You're such a ditch! the long-winded edition

 Most projects we take on don't go as planned. Take the patio at our current home. When we moved in it was rock and in those rocks were dwarfed trees and other plants that the previous owner enjoyed. We needed a place for our son to play, and ride his bike, etc., so we removed all of the stone and plants and put down patio block. And during heavy rains, it floods. So I got the BRIGHT idea to remove the blocks at the corner and in a design at the patio table area and plant grass only in those spots. Sweet Lords of the Plant Kingdom, what was I thinking?! Oh it helped the flooding issue just.fine. but why didn't I take into consideration that hubby doesn't weed whack but like twice a season and that's only because I keep reminding him that he hasn't done it and it needs done. And now that we are in a drought, the only things growing are what are coming up in all of the seams and nooks and crannies of that patio. Including that grass. Ugh.

But the other thing that didn't go as planned as the burning of the tree debris pile at the land. Woodchuck just *had this feeling* that the fire department was going to light it up and POOF, it would be ashes. Since they did keep pushing back the day they would be doing it, we kept adding to it. Fresh, green, healthy bushes and other invasives. It's gonna burn, he kept saying! And we show up the day after the burn and are like, "why aren't we seeing smoke?" as we are pulling in. And "Uh oh, what if they didn't show up again?" as we are walking over to the area. The closer we got, we could smell that something had been burned, and many of the trees were charred, but didn't burn completely because they were still too green, but it did take all of the leaves off. Well shit.

This totally messes up the plan for the prairie area now. Woodchuck called them on the next business day and asked if this is a work in progress or one and done. We've never done this before, we didn't know! And nope, it's a one and done and they said to see if people want fire wood. Soooo, now we have to clean this up. Ugh. Well. we'll have plenty of fire wood for when we camp, which sadly isn't all that often. While out there we took stock of other projects we could be hitting, so we walked around and made a plan.

We have got to get to this back ditch while we have dry weather! (above)

And aw, heck! While we are back here, let's start getting this area cleaned up too! Sadly, this is the ONLY spot we got cleaned up right here. So much to do and only two of us!!! We'll come back to it soon though because I will need to come this way to access the watershed pond to treat the phragmite. 

So when we went back we tackled the front. We always think we are going to get farther than we do! We usually spend about 3 hours on one little spot, and with 15 acres to be working on at various points in the year, it's just not all going to get done. But we managed to liberate an old tree and some young junipers, from multi-flora rose. We need to come back to this area to take down some dead trees and continue moving along the front at some point.

    

                                                                            Before ☝

    

                                                                           During ☝

                                                                        After ☝

And a wall of so much more to go! Checking on the area again days later, the multi-flora rose that we couldn't reach to pull out of the tree has died. Yes, friends, the multi-flora will climb trees! This tree had that AND bittersweet. The majority of the tree died because it lost the battle for sunlight, but there are still green parts higher up where the invasive plants hadn't reached yet.

You know that I always say Mother Nature gifts those of us who fight for her. We are not just gifted with our own lives, but get to see the others we impact. How this little mantis did not get caught up in the tractor, the brush hog, or under our boots I will never understand, but what a treat!

And I have made it a habit of giving myself breaks along the way of the work to make pretty things out of destructive things. I have several wreaths now made from grapevine and bittersweet. Though many have asked what I will do the wreaths, I haven't decided. It is my understanding that I can't sell the bittersweet ones because of the new terrestrial plant rule in the state I live in. I am sure one of the reasons behind it is because they don't want people to see the wreaths and think what a great idea it would be to grow invasive plants like this Oriental Bittersweet. Another idea would be to stop the inadvertent spreading of it. For now they are sitting in my workshop, but once we move to the land I may hang them through as a ward of sorts to keep the oriental bittersweet at bay. That being said, I know it will take years to get the issue under control out there.

                                     For example. The front ditch is one of the worst areas for it.

All of those tendrils reaching up are individual vines coming off of one (at least) main root. (above).

 Directly across from the this spot, on the other side of the ditch, is this monster. (below) I can only assume there's a Staghorn sumac under the crap, but all you can see the bittersweet that has overtaken it. 12 foot tall. I doubt that the sumac is still alive, deprived of sunlight. I'm not shitting you when I say that I/we have our hands full and this will take years to get the land back to the native species home it should be. I admit that I get scared some times that we will get too old and too frail to keep working it before I see it done.

We are workhorses, and all work almost all of the time. So in response to Woodchuck's work schedule getting changed with no notice, we decided to camp out on Das Zem! The few days prior to were PERFECTION. No humidity, breezes, clear skies. Of course that changed the night we decided to camp. We were both dripping sweat barely five minutes into trying to remember how to set up the tent. Why did we even bother showering before we went there?! It's never a fast thing to set that tent up, but

we prevailed!

Home away from home for the night! Always seems like a lot of work for just one night. 😑

It was almost 8 p.m. before we were able to get the grill going, and sit with a beer to watch the sun sink.

Woodchuck even got fancy this time with the bathroom needs! We've always had the bucket, but he added the seat this time.....just wish he would have sanded the wood a little better and centered things correctly. I'm surprised I don't have splinters on my tush.

With the naked eye we could see some bright stars, but with my phone camera, we could see so many more in the pictures. It was truly magickal!

And the darker it got, the more magickal it got! But 5 beers later, and staying up way past our usual bedtime had caught up with us. Time to hit the hay because we had a lot of hard work waiting for us on the next day and it was supposed to be really hot.

I slept like shit, there is just no sugar-coating it. An air-mattress is no place for a 200 pound Slovakian man named Woodchuck, and his 5 foot tall wife who is the size of a 5th grader (okay, maybe 4th grader. But I refuse to say 3rd grader!). It was hot, and I don't handle polyester anything very well and that is what the sleeping bags are made of, as well as the sheet we put on the mattress. This was the first time we'd camped out since my hip surgery and my hip says NO MORE air-mattress, lady!!!

But the crows didn't come screaming out of the forest this time before the sun rose, in fact, the first bird I heard was a cardinal in a tree next to us at 4:15 a.m. And then the symphony started. Waking up to those sounds never gets old! In fact, as I am typing this I have tossed all caution to the wind, turned off the a/c and thrown open the windows. It may only be for an hour and it may be an irritation to my asthma with the high mold counts, and listening to the neighbors dogs barking by 8 a.m. is always frustrating, but that morning bird song gets me every time. 😍

Up and at them with a quick breakfast of organic chicken sausages on the grill and another beer for Woodchuck. I was already dehydrated enough, thank you very much, so I had juice! 

We packed up the stuff we weren't going to need anymore, took down the tent so that the dew could dry off before we packed it up too, and then headed to the (gulp) back ditch. We have worked on this ditch area three times now, and are not even quite halfway down the length of it. The next trip out there doesn't look promising to work on it again, and I am trying to figure out exactly what *will* we be working on when we go out there next.

The first thing was to get the drainage tubes cleared out and dug out a bit better. We don't know if the previous owner, who put in this ditch, put the tubes in this position, or if they've been heaved up over time by twigs and branches. A lot of what we are doing out there is trial and error. Do something one way and observe it over time to see how it responds. With the lack of rain, there's been nothing to observe right here. Below is what is looked like before all of the work started.

You can just see the black tubes above, at the bottom of the picture.

Many staghorn sumacs wrapped in grapevine.

                                                       I'm just gonna grab a quick snack!

The ditch was dry but a little slick in spots. So many types of toads and frogs in it!

And this corner up on the bank is now clear!

And after, down in the start of the ditch. You can see the black tubes clearly. Farther on in the ditch is another tube that was buried in the second CRP forest by the previous owner. It has a plastic grate covering on it and something large has been gnawing it. Possibly a Woodchuck? (no, not my human one!)

Walking farther down the ditch line, we see it is all dried up and we decide that this needs to be our continuing project for as long as possible.

Lots of various kinds of animal tracks down in the muck!

           Another day, a little farther in to the ditch. So.much.grapevine. and MFR. The before.

The after.

The tree is actually down in the ditch, and possibly rotted, but we don't have time right now to deal with it. It's not causing any issues, and other things are. I slipped and fell while working on this spot too and landed hard on my right hip. I bounced right back up but was a little sore and worried that maybe I messed some thing up. The surgeon told me to be careful through the month of June and this happened right at the end of it. So far so good though!

I tackled the front ditch on my own the last trip out while Woodchuck serviced his tractor. I thought I could whip right through it, as I always think, and I always end up being wrong. I started on the worst part of it, because there was a tree that needed help. It was covered in oriental bittersweet and the MFR was starting to climb it. Before pictures x 2 👇

This bank of this ditch is lined with bracken ferns and while I tried to be careful, a small portion was trampled in my efforts to clean the area up. I always feel bad about that. I have found them to be very resilient though and grow back if they are mowed down, but I don't like to play with the possibility that they may not at some point. 

Once some of the icky stuff was cleared, I found a little treasure! At first glance I thought it was a bone, but it ended up being something more hard to find on the land.

After pictures x 2 below 👇

These piles of vegetation that I cut out and piled will be taken care of by the tractor next time we go out there. 

I left the grapevine wreath on the tree I pulled it from. There's still lots left in the tree itself, but it will die of now that it's cut from the main root source. I could feel the tree sigh in relief and where its prize proudly! It had been liberated!

And once again in the liberation, I found the tiniest of creatures. I was worried at first that it had been tagged the herbicide I had to use when I cut the bittersweet and MFR (and AO!), but I believe it is okay. It's a baby (referred to as a Nymph) walking stick 😍 

And the tiniest bit of amber (tree resin). Something may have injured the tree in this spot. I have gathered tree resin in the past for art projects, but not only do I have enough already, this tree needs this to help protect the damaged area.

                                                        Another oriental bittersweet wreath.

                                                                A grapevine wreath.

And a video of the baby walking stick. Woodchuck and I are getting so excited to start the process of building and to move to the land and to see these things on a more consistent basis. There is magic all around and everywhere we go 💚💜

Playing in the mud!

 I had to go to the land one day last week without Woodchuck. The first time ever and it felt very, very weird! He had to work and I was meeting the contractor that was coming with the excavator. He was going to take care of the front ditch for us and clear some of the vegetation for us on the North side of the pond. The guys felt it best that I be there to say what can stay and what can go, but literally just about everything went!

I got out there early so I could unlock everything and walk around and take it all in. I also went ahead and started tackling some small invasives at the front of the land, so I could get some work done while I waited for the contractor and stay close to know when he got there. The bittersweet is out of control in some spots, which I expected since last year was the first year we owned the land, and started finding and identifying things. But expecting it doesn't make you feel any better when you find it. All of those reaching tendrils are invasive oriental bittersweet, and there's more on the other side of the ditch as well.

Once the contractor showed up, it was go time and I needed to stay out of the way but close by in case of any questions. So I ended up working on the tree line of the prairie, but only held up a couple of hours due to the blazing sun, heat, and high pollen. So I sat in the shade in my work cart for a little bit to cool off. This is the before of the ditch leading off of the pond.

We had talked about leaving the good trees, but honestly, I saw how much easier it was going to be for him to just go down the line and pull it all out. With the way things grow out there, something will come back at some point, so I figured it was best to make good use the machine and the money we were paying while he was there. And the after shots!

One thing I didn't even think about taking my water boots, so when I saw the ditch water being dug out a little and placed on the hill leading down to the pond, I was scrambling to think of a way to walk in the mud. Why, you ask? Because I didn't even think about the muck being dug out and dropped, I wasn't prepared to see the tadpoles, baby fish, and crawfish that came along with it! So I ran to the shipping container and grabbed my ill-fitting waders! You remember those, right? If you don't, or if you're new here, here's the back story on those:

I used to work at a resale shop and a pair of waders came in. We had just bought the land and I was stocking up on things from the resale shop to help save money while giving us the supplies we would need somewhere along the line. I was in a hurry, grabbed them, and quickly put the boot parts on to make sure they fit.....not even thinking about pulling them all the way up to check that fit! Well, the day comes when I need to put the waders on. Woodchuck has his on and I'm so proud of myself, get my feet in the boots, pull the wader part up and. They stopped at my thighs. Well shit! I didn't even stop to think about that! Obviously. Can you tell there's a lot that I don't stop to think about until I'm in the thick of things?

So, we did the only thing that could be done at that point.

Now I'm 5 foot tall and somewhat curvy. I am sure that these waders were meant for either a small male or non-curvy female, but there I was trying to fit myself into them. Gotta do what works, and splitting the ass seam was the only way these were going to work! And I told the contractor running the excavator, who had stopped for a quick lunch break, that nobody was ever supposed to see me in those besides my husband. But I was too excited to be embarrassed! Why was I excited? Because I had creatures to save!

Except for the tadpoles, we had NO clue that we had fish or crawfish!!!! I think that last crawfish was the one that the blackbird got. 😬 I saved as many as I could, some times in muck up past my ankles, while trying not to get stuck in it or fall over in it. It took me back to the my childhood where we spent some time in Louisiana, playing in flood waters (ew. I know. NO WAY would I do that now.) and I remember we stopped by a friends house and they had a pasture with pigs or something in it and next thing you know all of us kids are wallowing in it. I don't know. I don't know how it happened. Don't ask me! I do know that my mother couldn't take her eyes off of me while outside or I was up in a tree, or in a mud puddle somewhere.

Time was winding down on the day and there was still the North side of the pond to contend with. How to get all of that vegetation out of there, without damaging my elderberry? That was my only request, was to save the elderberry. Don't touch it, and I'll be a happy girl. So off the excavator went to squuueeeze down the path to that area of the pond. If you'll remember, we had already worked on removing a lot of the plants from that area, but Woodchuck's tractor could only do so much or get so close. And none of us were willing to take the chance of falling in the gross drink to get any closer and do it by hand.

Before pictures of the vegetation on the North side.

The after pictures from two angles.

If that contractor could have run out of there, I think he would have. He was done, so done, but so was I, honestly. We will be using him again on the pond once he can get a long-reach excavator. It was kind of neat though, because they were genuinely interested in the work I was doing on the land pulling the invasives. They had never heard of that and I had fresh ears to explain it to. Is it easy or fun doing that work alone? Hell to the no. But it's necessary. 

Since this day, I've taken Woodchuck out there to see the changes and so he could mow, as well as our youngest son and Woodchuck's sister and brother-in-law. I kind of feel like though that the more we try and work the land, the worse it looks, lol. Kind of the same concept of when I organize my house. It always looks worse before it looks better. And then once I've organized it, I can't find anything. Woodchuck has a weeks vacation coming up though and we are hoping to get out there often and keep chipping away at it.....all while in some more 90+ degree temps. Seriously! We go from too cold for the time of the year straight into the bowels of hell! He did get the vents put into the shipping container, so now we need to finish spreading the stone that is piled on the driveway and start chipping away at the vegetation on the West side of the pond, and along the front edge of the property where it faces the road. The fire department keeps pushing back when they are going to show up to burn the debris pile, so that keeps growing and we keep finding new areas to pull from to add on to the pile. Chances are we won't be able to utilize the prairie this Summer, but we are hoping to this Fall to camp at least once.

I just finished up two weeks of helping an acquaintance on her farm and have been handing in job applications. Interview this morning and I'm not sure how I feel. Mixed emotions, I guess. I need to make sure that I make smart decisions, and good decisions. I want to work, but not so much that it wears me down like my last job did. And I don't want to be taken advantage of. Is that even a possibility anymore? I guess I only have myself to blame for allowing it to happen! I do so much better out in nature than with the dynamics of people. Wish me luck!

In preparation

 Going a week or two without going out to Das Zem feels like going months without being out there and I get kind of sad. On my last trip out there a couple of weeks ago, Woodchuck needed to mow. Part of this was it needed it and the other part was because there are areas he won't be able to get to for awhile because of work that an excavator will be doing this morning. In the picture below you can see the once dark dirt and watery mud ingress/egress path is already starting to fill back in with green. It still can't be mowed, no vehicle or piece of equipment can travel on it without getting stuck. So we had to go around it on the original path we took before this road was cut, but that is on the neighbors land (we have permission from the owner).

I went ahead of Woodchuck and pulled the flags marking the ingress/egress, unlocked gates, and cut away at an Autumn Olive and Black Willow that were overgrowing the path and took out one of Ginny's (Woodchuck's tractor) turn signals already. The Autumn Olive fought back, but it was my fault for not having gloves on.

While he cut the grass, I worked on cutting some more grapevine and oriental bittersweet. I had been in the area before, to the side of the ingress/egress, but always find stuff I missed with each venture in. And these vines were beasts!

The wreath below was made with some black willow branches. It's much more sparse and loose than something I would usually make, so it's just taking some getting used to working with that material. I'll take it back to the land with me, as well as one of the previous oriental bittersweet wreaths I made a couple of weeks ago, and add to them as I find more.

This picture below shows what oriental bittersweet does to trees. The bittersweet starts growing at the ground and looks very sweet and benign, but as time goes on, it thickens and it wraps around and embeds itself into the tree trunk and limbs, working its way to the top of the tree to compete for the sunlight. If let go unchecked, it will kill the tree. You can see the mark in the tree bark where it loosened after I cut it. Unfortunately, I can't reach too much of it to pull it out, but I did cut it at the ground and remove what I could.

This wreath is made from the bittersweet vine that I cut. Unfortunately, I did not have any treatment with me, so I'll have to go back to this area and cut and treat it.

This wreath below was made with the grapevine. While native grapevine is not thought to wrap itself around a tree in a harmful way, it does still get up in the canopy and compete for that sunlight, so I was taught it was just best to take care of them.

From left to right, grapevine, oriental bittersweet, black willow. The grapevine wreath weighed in at 4.5 POUNDS, and the bittersweet one at 2! You should have seen me wrestling these vines! I was out of breath, grunting, cussing, sweating, putting my all into them and it still took me what felt like an hour. I told Woodchuck he needs to record me next time so that people can see the strength these things have and what they do to trees.

Normally I give the black willow leaves back to the earth, but this time I decided to soak them in the olive oil that we'll be using for the next batch of soaps we make. I've never tried it before, but it just makes me feel better about not wasting them. They are a week and a few days into soaking now and I check them every day and stir them. 

I also recently tried our dehydrator out for the first time and did organic lemons! And I'm kicking the art out left and right for my friends shoppe and to prepare for shows this Fall. All while trying to find work and keep up with the house and land. Preparing for retirement, especially in the last 2-5 years of being in the workforce, is no joke!

I am heading to the land this morning to meet the gentleman who's coming with an excavator to clean out the ditch coming off of the pond, as well as the around the edge of the pond that he can reach. I'm on my own on this one since Woodchuck has to work today. I feel pretty "eh" about it, because when a girl is left in charge of men, it is viewed that she's being bossy, demanding, overbearing, controlling, etc. as compared to a man left in charge who's viewed as knowing what he wants from the job done. Le' sigh.