Back and forth

 It's been on my mind for awhile to blog, but obviously I didn't get around to it and now it's December and UGH! So a quick update overall: I've been out of work (per my choice, or more like, my body's choice) since mid-November and have been in physical therapy twice a week now for a few months. My leg is starting to feel a bit better, but the pain and issues are still there and if I move the wrong way, sit on the hard floor, the weather is a certain way, I wear two different colors of socks, it all flares up again. I'm kidding about the socks, but it sure feels that way. Now that my leg feels a bit better, my back has flared up!

I have been spending my days cleaning, cooking/baking, and working on art! What I thought would only take me a couple of weeks to catch up on still hasn't been caught up on. I was so much farther behind than I realized by working, and working a job that physically and mentally drained me. I was grateful for the job though, learning new skills, and of course the paycheck, but I am grateful now to be home and trying to heal and to avoid another surgery

To the land! I had to look back again and see where I left off. Truthfully, we have not been back as much as we want to be because of Woodchuck working so much and not being able to get the contractor out there to do the clearing he was hired for. When we hired him he said September, but quickly changed that to October, and now it's the end of December and still nothing. Woodchuck is an angry Woodchuck. More so because the guy isn't communicating with us, and then there's the Government who's waiting on us to create that ingress/egress onto the Watershed Preserve, which is one of the things this guy was going to help do. What a shame too to not utilize the weather we've been having, i.e. no snow and no hard freezes. I really hope this all works out with who we hired. 😬

On one of our trips, I collected the majority of the Blue Vervain seeds since they were in an area that Woodchuck keeps running down with the tractor. Located right on the edge of the pond, there was no guarantee that they would survive anyway with the flooding in that area from the pond, and the heavy equipment from when we correct that issue. Best to get the seeds now! I do believe I was a little late in gathering them, as it looked like the seeds had already dispersed, but my hope is that there are still some!

It has been nice too see how the cold temps have cleared the pond of the watermeal! 

And we actually were able to get on the other side of the pond (where those tall, dark trees are in the above photo) and walk around. Though plants are dormant right now, it was still a mess and we could only get so far, but we were thrilled to finally get over there and see things from that vantage point! We also got to see our first snake on Das Zem and I can't believe that we didn't accidentally step on it on our way into the thicket! A beautiful, small and harmless Garter snake.

I was also finally able to get our oldest son out there to show him and land and walk him around! We fought our way out onto the watershed, and although still too overgrown to make it too far in, I did find that we have some Aspens growing out there. SWOON!

Shadow McGhee (I don't know who he belongs to, but he's such a good Boi!) stayed with us the whole walk, dropping every once in a while to roll in the leaves and get tummy rubs!

Somewhere along the way, and without Woodchuck, I ran across our beautiful Cedarwood/Juniper tree and it had berries on it. On one of our recent trips back there, I took him to it, and was trying to decide if I wanted to pick a few of the berries to try and utilize those (decided to leave them) and hubby leaned into the smell a branch and poked himself in the eye. Hard enough to land him in the urgent care emergency room a few days later. He's all mine, ladies! (and he has fully recovered as far as we can tell).

I also recently drove Ginny, hubby's Kioti tractor, around the property. Yes, you read that right! I didn't want to be afraid anymore to do it, and told him even if I started it and sat there, that's a step in the right direction. Not only did I start her, but I pulled her out of the storage container, drove her up to the prairie, and then BACKED HER IN to the storage container. I was very proud of myself!

On our last trip out there, we decided that we were going to transplant some of the white pine seedlings. They were in an area where they would be destroyed by heavy equipment and we needed a privacy screen between our prairie and the back of the neighbors house. But nothing was to happen until I shared a moment with one of our favorite pine seedlings.

Moment complete! This little seedling (and a few others) were popping up along the front ditch, in between the Poplars. Now it was time to move all of these precious trees! They came up very easily and while we only took what we needed for the privacy screen, we realized that there are more seedlings than we need right now. I am hoping that we can either think of other places to put those, or find others who can use them.

We also took a little walk to see how much of the Classified Forest we own. Turns out it's just a little corner pie slice of it, but that's ok. The owner had previously logged some of it, and I tried to count the rings on this tree stump. My eyes crossed at around 50 and then I lost track of where I was. What a gorgeous tree and look at all of the mushroom and fungi activity! So amazingly beautiful!

We are hoping to get to Das Zem one more time before the end of the year and while the weather still allows us to access the land. So incredibly lucky, and looking forward to moving on to the next phases of prepping the land for the ingress/egress, burning the ditches and brush debris piles this Winter, and eventually building a home. 💚