We have anxiously waited all Winter for the weather to warm, and just like that the Spring projects have begun! Daytime temps have been averaging between the 50's and 70's (those warmer temps are supposed to happen this week). Intense storms ushered in great weather and gave me and Woodchuck a chance recently to start on the usual Spring-time work, but let us take a moment of silence first for my favorite work tool, an old iron metal rake that I seemed to have misplaced after raking up the branch debris from alongside the back ditch. Woodchuck and I looked everywhere for it, and we may have been looking right at it for all I know, but just couldn't see it! So we had to buy another one. Hopefully we will run across it when we least expect it!
On our latest trip out there, we started by checking the back ditch and found the drainage tubes to be nearly plugged. Woodchuck cleared them out and placed on the filter caps we bought and we decided to walk away from it for a bit to see what happened. When we went back we noticed that while the caps keep the larger debris out, it builds up in front of them. So anytime we are out there, we will need to check them and anytime the ditch may dry up again, we need to keep trying to get all of the debris out of it. This feels like it's just going to be one of the constant maintenance projects and if that's what it takes to keep things flowing smoothly, literally, that is alright. The water level did drop a few inches, so that was a good thing!
Woodchuck needed to change a filter in the tractor (which took three trips to the tractor place to get it!) and spread some stone out to fill in puddles (getting things ready for when the concrete will be poured in the pole barn!). While he worked at the front, I walked to the second CRP forest because I noticed an Autumn Olive and honeysuckle right on the edge of it that I didn't get last year. While cutting and treating those, I noticed green in the forest and got that sinking feeling.
I went in and found lots and lots of garlic mustard. It was expected, because remember I talked in the past about seed banks in the soil? The key this year is to get to all of them before they flower. I've been thinking more and more about what a friend once told me, that I should ask for help out there. But there's a whole other ball of wax with that. Keeping people safe, teaching what to look for and how to remove it, etc. And then there's the whole finding someone to give up their time to come do manual labor out in a forest. So for now I'll keep chipping away at it myself and try to get Woodchuck on board when he doesn't have something of his own to work on!
Some people treat them with herbicides, some people pull them to eat them, some people pull them and black bag them. I'm the later of the three. Though! I did pull some right before we left for us to try with dinner, and it was going to be our first time eating them! Of course, as with wild foraged foods, you want to make sure you have permission to be on that land, that you know exactly what it is that you've gathered, and that it hasn't been treated in the past with herbicides. Also, with garlic mustard, you want the youngest plants to eat from what I read. Turns out Woodchuck started having an allergic reaction to just a tiny piece of leaf that I had him try. So I ended up eating it instead. I wasn't impressed, but I ate it raw and not sautéed like I read was a good way to get some of the bitterness out.
One garlic mustard plant can produce 600-7900 seeds on the high end, and those seeds can stay viable in the soil for years! Invasive plants change the soil composition to suit their needs over the needs of native plants, plus they come up early in the Spring and are prolific spreaders, out-competing our native plants. Just look at this one! The top was very young and not very tall, maybe a couple of inches, but look at the deep root system!
I kept stopping to take in the beauty of the day and forest. Scattered storms were in the forecast, so we figured as long as it was safe to, we'd get done what we could. Turns out the whole day was amazing and reminded me of the days as a child that I'd play outside (which was more often than being inside). There was some warmth to the air, but also a bit of a damp chill and with the cloud cover, I wanted to be sure that I didn't get cold. My auto-immune issue doesn't respond well to that and I was already hurting before we even got out there.
I would sit still and listen to the birds, some of which I can't identify. I would smell the air that had little notes of Spring on it. I would crawl around in the dirt, pulling the plants, and inhale the loamy-ness of the soil while listening to the dried leaves still on oaks rattle and green needles on the white pines whisper in the breezes. Truly in my element.
In looking ahead all around me, there was forest. Looking behind me, there was the pond and open sky. What a beautiful place.
I kept getting pulled deeper and deeper in to the forest, drawn by the lure of bird sounds, the ambient lighting, the smells and the sense of magick. What else lies in there, my spirit always wonders. What will be revealed to me on this day? What more can I do to bring this place back to native health and what did I miss last year that I need to see this year? I am feeling less overwhelmed and more capable (at least right now) of dealing with what I find and I never feel alone in the forest. )O(
Woodchuck and I will be on vacation from our jobs next week and have a list of the projects we would like to get done both here at home and at the land. Because it is not reasonable to think that we can fit everything into one week, we agreed to work on small/quick home projects on the days the weather permits this week leading up to vacation time. That will hopefully knock at least one or two things from the list, because we don't want to be spending ALL of the time working on the vacation...we need to have a little fun too! I started yesterday by working on invasive plants along our home driveway, and he'll work today when we gets home from work on cleaning up along the front of the house where the neighbors trees drop their leaves and they get all caught up and piled around the grill, bike rack, etc. Some times it is just those little things that make us feel more accomplished, organized, and ready for the new season! 💜
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