature creates my timeline for me. Let's do it, I said. We'll last out there as long as we'll last out there. And so we donned our three layers of clothing, thinking that we had outsmarted the elements again. And found out soon enough that we are but mere wannabe's.
Once again hubby went about his own projects, completely ignoring that I needed to show him some things in the woods that we might need to address. I am used to his Aries ways "ME! ME! It's all about Me!" and trekked out into the forest, completely drenched within minutes before I even arrived in it. I had wondered how much cover the trees would provide? None. They offered none in that particular forest. I knew my time out there on this day was quickly dwindling.
I upgraded my gloves from a previous wet and cold day out there, only to have them soaked immediately and freezing on to my hands in the cold winds. It wasn't long before I couldn't feel my fingers, couldn't move them and grasp onto anything. Well shit. That makes working a tad difficult. I also don't have a metal yard work cart on wheels yet, so I have to carry the large garbage bags of weeds and garbage everywhere. Hard but doable in nice weather, but on this day? There was no way.
I found the area I had left off in last time and began pulling garlic mustard again. The forest there was surface wet, but otherwise normal. I found the most precious morel mushroom. I can picture gnomes and pixies! I did not pick it, this one belongs to them. 💚
It didn't take long before the rain started soaking through to my second layer of clothing. It was so cold, I could see my breath and it became increasingly difficult to use my hands. A bit later hubby showed up in the row I was in and asked if I could help by standing at the next property line marker. He was working to clear the dead branches from around the perimeter so we could walk without getting bitch-slapped by the trees, which happens at least once a trip and hurts more on cold skin, BTW. or there's the ever fun branch thwack to the chest when you've followed too closely the person in front of you. I helped for a tad and then headed back to the area I was working in, but I still needed to locate the Lily of the Valley and see if I could pull it before it blooms. With my strength getting less and less, and now starting to shiver, I needed to move on.
There is what we....wait, what I refer to as "the path". My husband refers to it as the road, which causes all kinds of confusion because I think he's talking about the main road, traveled by car. This is a path on our land, that the seller traveled by foot and golf cart and that we travel by foot. I refuse to get a golf cart. Why, you ask? There's a story for that. Sit back, dear reader, and travel back in time with me.
Back to when I worked at the county parks.
I worked various positions, initially starting with a Nature Center attendant at one of the three parks, then as a fill-in for the maintenance at the main park and then also a fill-in in the office at the main park. How do you get around quickly? Loud, obnoxious machinery. While I preferred to walk, distance to cover and time was a factor. One time, when I was filling in, again, for the park at a 5th grade field day event, a co-worker had driven the golf cart there to a little ways out by the pond....and ran over a beautiful, young snake. The kids saw the snake alive and panicked and instead of using the moment to teach them about nature, what species the snake was, etc. it was poo-poo'd. And then at the end of the day, I saw her accidently run him over. My point being that when you're on machines, you can't see what's underfoot. You can't side-step creatures or plants.
I was so heartbroken for the little thing and when I was by myself at the end of the day, I placed it on a little dirt hill, surrounded it with flowers, and said a little farewell. Any time I find creatures killed, I try to send them off, just in case they didn't make it on their own. Hopefully another creature was able to benefit at least. But I never could understand such noisy, intrusive machines in places that are so beautiful. Humans have such an odd way at times of fighting everything and "taking care of" and interacting with nature. I eventually left that job. For various reasons.
Memory field trip complete! Let's get back to the land.
The path was holding a little water in spots, to be expected. Ruts, possible natural topography, etc. But the farther along I got, the more wet it got. No big deal. The land needs to be what it needs to be and if there are time that we can't walk it, so be it. For some reason, the back part of the ditch is always holding more water and I can't figure out why and if that's ok. This ditch is less deep than the front one, but it keeps making me think that something is blocking the waterflow somewhere. I'll have someone check into it, at least if this one overflows, it goes onto the watershed on one side and the 2nd CRP forest on the other side, not where our house will be, but then that brings up a whole other set of questions: is that ok to happen and healthy for the watershed to have the ditch overflow onto it? And down the rabbit hole we go!
This second picture is me standing on the path, looking towards the watershed. You can see an animal path that has been used to cross.
And then I turned again into the CRP forest, farther West and North from where I had started. And was shocked.
The CRP forest had turned into a swamp, a bog, something other than it was at all other times we've seen it. It was holding water like you wouldn't believe. So deep in some spots, it was up to my ankles. Thank goodness I listened to hubby for once and wore my rain boots. I was completely unprepared to see that. We have walked that land numerous times, before and after purchasing, after rain, snow melt, and it has never even had a puddle in it. Funny how the seller and realtor were trying to talk us into building a house in that particular forest. For various reasons, we would not even entertain that idea, but imagine if we had planned on that! The Lily of the Valley that I needed to pull? In inches of water, and a couple of them are getting ready to bloom. I had to keep moving though. I was now soaked down through my underwear and needed to get out of the elements.
One up side to being out there on this day and in this kind of weather, is that it enabled me to see that several trees are foaming at the base. The downside was, I didn't think to mark those trees until after I got home. But I will give the forester a heads up and then mark them when I see them foaming again. It can be a sign of bacteria in the tree, possibly brought on my drought stress that caused a crack somewhere and the bacteria got in. Referred to as fluxing or alcohol flux or frothy flux, it is said that you can smell the scent of beer. I did not, but I was distracted by how freezing cold I was. Mmmmm, beer.
So I learned a lot about the land on this day, in uncomfortable circumstances though it may have been. We were so cold that I had to sit in my car with my hands on the heat vents in order to eventually wrap them around the steering wheel to drive. We have a very large Marathon gas station around the corner, on the main highway, and we'll stop there for gas or snacks on the way home most times. They carry Fingerhut bakery items, pricey, but yummy. I was too cold to even stop for those.
And then I found a pair of waterproof, insulated work gloves that I bought from work to be able to use on days like this. A lot of good they did me sitting in my library bag at home. Lesson number million six hundred and thirty nine learned! 😉
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