More blueberry bushes, and some bad news

 I'm just kind of over it. Over a whole bunch right now. I punched a few stuffed animals at work over the work week, but that didn't help (don't worry, no stuffies were harmed.) Nothing made me feel better, and I shut myself alone in a storage room for ten minutes while breathing through a panic attack. But that was yesterday and the answer I need to prevent these situations from happening again will occur to me soon. 

We are now up to 6 trimmed blueberry bushes! I helped initially, but it was so rainy and slick that I slid right down a smooth bark branch that was on the ground and I fell in the mud. I landed on my right side, which has the fixed hip but still-to-be-fixed shoulder, and I jarred both of them. So I let Woodchuck work without me, while I got even more cold and took some pictures.

Before. A blueberry bush with a grapevine, multi-flora rose, and dogwood tree growing out of it.

After. We will have to use a chainsaw to cut down the tree, it was too big for our loppers.

We are close to losing at least two more bushes to the slumping pond. The last one he worked on on this trip out had no more than five feet of land left between it and water, and if he took one wrong step he was going to end up in the drink. We will be heading out there today once he's off of work, and I will be starting to move the trimmed debris out into the open so that when it's not as wet and muddy, he can mulch it with the tractor. He will be meeting with our neighbor to the North of us to give him a generator that needs a little work, but that he thought might be useful to him and his family if he wants to put a little effort into it. So while they are dealing with that, I'll be piling the debris. But I also know that hubby wants to approach the neighbor about buying this guys portion of the front CRP. Because here comes the bad news.

As I've most likely stated before, the person we bought our land from got a hold of Woodchuck late last year and said he was putting up the place next door in the Spring and would we be interested? Woodchuck told him to please get a hold of us closer to the time he was selling it and we'd see how far along we were on the land and what he would be asking for it, etc. Well, we'd noticed a work truck and trailer in the driveway the past several times we have been at the land and Woodchuck called the owner, and the guy said he wasn't selling he was just fixing things. 

But then soon after, the person renting the house walked over when we were unloading the car and said that he was selling it and she was fixing it and moving soon. Woodchuck and I looked at each other. What was the point of the seller lying to us? At any rate, Woodchuck called him again and they guy said he was selling but he rejected the price that we offered. He promised to stay in touch after an appraiser came out, and he kept that promise, but unfortunately the asking price is even higher now than before. We have to let go of the idea of buying it, which makes me really, really sad. For numerous reasons. Part of our ditch, the last part of it in fact, before it heads out under the road and to unknown places, isn't even owned by us. It was divided up and is with the land of this newly listed plot. There's a trailer on it, that we would be taking down, we just wanted the land and the garage that's coming off of the trailer. 

These are our closest neighbors at the land, and the land division is set up in a way that the back of their house faces our prairie because of the direction of boundary lines. It would have been nice to not worry about lack of privacy, less than courteous neighbors, and such. It really would have brought some peace of mind, as well as the ability to finish the ditch clearing. I am super bummed, and super worried, and hate the fact that money, or lack of, creates obstacles. We are beyond blessed with what we have, but fear keeps me wanting more. With my job barely covering tuition, and most months lacking to cover it, there's no possible way for me to even be able to help contribute to getting the money for it. 

And honestly, Woodchuck said that even if he was a millionaire, he wouldn't pay the guys price. That's Woodchuck livin' up to Woodchuck's way. Me? Fuck yeah, I'd negotiate still, but I'd pay more than I felt was fair just to not have to worry about neighbors in my retirement. And that's me livin' up to my way. Don't get me wrong, I WANT a healthy neighbor situation. I have literally never had it. Never that I can remember, even into childhood. And I guess the fact that I would drop tens of thousands of dollars on a piece of shit trailer and land that will chew me up and spit me out, is just a trauma response and me trying to control something based off of past experiences. It is hard to give in to that, hard to just put my plea out to the Universe to not let our golden years be filled with the daily stress of not being able to enjoy our home that we will have worked so hard for. Because we work really hard for this one that we are in now, even with all of its flaws and four colors and types of siding on the back, and we can't even open our windows and enjoy the sounds of nature and Spring because of our neighbors. And to this nature girl, that is like living in a cell.

I didn't realize, or maybe in the back of my mind I did, how much I am fighting for peace every day and the chance to HONOR each gift of each day and those beautiful things that surround me, unhindered by the people around me who just want to bash through life. Clearly, I need a dose of nature and stat. I need the comfort and peace and beauty and kinship that I feel with it. For in nature there is a fierce gentleness. A connection to each thing around it in a symbiotic relationship, when in balance of course. And I feel that, I identify with that. When I am hard on myself when I need to get fierce and what I perceive as cold, it's because truly at the roots of me there is a peace that is being poked at. It's because I am sensitive that I have been such a warrior in my life. But I admit that I just want to live in peace and connection with the wild kingdom around me, because it is there that I truly feel at Home and alive, and me. And I feel that nature deserves my best fight for it. 💚

In freezing water

 I had that meeting with Woodchuck about trimming only one blueberry bush a week (see previous post) and it dragging too far out. He agreed with me and on our most recent trip to the land he trimmed two of them. As with everything else there, it's a GD mess. Why can't we just have blueberry bushes to trim? No, we have to have blueberry bushes that have native but aggressive red twig dogwoods growing intermixed in them. To remedy the situation completely I suspect that we would have had to cut the branches of everything down to just a foot or two tall, then I would have had to treat the dogwood cuts and hope that I didn't contaminate the blueberry. As it is, he cut all branches of the blueberry to about shoulder height, and I cut the dogwood closer to the ground. I'll have to keep going back and cutting them and hope over time that they will die off and if not, I'll have to figure something else out.

We now have three blueberry bushes trimmed! Look at the pile of debris all around it!

To do this task of trimming the bushes though, we have to stand in freezing water. I don't have the insulators anymore for my boots and only wore a thin pair of socks. It didn't take long for my toes to become ice cold and painful! So much so that I had to stop working, get out of the water, and go sit down so my toes weren't touching my boots for a bit. Note to self to wear thicker socks next time. 

This area is very wet and marshy. The pond is beginning to leak over into the area, plus it's where the watershed starts. We are thinking that it will behave like other areas that we cleared and opened to the sun more....that it will become more dry over time. Especially when we fix the pond. Don't even want to talk about that project right now. 😒

I do think that I've figured out where to build the sunset viewing platform! With all of the trees, this is about as good of a view as we will get, unless we want to stand on the watershed and even then there are trees blocking the actual final moment of setting. So why not be comfortable? The platform will also be used for yoga, mediation, and probably for when I work on dream catcher frames and webs. 

We missed a trip to the land this past week due to a road trip to see our youngest son at college. We took him stuff from home that he requested and then took him and his girlfriend out for dinner at a Japanese Habachi place. That was a long day for two aging peeps...several hours driving and my right hip was really bothering me from all of the sitting. We will see him in a couple of weeks for their Spring break and again for them to pass thru on their way to a Comic-con. 

Everything else in life is just as crazy right now. Work, health, appointments. We are trying to buy the land to either side of us out there, which has not panned out yet. I'm saying prayers in the back of my head while trying to not focus in too much on it and distract myself from other things throughout the day. 

Our next trip out is tomorrow! Trimming more blueberry bushes while today, I need to remind Woodchuck that he's to be cutting down trees along our driveway here at home. With a bum shoulder, I can't tell if he's putting it off until he gets that checked out, or if he just isn't into the project. There are many days when I think we need able-bodied peeps to help us out, and there just isn't anyone. We were super lucky to get the help we did with the barn and even then had to give in and hire a crew to do the roof and finish the framing and hang the overhead doors. There are a lot of times when I wonder just what the hell we were thinking when we took all of this on! 😬

In other news, we got accepted into the new Spring show Halfway to Halloween that's being put on by the same people who put on the Fall show we do, Bizarre Bazaar. I'm so happy, and so stressed! better get to working on the art now since it's fallen to the wayside with everything else going on! 

The blueberry bush project

 

I am not handling overwhelming situations very well. I realize that there's more to be done than one person can handle in one day. And yet I keep trying, even through the panic attacks that are coming because I have to keep stuffing down and just plowing ahead. Trying to keep myself in balance is one thing, and then having to take on keeping Woodchuck on task and also healthy is proving to be a little difficult and a lot overwhelming. I've repeated twice recently that we can't keep dragging projects out. Get in, knock it out, and move on. He does not see it the same as I do.

But we got on the same page recently when making a trip to the land. After a roller coaster few hours about a week ago, some friends were able to drop off the lights that were salvaged from an upgrade job at a local school gym. All but two fit in their vehicle and we were so grateful not only that they made trip to our house to drop them off, but also helped Woodchuck with a flat tire that day, and saved us a lot of money in lighting!

The two that were left were dropped off to me at my workplace a couple of days ago! These are LED and will be great for Woodchuck to be able to see while working in the barn. While the last exam of his eyes showed that the macular degeneration had stopped getting worse, we have noticed that his eyesight continues to get worse in his right eye. It continues to floor, and humble me, when he tells me, "Sweetheart, I can't see that." Insert lump in my throat here. 

So this is what it's like to age. To not only watch yourself slowly change physically and cognitively, no matter your efforts to keep it at bay, but to watch those around you slowly decline. I am surrounded by it at work, with the vast majority of our long-term volunteers being over 80 years old. When I think back to how they were, and how their lives were, just under two years ago when I started working there, the difference is immense and seems like it should be ten years that has gone by. How much can change in such a short amount of time. It's terrifying, really.

We unloaded the lights into the barn and headed over to the area of blueberry bushes. This was our long-awaited moment of finally pruning those crazy biatches! Now, of course it's not their fault that they weren't given trims along the way! They now resemble a distant cousin of Cousin It. So much so in fact, that when I was conversing with the elderly volunteers while at work the other day, they didn't believe me that these are blueberry bushes! "Whaaaaat? That's a blueberry bush?!" "I've never seen a blueberry bush like that before!" "Come here and look at this thing, does that look like a blueberry bush to you?"

I promise you that these are blueberry bushes (being overran by Red Twig Dogwood). There are two varieties, though I can never remember both. They had not been trimmed on over ten years, but while they were still producing, I'm sure the yield and size of berry was below what it could have been had the previous owner kept up on it. Not to mention that we couldn't reach the top portion of the bushes and the land in that area is too marshy to utilize a step stool or ladder...though I did stand in my metal work cart the first year! What with Woodchuck and I both needing a shoulder surgery, the less we have to reach up right now the better!

The before picture. There's a blueberry bush in there!!!! The reddish new cane growth of a blueberry bush can be confusing when the red cane growth of a Red Twig Dogwood is also in the mix. Sadly, the dogwoods are intermixed inside the base growth of the blueberry bushes. Only time will tell how I can handle this situation. But for now, each BB bush will get quite the make-over and we will wait the couple of years for marked fruit production!

After! It's quite shocking and intimidating, but we were told by a local blueberry business to just get in there and cut the hell out of them. I left that up to Woodchuck, he's the pruner. I think it comes with his ability to see things in dimensions, which is why he's also a good wood carver and sculptor. His hands hold such magick that he just can't see himself! I make sure to always point it out to him! 💚

While he worked on pruning, I worked on cutting back the growth around each bush so he could get the whole the way around. I know I'm going to have my hands full with the dogwood for a long time to come! When cut, and not treated, it sends out numerous new canes (not unlike other species too). I did not have the treatment chemical with me, so it's something I'll have to go back and re-cut and then treat, while being careful not to contaminate the BB bushes themselves. 

In the mud again and happy. I am most fulfilled in nature, covered in bits and pieces of it, listening to the birds. My world becomes right again, every sorrow leaves me, every injury and pain healed. It's the least I can do in return for Mother E, to help her breathe easier, to spread her branches, uninhibited by choking invasives. Oh and, I finally changed my boot laces out! These boots have been with me for something like five years and have done a lot of fieldwork! Still going strong, and I think that was the first lace change to happen!

I wandered over to a small cluster of dead and dying trees that we haven't gotten to yet. They were overrun by Oriental Bittersweet. How can I love the looks of something while equally hating the damage it does? That's how I feel about Oriental Bittersweet. It's one of my favorite colors--two shades of orange--but I look at the damage it has done and the berries it has dropped on the ground and do a cringing growl. I even find the pattern of a mature vine mesmerizing.....as I cut its throat with loppers and tell it to get the fuck out of here. Yes, I really say that to it.

So the short-term goal is to get out there once a week and cut a bush. We still can't locate them all in the overgrowth, and know that some have gone into the pond since that has spread (slumped), but we were able to count seven that day. I told him, again, that we can't keep prolonging projects. Seven weeks, minimum, to prune bushes? And that's if we get out there once a week and don't have other things to work on while we were out there...which we do. Seven weeks takes us to April, and the work on the watershed needs to be done by April 1st. Factor in weather, injuries and illnesses, and there goes my panic again. We are just two aging people trying to get the land back to where it should be, and in a native state. I think I'm going to have to call a meeting soon between the two of us. Lots of alcohol may be consumed at said meeting, crying may happen, because, honestly put, I'm using alcohol to cope lately. Specifically double shots of Coffee Liquor followed with a beer. Don't judge me.

In other news, we have been accepted into the new Spring show called Halfway to Halloween that's being put on by the same team that puts on the Bizarre Bazaar that we do each Fall. While pressured to make new items, I am looking forward to losing myself in the art and magick I feel in it. I miss it so now that I'm back to work and working my ass off to pay a college tuition that I keep coming up short for each month. All we can do is our best. All I intend on doing is loving, living, spreading magick and creating a haven for us to retire to. I wish the same for you too. 💕