Camping on Das Zem!

 Pinch me, I might be dreaming. Seriously. What a lucky girl I am! Woodchuck and I were talking about how great it would be to start camping on the land, get to experience it on a different level, and at different times of the day (and night) than we usually do. After we made a stop to the land on our recent date day to set up the tent, all we had to do was to wait for the night we could actually stay out there! Two days of anticipation before it could finally happen! We set up the tent on a Thursday and had to wait until Saturday to camp. We had a hard time figuring out where to put the tent, wanting it more in the open, but not wanting to deal with the wind tunnel that is created there and taking the chance that the tent would be damaged during our two day wait, or when we were out there. Hindsight now, when we went to take the tent down, we put it up precariously close to a tree that was not healthy and had been losing limbs. Rookie mistake!

We each had to work on Saturday, with me getting off later than Woodchuck. He had every thing packed and in one spot so we could load my car up as soon as I got home. I admit that I was a little leery about heading out so late, would it feel worth it? We ended up getting there around 7 p.m. and while we were losing light fast, luckily there was still enough for us (Woodchuck) to split wood and get the grill going.

Due to the ongoing drought, we made sure to clear even more of an already cleared spot on the prairie and had water available to douse things if we needed to. Much gratefulness was given over this beautiful place that we are now stewards of, and many beers were had. We finally ended up eating around 8 p.m.! We had always wondered what the night sky looks like on Das Zem, and I have to say that it doesn't look all that different from where we live right now. We are lucky to live in a tiny little farming town, with not a lot of streetlights. That makes viewing the stars possible! But the fact that were able to see them for the first time on our land couldn't be beat! I also am excited to eventually see a Full Moon out there!

We forgot something up at the front CRP storage container and walked back to get it. I asked hubby to shut the light off that we were carrying and this is what it looked in the trees. 

I had no fear though, but I thought I would. We feel so in-tune with this place. Like it is us and we are it, no separation. While initially overwhelming, between the two of us and people we know, there's nothing that we don't feel like we can handle. We made our way back to the prairie to our site and finally got to sit and relax for a little bit! 

Working 7 days a week between our regular jobs, finishing projects to get the house ready for the market in a few years, working on the land and preparing for our big art show, there's no time to exhale right now. But we are both losing steam and it was nice to finally enjoy what we have worked so hard for. We stayed up away past our bed time....until 10:30!

We were both quite interested to find out what kind of animal sounds we would hear. To date, the majority of what we hear is birds....and the neighbors barking dog. Seriously, peeps, show that pooch some attention! I did finally see two deer pouncing away when I pulled onto the prairie! So now I've seen deer, hubby has seen turkey, and we've found what we think is coyote poop. Oh yeah, and the ground nest of the yellow jackets. 

So off to bed we went! NOT a comfortable nights sleep for two people with various bodily injuries and arthritis. Woodchuck doesn't think I filled the mattress enough. All I know is every time my nearly 200 pound lumberjack moved I was bounced around and nearly right off the mattress. I'll fill it a little more next time. 

Did we hear anything that we thought we would? Nope. But the breeze would catch the Oaks and Poplars and the leaves would wake me up and I'd smile. That is one of my favorite sounds! I was uncomfortable. Too hot with the sleeping bag, too cold without it, and constantly waking up. Somewhere around 3:30 a.m. I heard a sound that I could not place, but it was loud and animal. I jumped and accidently elbowed Woodchuck in the back, but then smacked his back repeatedly when the sound became numerous and louder. Crows. After the initial one sounded off a strange call, a handful of them came screaming out of the forest. I admit it scared the shit out of me initially.

And then I started to think about if something had scared them out of the forest, or was this natural behavior for them? I was laying there waiting to hear or see something come out of the trees. But nothing ever did. After a quick look online, it seems that crows do tend to head out early in the morning. Will be interesting to see if they repeat that behavior on future camping trips there!

We woke up later than I expected we would in the morning, but after a crappy night of sleep, that was okay. The sun hadn't quite made over the trees yet when we fired up the grill for breakfast, and had the last two beers. It took the edge off and we wouldn't be driving for several hours. Breakfast of champions!

Ok, admittedly the eggs look disgusting, but they tasted great! We forgot eating utensils, except for one that I keep in a bag in my car, but had leftover burger buns! We shared the one spoon we had and toasted the buns so they could hold the eggs. Yummy!

We planned our day out as we watched sun come up over the trees, and said our Good Mornings to the creatures, including this Viceroy.

The plan was to finally, FINALLY get some help removing honeysuckle from the front CRP. It needs to be done before the contractor starts clearing the land, to lessen the likelihood of spreading the honeysuckle. Plus, some of them are too big now for me to be able to get out alone. I knew Woodchuck was going to hate it, but it needed to be done. We filled two or three large black garbage bags full and then to make it go faster, we laid the rest in the trees to grab next time.

I think next time I head out there, I'm just going to lop off the root system, throw that in the black bag and save the rest of the plant to burn since we are going to have several burns there this Fall/Winter.

Before we knew it, it was time to leave and head home. We knew we wouldn't be back for at least a week or two, with the temps skyrocketing again, humidity being high, and us trying to get ready for our art show. We finally got rain yesterday, after weeks without it, and it looks like it will be raining today too, with a cold front coming thru. It's right about now, even when I wasn't a land owner, that I start panicking internally. Harvest season signals the coming hibernation season. I feel a sort of frenetic energy internally, like how yellow jackets behave at the end of Summer. 

We have harvested all of the elderberry that we can from the land, and from our current home, we have a lot of grapes. Making grape juice and trying to make jelly is eating up any free time I might have and I'm about ready to offer for friends to come pick grapes if they want them. I finally got my jelly jars to seal (that's been an issue in the past for me), but the jelly didn't set. So I tried the remedy for that and they still didn't set. Maybe next year I'll just sell the grapes and grape juice and leave the jelly making in the past with my Grandmother. I clearly don't have the touch for it. Sorry, Grandma!

Harvesting and clearing!

 I thought that we were busy before, but things have gotten even more crazy! From trying to make as much headway with clearing areas on the land as we can, to harvesting and re-using as much as I can. It is always around this time that my seasonal internal clock starts ticking and counting down. Fighting off the hibernation gene that has clicked on, I am gathering, gathering, gathering in preparation for weather that is more conducive to staying inside.

After spending many weeks counting down the days until we could start working with invasives in certain areas, we are now counting down the days until we can do the burn along the ditches as we wrestle with the invasive plant species.

You might be wondering why we would burn versus cutting all of the crap down? Well, there's a couple of reasons. 1) Those ditches are steep and deep, particularly the front one. 2) We need the roots of the trees and plants to help shore up the edges of the ditch and to keep them from eroding. While we may be able to reach some of the plants to cut them down, we won't be pulling them out.

We started clearing some of the AO (autumn Olive) and honeysuckle out from behind the fishing shack and although we can see the progress, it's still slow going and we are finding that our tractor can't handle what we thought it might be able to. Please note that this part of the land is not on any land programs.

Because of the time of year, the AO and honeysuckle have their berries, so we have to be careful in how we handle the bushes right now. We piled it all next to where we cleared and will burn it all this Fall/Winter. I'll stay on the lookout for sprouts that I can pull or treat right away. This area will have to be something we continually chip away at and oh! I found a ground yellowjacket nest right in front of this spot. How we never got stung leading up to and on this day, I don't know. The nest has been marked and we are checking into ways of dealing with it. Add another thing to the list!

So far we have harvested about 30 ounces of elderberries from Das Zem! I made an elderberry syrup from the first batch and have frozen the rest of the berries to use over the Winter. We might get another ounce or so picked this weekend and than that will be the last of them. We have 3 little trees, one of which is very young and very close to being in the water. I'm hoping we can save it! Please note that this part of the land is not on any land programs.

Having to switch gears to another area, we started clearing the vegetation along the North edge of the pond. This side has the healthiest bank, and is in the most open and accessible area. We need to get it cleared so that the contractor can see the pond better in order to know how to fix it. It also enabled us to see what all was growing right there.

Found lots of spotted touch-me-nots, a little bit of milkweed, a smoking tree, a barberry, a boxwood, lots and lots of raspberry, etc. We will burn what is right at the edge of the pond since we don't have a way to get to those plants. We are anxiously awaiting the contractor coming to start prepping the land and fixing the pond within the next month! Many battles were fought on this day.

I am still finding and gathering bones as well on the land usually found while pulling honeysuckle from the CRP's. 

Pulling honeysuckle, especially the larger ones that I can't get on my own, from the front CRP is the plan for the next trip out. We need to get them pulled before the contractor starts clearing the land. But we are also trying to relax on the land a bit more, after spending a little time recently cooking out and relaxing on the prairie (after working out there, of course! Work and then play!), we are preparing to spend our first night out there this weekend.

We have had this tent for over 3 years now and haven't used it. We did set it up once in the yard to air out and so I could clean it (we traded a friend for it, so it was used when we got it). It was...an adventure putting it up again. First, we had to figure out where to put it. There's kind of a wind gully coming from the North, over the pond and through the prairie, so decided to put it off to the side and tucked along the tree line instead of out in the middle more where we really wanted it. 

Second, I had to save the life of this feisty toad. He was not happy about being moved, but he would have felt worse getting stepped on by hubby. Please note, handling any type of wildlife is frowned upon when not necessary. Handling toads and frogs, especially with bare hands, pulls their protective coating from them. I did have my gloves on, and I would not have handled him if it wasn't necessary to keep him from getting harmed.

Being out on the prairie can get very warm with the sun blazing down on you. So since I had on a sports bra, I took off my shirt (I had a pair of jeans on). Lately, insects are loving my right hip. A yellowjacket started to sting me there a few days ago until I jumped and startled it off of me. Then yesterday, something that I couldn't identify, kept landing on my hip and chest. I absently swiped it away, accidently hitting it, and all of a sudden I smelled like a pooped my pants! It was on my hand and hip, but there was nothing visible! Hubby could even smell it, it was so strong! It was not a stinkbug, but I still have not figured out what it was. That was my intro to camping. Wait, what? You didn't now that I've never been camping? Yep. This nature girl has never been camping in her life. Mainly because of allergies and asthma. And with hubby's sleep apnea and needing a CPAP machine when he sleeps, we may both be up all night! Fun times! I may be up all night anyway, afraid of the inky black darkness out there and what will be moving around in it. Even more fun times!

Back here on the home front, things have been even more crazy. Trying to finish the kitchen update and running into all kinds of snafu's with the flooring. Always the flooring in this house. My goal is to have the flooring done this weekend so we can move on to the other little things that need to be done in there and I can get my house cleaned back up in time for Halloween decorating.

I recently harvested our white grapes and juiced them. Next up will be the concords, which we need to check this weekend.

I am also very nearly done using up the black willow frames we made from what we harvested on Das Zem. Woodchuck seems like he's ready to start getting more out, so hopefully we can and then make more frames and other items to use over the Winter.

I've also started working on the witch torches. Dried mullein stalks harvested from Das Zem, vintage hot pot bought at my job, beeswax pellets found at a resale shop, freezer paper scraps are leftovers that I keep from when we make soaps. I'll be burning this one on Das Zem tomorrow night to see how it goes. I wasn't sure how much beeswax needs to be on it. The only thing I know is it should be burned outside and will making little popping sounds as the seeds burn. I used the biggest stalk I had because that would not be one that I would sell. Smaller is better, I found.

Woodchuck and I are getting ready for a big oddities and curiosities art show coming up at the end of the month, so pardon me if things get even more...weird....around here.

Contractor day!

 It was finally time, it was finally here! The day to meet with the guy that will be helping us to put in the driveway, grade certain areas of the land, prep the front CRP for building, and clear a small patch of trees for the ingress/egress path. This person was a co-worker of hubby's, who then went to school to start his own excavating business. I have heard about him for years, he asked hubby a long time ago if I could be his bookkeeper (hubby said no), and our youngest even worked for him for a very short amount of time a couple of Summers ago, but I had never met him.

We got to Das Zem early so we could get some work done before meeting with him. The guys mowed while I continued to pull honeysuckle from the front CRP and tag some native plants that I found out along the prairie. My spidey senses were tingling in the front CRP and I knew the direction I was to go, and that I would find something there. I found lots of honeysuckle saplings, but also evidence of creatures. This pile seemed fairly fresh. Coyote?

I also found lots of various fungi and mushrooms! They are some of my favorite to photograph.

I open myself while walking in nature. I try to stay as quiet as possible, so I can hear everything. The birds, the different sounds underfoot, the leaves of the Poplars in the winds (so heavenly!). But I also open myself to the sights! What a glorious place to be in!

I found not only garbage to pick up, and honeysuckle to pull, but also more bones. Specifically, a skull. My clue was the smell of death. Although this was no longer containing anything to give off of that smell, it's nature's way of communicating to me in a way that I will understand that there is something there that I am to find. I may eventually find more! That smell could very well be something that is rotting that I haven't run across yet. Bird species unknown, but it's larger than most I've gathered along the way.

The Hexenknochenjager is alive and well still! Some may see this as creepy, but I see them as gifts!

Once the contractor showed up, it was time to walk the front CRP again. I cannot tell you how many times Woodchuck and I have walked it, marked trees, measured, etc. So many so that we have confused ourselves along the way. The contractor wanted to know if we wanted to remeasure or go off of how we had it? My motto? Always double-check us. And I'm glad that we did because some adjustments were made! I have to be honest that I cannot envision what it will look like once it is thinned out. That's part of the reason that I am not a sculptor or carver. My mind just can't see in dimensions if my eyes can't see it.

I really trust the skills and ideas of this contractor. Not only did he remember specifics from walking the land with hubby months ago, but he could envision how the land would look after taking the trees down. I also like that he was on the same page that I was, that we chip away and see what we think along the way and not just go in and bulldoze it all down. We can always start small and take more down, but once something is gone, it's gone. I don't want to have any regrets with this land and what I do to it.

So originally he thought he would be able to get on it in September or October, but said recently that he might be able to get there sooner. Somehow, even with the setback of the delivery of the tractor for how long, we are managing to stay on track as far as the timeline goes for what we wanted to get done this year. I cannot believe we are nearly into Fall already and once Winter comes, our time at the land will be less. But I have to focus right now so that I don't get overwhelmed. Fall will bring the chance to really hit some of the invasives, so I want to stay steady on the things I am working on leading up to that. 

Like harvesting elderberries for the first time in my life! Had I had the time this last day we were out, I would have grabbed them then because apparently you can ripen them after picking them if they are nearly ripe. The birds can have some too, of course! And I did check the blueberries on this last visit, and they were all gone now. But I found something new that I hadn't seen before right next to them!

I believe this 👆 is a silky dogwood (also goes by others names)! It's funny how all of the things that I thought would be nice to have on a piece of property, I am finding here. A flowering dogwood is on the classified forest that butts up to our land and I was kind of sad about that not being ours. Now I have this! I will need to tag it though so that nobody mistakes them for blueberries. They seem to have fruited immediately after the blueberries, not at the same time, but still, they look too similar to uneducated eyes and being right in the mix of those blueberries might be too confusing for some to know the difference. 

So our lists are made for the next trip out and we are expecting the delivery of a drone in time for that next trip! It's about the only way right now that we can see what is growing on the Watershed Preserve. I just hope I don't tank it down somewhere and have to go out there for it. 😖 This time it will be without our youngest son, as he went back to college this past week. So many mixed emotions for us all, and this land is already working Its magick on him. He loves working it and getting his hands dirty. Only time will tell where our futures will land us, but in my own way I am manifesting all that I can along the way. 💚

Date Day on Das Zem--lots of pictures!

 Woodchuck and I used to have date days where we would literally go out during the day time, then it switched to Friday night date nights, then Covid hit and it all stopped. Now that things are back open (at least for now), we usually don't have the energy or money to follow thru with anything. Some times though we'll make it out for dinner during the week, or use date night to stop at the home improvement and price supplies we need. We have been lucky enough to squeeze a couple of dates in recently though! One evening we headed to the fair to walk around and get dinner. Another night we headed out for a short bicycle ride around town, and the most recent trip to Das Zem was an hours long date!

We planned on leaving the boy at home, since we weren't going to be working on "projects" and just trying to take it slow and focus on each other while on the land. Woodchuck needed to oil the tractor, so while he did that, I continued to work on pulling honeysuckle from the front CRP. I know some of you might think that it's crazy, pulling them instead of using an herbicide but there's a ritual involved here and it doesn't involve poison. A sort of soul practice, caring for the land by literally being hands on and connecting. While I do not care for any land in hopes of being rewarded, Mother Earth always lets me know that she sees what I am doing and appreciates my efforts. While pulling honeysuckle, I found this. 

The jawbone is small, it fits in the palm of my child-size hand, and has yet to be identified. The rock is the FIRST and only rock I have found on Das Zem so far. Although you can't tell from the picture, it seems to have a tad bit of quartz in it. Not only am I a Hexenknockenjager (witch bone hunter), but also a big Steinsammler (rock collector). These items are all saved on the land and will be displayed somehow out there eventually. Let us not forget about the fairy ring that I found while we were trying to figure out the trees that will be taken down to eventually build.

Once hubby was done, we headed out, hand in hand, to the prairie. His one little project was to build a wooden box to cover the pipe on the pitcher pump. So while he worked on that (I had to help out for a couple of minutes), I walked around pulling Queen Anne's Lace/wild carrot from that area. Not only does pulling invasives enable me to learn faster how to identify them, but it also familiarizes me with the land, gets me into spots I normally wouldn't go into, and helps me to find new things. Here is a picture of hubby's finish project.

There were lots of paths into the trees this time around. I am assuming that they are deer trails and I did find a couple of places where they bedded down. I went out past our "Charlie Brown" cedar tree and followed some Queen Anne to a spot I don't recall going to before. It wasn't all that easy to get to, there's always thorns involved out on the land, but I did find another cedar, and was led right to another MFR (multiflora rose). I really felt like I was being guided on this day to find things. 

The multiflora rose has been kicking our ass and scratching up our arms. Some times we don't notice it until it lashes out. The ground is so matted with vegetation in spots that I can't even get my shovel/spade in! I just have to tag things for a later date. But on this day, I was able to find more natives than non-natives, for what I think is the first time ever out there! Please note that many plants go by many names.

Monarchs! I dragged Woodchuck out on the previously mowed trail/ingress/egress with me so I could once again see how it was holding up. Two weeks since mowing and it's doing fine enough to continue holding off mowing again...for now. We once again got into a discussion about him wanting to mowing everything down around pond, which would include all of the milkweed. Some times I just need to walk away and deal with his wants another time and this one of those times. 

We have eggs on the milkweed!

Missing the phalanges that are indicative of MFR, so I might actually have something here that is not a jerk! 

Smooth sumac, which sadly might get mowed down. It's not in a very good spot, and we seem to have a lot of it elsewhere that is in areas we can leave alone.

                                                                        Boneset 👆

                                                                            Speedwell 👆

                                                                        Heal-all 👆

    Ragweed 👆 

                                                                    Beggars lice 👆

                                                                        Seedbox 👆

                                                                White meadowsweet 👆
                                                                            

Some of these were found as we made our way to pick more blueberries. It was finally time to use my new waders that I got second-hand at work. They are a great brand, and insulated, AND they are the bib kind whereas hubby's are just the chap kind. That meant that I could go into deeper waters than he could, which was a silly thought anyway because I am so short. Even with hubby's chaps, he'd be able to go just as deep in the water as I could with bib waders. And then. Then I went to put them on. I was in such a hurry when I grabbed them that I was focused only on if they fit my foot and didn't think to pull them all the way up. To be honest, I thought that they would be baggy and huge on me on the top portion. 

So we're standing by the fishing shack, and I'm putting them on. My feet were so hot and swollen that the boots were a bit tight, but nothing too bad. Then I went to pull them up. Wasn't happening. I checked to make sure that drawstring at the waist was all the way loosened. I couldn't get them up past my thighs! I didn't stop to think that they were designed for stick figure men, straight up and down! I am anything but! I am feet of female curves! I was SO mad at myself!!! A perfectly good pair of waders and I can't use them! I said to hell with it, left them pulled up to my thighs and waddled off towards the blueberries. 

I was pouting, hubby was initially laughing but then told me to stop because I was going to fall and hurt myself. I waddled back to him and he told me to turn around. He proceeded to split by waders down the backside, which made me pout even more! There went a perfectly good pair of waders.....and going in deeper waters. Although that did enable me to be able to pull them all the way up, those things are very constricting and there was a couple of times that I nearly fell and would not have been able to get back up without help. Think about a kid in a puffy snowsuit and that's about how it went.

Anyhoot. Here. Here is my embarrassingly funny picture from the moment. Dammit. <still pouting>