Dirt Crawler

 We finally, FINALLY, got to meet up with some friends out at the land to walk them around and talk about wiring up the barn with electric. We had been trying to coordinate for awhile, so not only was it nice to move forward on some shop talk, but to also show them around! It was chilly and wet, but we bundled up, walked, and then went out for dinner.

Unfortunately though the second CRP was not in as a good of condition as I thought it would be. Walking the whole thing made me realize just how far behind I am, especially in removing the garlic mustard. I tried not to let it bother me too much though, I'm doing what I can as fast as I can, but dang!!! I have been finding a few morels here and there, but overall the yield has been WAY down. None to be found at home and hardly any at the land. 

Life is in a such a weird back and forth out in nature, such a give and take. The goose eggs did not hatch and the goose mates were gone, but I did find one egg floating in the water just off of the shore of the pond. I didn't have anything with me at the time to fish it out, so I had to leave it. I figured worse case scenario, if something could get in the water and get it, more power to it!

I also found this dead bird in the clearing of the forest by where we'll be building the house. We are thinking it's a crow. The amount of blue jay feathers in the forests that I find laying on the ground has been insane lately, and now this dead crow. So much to observe and wonder about! 

On the next full day trip out there, we went our separate ways again but I stood in the opening of the forest and knew that someone had been on our land somewhere. I could not tell where, or what they'd been doing, but clues always get revealed in time and as you know, I don't take kindly to trespassers.

I headed out into the forest and immediately found a patch of lily of the valley. There are dozens of patches out there. As you can see, the wildlife (deer) have been munching on it already. While I like having food sources for them, I want them to eat natural and native plants. So this shit has to go. Most were not even developing flowers yet, but I caught some just in time.

Because a shovel is hard to pull around in the woods in my work cart, I opted for a hand spade and crawling around in the dirt. Still not feeling 100% made it a little hard after awhile to keep getting up and down, but getting up and down I did. Next time I go out though? I'm taking some thing that will let me dig larger areas out while standing. 

Only a few moments into the forest and I noticed that one of our wooden arrows had been knocked off of a tree. The wood split from the around the screw, and while others would have assumed the elements got to it or a squirrel launched off of it, etc., me? My spidey senses started tingling and I could feel that someone knocked it. And there next to it was a cigarette butt that had not been there only a few days previous and looked to be just days fresh. So that is where the trespasser had been. Not only do I not want them touching anything of mine, I don't want them setting any of that forest on fire. Because it has been divided up, all it will take is one person to set a blaze in theirs and all of ours will go up. It would be horrible to lose the back one, but a tragedy if it would jump into our front one where the barn was built and eventually the house will be too. Some thing I don't want to think about, but guess I should with all of the draught status we have been in over the past recent years.

I found a huge patch of garlic mustard that will need to come out on our next trip out there. Technically I would have preferred to have pulled it before it flowered, but I didn't know yet this patch was there.

I stopped again though to see the Packera! It makes me so happy to see something native and beautiful in the forest. It grows in a patch of sunlight and the color always makes me smile when I feel beaten down by the amount of work ahead of me.

I fished out the goose egg from the pond and was surprised at how heavy it was, considering it was floating! I left it on the side of the path and the next time we looked, an animal had utilized it, which was our goal considering the outcome of the nest.

On the very edges of the forests, there are some invasives still yet to take down. They're big because of the space and sunlight they have there, and some of them I need help from Woodchuck with, but I tackled this beast all on my own. The thorns on this Autumn Olive were no joke! 

As some bird found out!

While the top soil of the forest is super dry, underneath is nice and moist! So many worms, which is something I need to study more since there are invasive jumping worms making their way into forests and causing all kinds of issues. I was always enamored with worms as a kid, and my mother would just shake her head at me. After rains I would ask for a can and go outside and collect all of the little friends. I don't know what I did with them after collecting them though!

I saw a recent post on FB about day lilies and how they are invasive. Stopped me in my tracks. Wait! What? They are invasive? I had no idea!!! So I researched and found out the difference between tiger lilies and day lilies. Tiger lilies have the dark splotches on them, resembling the look of a tiger, and they are native. Day lilies are just the variations in shades of oranges (and some have yellows), have no splotches, and are invasive. We have day lilies at the land, by the front, that were there when we bought the land. Then when I worked at the resale shop before, a lady brought a bag of day lilies in to be separated out and transplanted. So I took them, planted them here at the house and then at the land. So now I have a new plant that I need to add to the list to remove. But I am grateful to learn it now, and to always be learning something new along the way! I don't ever want to stop adding to the correct information I can absorb and use!

Speaking of, I start a new job soon! Something I have never done before and but am excited to learn! Stay tuned!

 

Waking from a Winters Slumber

 Day One.....

Let's celebrate together the finding of my favorite rake! And yep, it was right where I left it. I'll overlook the scary evidence that I am becoming more and more forgetful and just be happy that I have the rake again!

With some sunny and warm days at our disposal, we kicked off the season with priming the handpump. Which kicks my ass. Because Woodchuck has it set for his height and I'm much, much shorter. To be pumping that thing practically with my arms over my head is near impossible! Then if I can only use one arm because I'm holding something in the other to be filled, let's just say that it is painful for others to watch me tackle that thing....I may need to have a step stool by it for me to use.

Woodchucks first project was to cut back and spray the weeds in the ditch we had been cutting bushes and trees out of when we had the drought. I pulled garlic mustard from an open area so that I could keep an eye on him. Didn't need him falling in the ditch! I should have paid more attention to my own surroundings though, since I knelt in stinging nettles. We also pulled a dead tree and some of it's branches out of the ditch before he treated it.

Then while he cut logs for the foot bridge idea, I raked out the back ditch. If you've been here awhile, you know that Woodchuck made a floating rake to get the scum off of the pond. Turned out there was just way too much on the pond and it needed an herbicide, but the back ditch is the perfect size for it!

                                                                                Before 👆

                                                                                During 👆

                                                                                After 👆

That was a productive! Time to grab a quick break before packing up to head home.

Day Two.....

This trip was really important (aren't they all, though?!). And I was really nervous about it. Today was the day we're going to treat the main pond. The plan was for Woodchuck to row while I sprayed. I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but it is not safe to be in a boat with Woodchuck. He is an Aries and is all about, "Yeah, I know how to do that", and you believe him and then you find out in the middle of the shit show that he does not know how to do that. 😄

I think too that it freaks me out that he picks the highest bank to enter the water from instead of a flat surface. So, I'm in the front of the boat while the back end is still up on the bank and all it's going to take is one little dip of the boat and water is coming in. I hold on to each side for dear life, stare straight ahead and hold my breath until he's on and we are on our way. 

We've got a nesting goose couple again this year and we were not entirely sure how they would react to us being on the water. They have been great with us being on the land around the pond though! We left their area until last so they could acclimate to us being out there and we know already that they can feel out our intentions. They have always been super calm, they know we aren't there to mess with them in any way. On a side note, I don't think their eggs are going to hatch. They didn't last year either. We'll check the nest out from the usual distance the next time we are out there, and if they aren't hatched yet, we are pretty sure it's well past time for them to be. I didn't think to start tracking the days when we noticed the geese out there, so next year I will for sure. They are actually very fascinating creatures to observe and learn about their behaviors! How they sleep in the water, how they nest, etc. 

All of the green stuff in the water is part of the reason we are needing to treat it. Once the weather warms and we get into hot Summer time, the whole pond would be covered and it smells SO bad. I made sure to cover myself up completely, because I'm a little freaked out by the thought of any herbicide. I know it was a necessary thing to do this for the pond, but I still get all up in my head about it. I was covered head to toe, but could still smell the stuff and yuck. And while I adore being in water, I am a Pisces after all, I don't like not seeing what is in the water or how deep it is. I got the sensation of a thick, suffocating liquid in that pond, not flowing, caressing water like I get from Lake Michigan water. Maybe I just need to get used to it and get to know it better. 

I think it must have taken nearly an hour to complete the main pond, with us having to get out at the halfway mark and make another batch of the herbicide up for the other half of the pond. Then it was time to go to the watershed pond and treat that one! We got permission from the NRCS to do so! What I don't understand is why Woodchuck left the smaller boat for the bigger main pond and the biggest boat for the smaller watershed pond. I questioned him. He doesn't know either! 

The thing I like about the watershed pond is that even though it is also spreading, all of the edges are flat. Once we were out there on it, I could see the phragmite in all of its horrible glory as it was sending fresh green ones up on the waters edge, as well as up on land. It didn't take us as long to treat this one, one batch only, and I'm not sure that we did all that well! Time will tell! 28 days to be exact. 

Then Woodchuck wanted to start laying the logs across the ditch for the bridge. He asked if I wanted to run the tractor or hitch them up? I was not comfortable with either one to be honest, so he chose for me to be on the tractor. Now this bridge idea is purely all trial and error. Woodchuck is REALLY good about having ideas or executing ideas that I have, but we found out quickly enough that it wasn't going to work the way he was thinking it would. 

Luckily we had a sunny day to work in! 

As usual, we didn't have everything we needed with us and he has to walk back to the shipping container a few times to grab stuff, which wore him out. I was surprised though that he listened to me and the spin off idea I have to try next time we work on this project. Some times he can be very open-minded and other times there's no budging him! Once we got as far as we could with this, we still had daylight to burn and decided to walk a couple of rows in the forest to pull garlic mustard and honeysuckle. He will never understand how much I appreciate having him with me to work on that kind of stuff. I will plow through it alone when I have to, but I won't turn his help down on the rare occasion he offers it!

And yes, friends! It is that time of year again and already turning out to be a bad season for ticks! I've stocked up on spray for us to use when we go outside 😬

Day three.......

The weather was shit...again....and it was our last day of staycation! We spent it on the road driving to Portage, Indiana to pick up fish from Jones Fishery. Woodchuck ordered two kinds of minnows. Once again my girl (my car) traveled long distances to transport a unique cargo! They were so freaking cute!

We had to let them acclimate to the pond water temperature for ten minutes, so we tied string to the tops, placed them in the water and walked for a couple of minutes to look for mushies because: we are also entering morel mushroom season as well! I've only found a few so far, it was a nice treat to run across them! 

We went back to the minnows and began setting them free into the water. There were about a dozen that were dead between the four bags, and that is to be expected. The treatment we did on the pond will not affect them, and these are not something we will fish. They will however be the "canary in the cave" as far as the health of the pond goes. How exciting! 

We are back consistently into shit weather again, and I am so over it. I mean, I'll work outside in anything, but it gets old being wet and cold, or overheated. Can't we have "perfect" weather days and more of them, please? I guess I better get over that since I applied for an outdoor seasonal position at an agriculture research farm. I should find out by the end of this week if I got it! Now a friend is saying they are hiring at her place too. Lots of options for when I get healthy, as I'm in the throes of a yet-to-be-diagnosed health crisis. Never a dull moment! ;)