Stepping into Spring...and back into Winter...and is it Spring? or still Winter?

 We have had a couple of Spring-like days, not necessarily because of temps but because of the Spring flora and fauna appearing. What a glorious feeling to walk outside, close your eyes and open your ears to the sounds of so many lives waking up! While I do wish the sun would make more of appearance on our days off, I'll take every little bit Spring that Mother E can offer right now!

And the appearance of Spring had Woodchuck and I going our separate ways for a little bit on the land on our recent trip. It was something to get used to! Including the walkies. He sounded so awkward when he called me on it!

He stayed behind to service the tractor while I went and pulled debris away from the drainage tubes that lead from the back ditch to the pond. We had a lot of rain coming and with the ditch already full, I didn't want to take any chances on leaving it go unchecked.

                                                            

                                                                    ☝Before☝

                                                                       ☝After☝ 

The water began pouring into the tubes with a lot of force and I moved on to my next project of raking up the branch and bush and tree debris left from the invasive removal last year. Walking back to the tube area of the ditch later though, I released that the water level dropped a good four inches!!!! I am so glad that I got this project done!

When I/we removed the invasives along the ditch last year, we would pile up everything to a particular height and then hit those piles with the tractor mowing deck (this was Woodchuck's idea). What I didn't foresee happening was then it would all get broken down into smaller branches and clubs that would roll your ankle when walking on them...and there was a lot of them! 

While it probably would have made more sense to rake them even farther away from the ditch, towards the forest edge, I am not ashamed to admit that I am out of practice on this kind of manual labor and this was the best that I could do! I figured it was a good start, getting everything away from the ditch so it doesn't get washed in, and out of the center of the path so we aren't rolling our ankles when walking. Since it's on our radar to clean up the forest edge this year, and then burn the piles (as long as we don't need fire wood/kindling), the debris will get moved again anyway. While it would be easier for us to burn it right where it's at, there is Muck Soil in them there ditches, and so burning isn't an option. So many things to factor in out there!!! I have yet to find out any information about how far away from muck soil that you can safely burn. So I'm going to just have to figure that the farthest away we can do it is the best.

Once I finished raking, I headed back to Woodchuck and showed him some large pieces of wood in the ditch coming off of the pond. I feel bad now, because when I saw them on another trip out, they were in the more shallow part of the ditch and where the banks weren't steep. Because I didn't say anything then, and they floated down towards the culvert pipe, this made it much more difficult to get them out. 😬

We tried numerous tool to pull them out, but everything we had would *just* reach them and not give us enough contact and leverage to get them moved. So there was only thing left to do......Woodchuck put on the waders and went down into the ditch. I have video of it, but it's too large of a file to post here, which is quite sad. But the wood has been removed now and Woodchuck suffered no ill-fates! Note to self: when you see something, say something right away!

We went for a walk before leaving, still looking for antlers in the woods but none to be found. Before entering the woods the blue jays were screaming at me and led me to the spot where one of there own was killed by a predator. (don't worry, I know I can't have the feathers. I gathered them for the photo shoot.) Once I found the feathers, my avian friends went another way. 

 We also have a bonded pair of geese nesting on the main pond. They are protected here in our state, so even though we aren't thrilled about having them, we have to leave them alone. Last year one was killed by a predator...I only found some feathers on a path....and there were no cute, fuzzy, adorable babies to see, so we will see what happens this year. We are also getting the ducks back as well. We don't mind those at all!

                                                            ☝eggs (goose) on the nest

The juniper tree that led to us finding out that Woodchuck has macular degeneration has its new growth now! What a good tree <scratching under its chin>

Have I mentioned at all that we met the person that bought the house next door to the land that we wanted to buy? Sure did. Only time will tell how that will all turn out. For now I am keeping my hopes up and my head down and "my hip into wind as always." 💚