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 I know I keep saying it, but good grief these days are insanely busy and how is it already mid-May?! Time seems to be speeding up, no matter what I do to keep up with everything 😜 I know that everyone is feeling it, so I'm trying to be gentle with all along the journey! This post will include a few trips out to the land, because I'm behind again and don't want to try and keep track enough of it all to make individual blog posts about them, lol.

We have managed, even with Woodchuck's recent surgery, to get out to Das Zem a few days instead of just the once a week. Now with the better weather and longer daylight, we will be able to even go out for a few hours in the evenings after he gets off of work. Now with all of the invasive plants completely awake and taking over again, I need more time each week to battle them. So while my focus has been about those invasive plants, Woodchucks sights have been on continuing to prep the land and get various projects done.

We had a gentleman from Purdue come out and take a look at our pond. Indeed he feels the way that I do" the ditches are causing it to back up. Not only are they choked up with bushes, but also big chunks of wood. AND the front ditch, right where it meets the pond and over to the culvert, has a higher elevation. So the water is fighting the plant life and the height it has to travel. Woodchuck put the word out that he's looking for a local with an excavator, but so far we've heard nothing. So fixing the pond is on the back burner for now.

But that's ok, because there's a crap-ton of other stuff to get done!

I walked the front CRP and continued to pull honeysuckle while also looking for shrooms. It's that time of year here in Northwest Indiana. While I always go into the forest hoping to find treasures, it's never expected and I kind of feel like it has to be earned anyway. The forest will give me what it feels I am deserving of! I did learn about a fungus that I didn't know was edible, called Wood Ear. A dear friend of mine is always willing to share her knowledge with me! She got me a mushroom identification book for out in the field, but some times I struggle with even knowing where to start looking in the book to figure out what I've found. I don't think I could bring myself to eat this. 😝

Morel mushroom.

This was our first year trying the morels! I always gave them away in previous years, but now that we own this land, I think it's time that I start living off of it a bit more. It think I ended up gathering close to 3 pounds this year, mostly from Das Zem, but several mushrooms from our current home. I made mushroom and cheese pull apart bread, mushroom soup, lightly breaded and fried mushrooms, mushroom and onion quiche, scrambled eggs with mushrooms, dried some, froze some, and gifted some. I did try selling some at a market I did with my art, but had no takers. With not even 12 people coming by my booth in the 6 hours I was there, it's not too surprising, but even the ones that did stop by weren't interested. The forest doesn't want me to profit from it, apparently!

We made a rookie mistake and thought it would be fun to plant some onion bulbs and just forget about them for awhile. Now, looking back, I keep wondering how I could not have foreseen what happened to those onions. It's a wild, natural place, full of wild animals. I know this. And yet. We made a couple of rough rows and plopped them into the ground. Only to return next time to see that the Woodchuck ate them. Because, of course!

Not only are we well on our way with the home design, but also received another few deliveries of stone. Woodchuck spread some more out on the driveway to fill in the ruts from the delivery truck getting stuck in the mud, and then put some next to the shipping container and made a little stone area to put his tractor implements on. The house design has been finalized and now she's making up the blue prints. We also checked into the prices of a pole barn garage that we will put up ourselves, but the prices are too high right now.

                                        Woodchuck had to help get the truck out of the mud.

 I have to admit that I have had several panic attacks about that house design, namely the placement of the master bedroom and mudroom. I have learned that it's not going to be 100% perfect. That there were things we wanted that we just couldn't make work. Just like with the land and the removal of the trees, I'm afraid it is going to get done and then I'm going to have regrets or feel like I should have done something differently. EEK! So not enjoying this part of things and having to try and foresee an end result and finished product.

I am just in love with the land and everything that we find there! (well, except for the invasives). With all of the mud out there, it's easy to see who's been passing through.

Speaking of. We kept finding huge paw prints. We went back and forth if it was dog or coyote. If it was a coyote, which was what I was leaning towards, it would have been a huge one. Well, the "coyote" introduced itself the other day and scared the hell out of me! I was all alone in the first row of the second CRP and was working on pulling invasives and this beast came creeping up on me!

You can't tell from the picture, but this was a very big doggie! Had on a collar, but no tags. SO smart and sweet, and loved to play fetch with sticks! Non-stop fetch with sticks! And some times it would pick up a stick so long that when it ran past me, it would smack me in the ass with it. It was an excruciatingly hot day. Hot, humid, sunny.

I don't know who owns the dog, but I do know it's been on our land many, many times based off of the tracks that we find. It keep jumping in the main pond to cool off and then it would drink that water and start gagging from all of the crap in it. To say the doggie smelled bad was an understatement. 

We will need to figure out who owns it, because once we start working on the pond, they need to keep him out of it. There will be chemicals in it, it will be deeper, etc. It was also collapsing one of the banks on its way in and out of the water. Had my two boys been with me, they would have been absolutely terrified of the dog. I was so nervous initially that I made sure to have a can of pepper spray on me and my machete on hand until I knew the dog was kind. People really do take for granted how others will respond to their animals and how their animals will respond to others. I own 15 acres and should not have had to worry about something like this. It seems that I just can't get away from neighbors who infringe on the enjoyment of what we own. Woodchuck said we will go around soon and introduce ourselves to all of the neighbors and also try to see who owns the doggie. That dog stayed by my side the WHOLE day that I was there. I had to be quiet though. I learned that if I talked to it, that was sending it a signal that we could play fetch more. I had my hands full with work, and was doing it alone, and my shoulders can't handle throwing that much. I mean that dog played fetch for hours and was huffing and puffing and hot! Once we got to know each other a little though, I felt safe with it by my side. Woodchuck said if I walk out of the woods next with little birds on my shoulders who are helping me with my work, he's screwed. I mean, first the cat that I named Shadow McGhee and now this dog, which Woodchuck has named Sticks (I prefer Styx, but hey, whatever.). I could totally see little birds alighting on my shoulder!

I found a vine of Oriental Bittersweet wrapped around a tree and started the delicate operation of saving it (the tree). I decided it was as perfect a time as any to send a signal to the bittersweet elsewhere on the land that there's a new boss in town and this boss isn't going to tolerate them sticking around. So, I lit some Full Moon incense and made a wreath while standing there in my forest.

I told it to make sure to tell its friends that this is what happens to them when they come around. I found another one when we went out again and saved a young tulip popular...and made another wreath.

The past few times we've made it out to the land, we've been there for several hours and it doesn't feel like it. Woodchuck will track me down in the forest and I'm still on the hunt for shrooms and invasive plants to remove, so he'll go grab a nap somewhere while he waits for me to get to a point where I can call it done for the day. The more I am there, the harder it is to leave.

While out in the forest, I found several more patches of Lily of the Valley. I was getting too tired of bending over or squatting down to remove them, so eventually I just snipped off the flower stalks. It's too much for me to try and remove in one or two days, on my own. There is a native one, but I can't tell from the pictures online which one is which and there's a lot of debate about the two plants. From what I can tell, this one is the non-native one.😕

While I was out in the forest, Woodchuck was working with the tractor to remove the old shack down by the pond. We refer to it as the fishing shack, but the previous owners raised fowl in there. The only thing living in it now are mice and wasps, and a Woodchuck is living under it.

Before

And after......

I also harvested some willow before we left. I was all out of dream catcher frames and the new sprouts were coming up. 

So, Woodchuck did his rock pad for the tractor implements, took down the fishing shack, and disbursed more of the stone that was delivered (and tried once again to unclog the pipe in the second ditch). From home he's been in touch with the fire department about burning the downed trees, and the NRCS about the ingress/egress, as well as trying to track down someone with an excavator, and has been watching lumber prices so we know when we can order and get the ball rolling on the pole barn/garage.

I worked on removing honeysuckle, bittersweet, garlic mustard, and lily of the valley in the CRP's, as well as hunted shrooms. From home I've been in touch with the home designer about those plans. And we both went to a pond seminar the other evening. He's confident that he can handle it (the pond). I told him if he kicks the bucket before me, I'm letting that pond go. 😂 Leaking, algae, invasive plants, chemicals, kinds of fish and how many stock, to aerate or not (and the cost of running an electric aerator), and if so what kind, and possible fish kills and so on. That's a lot of time and money and a whole lot of possibilities out of our control! 

Things are certainly shaking up and in motion! Stay tuned!