Too people-y

 I have been on a self-imposed lockdown to my home this week. With gas prices at $5 a gallon and me not working outside of the home still, I have to make sure we have enough money to keep gas in Woodchuck's car to get back and forth to work. So I'm rationing mine. That might sound horrible, and yes I was sad to cancel seeing a friend and volunteering where I used to work, but I have been thoroughly enjoying my week alone and getting lots of art done!

We did have to make two trips to Das Zem this week. One was to pick up the pole saw (can I just say how annoying it can get some times when you've got supplies and tools at two different properties. When it's there, we need it here and when it's here, we need it there) and to stop by and introduce ourselves to the neighbors to the North of us. Nice young couple! They have their hands full with the property they bought, as well as two very large dogs, two little ones under the age of 5 and another on the way. Something about young couples nowadays that they want everything right away and don't want to wait for it. Kudos to them, but how exhausting.

But we did find out that the German Shepard that approached me on the land last week is theirs. They are thinking about installing an electric fence, and we let them know that we will be putting chemicals in the pond soon, so she needs to stay out. Not to mention that she was out in the road and people fly down that road! She was a very good girl and I don't want to see her get hurt! (even she wasn't a good girl, I wouldn't want to see her hurt!)

Then we had to drive out the next morning to meet with a local contractor who can help us excavate the ditch and pond. I will be meeting him out there again on a Friday in June and then soon after that the fire department will be coming out to burn the pile of trees and debris. Nice guy, asked a lot of questions and seemed genuinely interested in my point of view of the land. I have to say here though that both trips to the land, Woodchuck came across kind of sexist and I don't play that. I am not controlling, I am not demanding, I do not like him being a kind of "yes, dear" kind of guy. Do I have opinions too? Yep! Am I working my ass off out there to try and save the viable and native plant life? Yep! So don't turn that into something it's not, Woodchuck!

Woodchuck and I took a look at the front of the property and talked about how to tackle that. His go-to plan is just to take the tractor and brush hog and get rid of everything. My go-to is to observe what we have, go in by hand/chainsaw and clear out all of the crap and see what good stuff we are left with. Why wipe out all of the viable, native stuff that is established and can thrive with the crap stuff gone? It's a constant struggle to keep guiding him and also get a little of what I want in these situations.

I found some yellow salsify (yellow goatsbeard, Wild Oysterplant, etc.) growing at the front, which has taken me a long time to know that it wasn't just a huge dandelion, lol. Apparently, parts of it are edible, but no thanks. I did pluck off a couple of heads and put them in a large encyclopedia to see how they press and dry. I have seen these seed out to the size of a baseball before! So imagine a dandelion head on a plant about 4 foot or more high, and the head the size of a baseball and there you go. I pulled them because they aren't native and I've got enough shit out there that isn't native.

There were dozens and dozens of turkey vultures circling overhead! Luckily we never found anything dead. 😬

The bracken and sensitive ferns are popping back up everywhere! And tons of wild strawberry plants. Most don't seem to flower and produce, or if they do the wildlife get to them. Honestly, they are in such hard-to-get-to areas, they have an easier time getting them and I always want to share with the wildlife (except for the trash panda here at my house that keeps taking the jelly and orange halves I am leaving out for the orioles! Stop it, trash panda!)

We also had to <cough> walk around with the metal detector because *someone* lost a long, thick chain when he was taking down the fishing shack. We checked everywhere he said he had gone and we were not able to find it. We are hoping to run across it over time while we are out there working on other projects. His next project out there will be to get vents in the shipping container because nobody needs to be walking around high from the gas fumes after spending some time in there 😵 Hope he remembers to air it out really well first before sending the sparks flying cutting into the metal! 😬 Normally I bring that up to him just in case he doesn't think of it on his own, but he just told me last night that I am overbearing and demanding, sooooooooo don't want to be that and I will let him sink or swim. Have fun, babe! 💋

We are also starting some clean up here at our home in preparation for eventually putting it on the market. There is a tree line that the railroad owns and never cleans up (which is probably a good thing, because they would wipe out some good stuff too!), and it is full of crap and invasive plant species. I might have mentioned before that I have spent two seasons now trying to get rid of the garlic mustard, dames rocket, Tree of Heaven, honeysuckle, etc. On this day, we cut down a large honeysuckle.

                                                                                Before

                                                            During. Hello, Mr. Toad!

After the one honeysuckle (and 3 black locust sapling) removal. The majority of what you are looking at will be coming down as well. Sad to see the privacy go, but it's more important to get rid of the invasives and have this be a native habitat until and if the railroad decides that they want to do something with it.

Now there are lots and lots of Soloman's Seal! One of them is so tall, it's up to my chest (though admittedly, I am a very short person.)

                                    And also a lot of Sweet Sicily! (sorry, no image of that one).

Last night after Woodchuck got home from work, we worked on cutting down a corner of crap behind our house. It actually belongs to the neighbor behind us, but she doesn't want to take care of it because she's allergic to poison ivy. I saw only a couple of plants of it that could easily be avoided, but hey, it makes the property line look better for us. Didn't get a before picture, unfortunately! It was bad though! Honeysuckle, and grapevine was TERRIBLE.  And that grapevine was FULL of pollen. So much so that we had to wear something covering our noses and mouths. I'm already on my asthma inhaler the past three days from the pollen counts being so high! It's all piled up on her yard for right now. I guess we are going to remove it for her too. Aren't we nice?! And this after we paid several hundreds of dollars to have her rotten mature trees removed some years ago from her property but behind our house, and helped the guy cut them up, etc. You would never know what we do for and put with from our neighbors by what they think of us. 

But honestly, I don't give a fig anymore. I actually never really did. The only reason I ever got upset about how they feel about us is because 1) most of it isn't truthful. They think because I don't want to listen to 6 barking dogs at 6 a.m. and all day long just inches from my house, that I'm a dog hater. Couldn't be farther from the truth! I'm a irresponsible pet owner and neighbors who infringe on their neighbors hater! 2) We are respectful of them, we are quiet, before we do something we think about how that is going to affect them. And they don't reciprocate. But I'm the asshole. Or as Woodchuck texted last night "addshole", because he's got sausage fingers and had too much to drink.

Never a dull moment! 😜 I'm ready to for my invisible force field around my property now, thank you very much!