What's that Smell?

 As we let the pond, and the new South bank created from what was removed from the center of the pond settle, there is still work to be done while we continue to save up money to finish fixing it the whole way around. So we headed to the land on our normally scheduled day, looking forward to spending the entire day there like we used to. While these two hours trips are equally as important, having that one day a week to really hit things hard because we aren't hindered by the clock, is game changing! Unfortunately, it didn't work out that way.

As I pulled into the driveway, we could see signs of Autumn creeping in. Literally. The Virginia Creeper is a brilliant red inside of the forests. 😍 There is a breeze in the shade that brings relief, while the sun bakes you. The sky looks a certain way, the smells are particular, all of the signs are there. We got out there a bit later than usual, taking our time on the one morning we have together is almost our oxygen now. We are getting so tired of the constant rat race. 

As we walked up to the our first project, the Green Heron was silent. I noticed it immediately. Normally it would see us before we even knew it was there, and it would start to do it's prehistoric calls and land in a river birch on the South side of the pond. But that tree is no longer there, along with all of the other trees and vegetation. And it seemed to be stunned and quiet at what it all looks like now. It didn't mind us working near by, which was so unusual. It landed on a little piece of land sticking out into the water and just stood silently. Maybe that's not a bad thing, but it's certainly different from it's usual behavior.

Our first project was to remove the knocked down willow and other plants that landed in the ditch coming off of the pond when the pond work was being done. While there is A LOT of vegetation on the banks and going down into the ditch, it looks A LOT better than it did when we first bought it! It was completely overgrown with honeysuckle, trees, etc. and blocked with pieces of cut wood that the previous owner threw in (we will find out more about that 4.5 years later when the company we hired recently worked on the pond). 

Woodchuck put on his waders, and carefully stepped in at the edge. The exposed mud is pitch black, and.....fragrant. By fragrant, I mean nasty. It smells like a zoo, manure, a farm, rot and decay. And you end up with that mud all.over.you. Right off the bat, I saved the life of what we call Wooly Bears. They say your Winter is predicted by the rust colored band on their body in comparison with the black part of them. According to the friend, we will not be having a Winter this year because only its head was rust colored 😂 I moved it to a safer place where it wouldn't get stepped on, or have branches stacked on top of it. 

Woodchuck kept getting stuck in the mud, and the struggle wore him out faster than he expected! But the ditch is clear of that debris and he was worried that the mud was higher than usual and called the company to come take a look at it at their convenience to see if we needed to dig it out. We piled the willow up nearby to get cleaned off in the rains that are supposedly coming. Once it's a bit cleaned off, we will strip them and take them to the Nipsco path to stack the nature fence back up. It's down about halfway now.

This is what it looked like right when it was done. It's halfway down from that now.

 

With Woodchuck down in the mud, and the sun beating down on us, it was clear that we weren't going to be out here much longer. 

He called the company, which happened to be near by and they said they would stop out and take a look at the ditch, but it was likely the drought, and lack of water, that made everything seem worse than it actually was. I did bring up the lack of water in the ditch to Woodchuck as the reason for so much mud, but he was adamant that it was because of the pond being fixed. All I can do is step back and let him carry on with what he wants to do.

While we waited for the company to stop by, we went to access the Tree of Heaven. He was worried that it was going to be all the way down in the ditch and hard for him to get to. I offered to go down in the ditch, since I've done it before, and it was fairly dried out, if a little muddy in the shady spots. He refused, and cleared the way to reach it. We treated it, and will wait 30 days to take it down and then treat the stump. We will likely have to keep monitoring it, and treating it, for a long time to come. But at least we have made it to this step! 

          There is always a little magick to be found if you take the time to look around, and up! 

                                                        And don't forget to look down too! 

Time to save another life! This was on a leaf that Woodchuck cleared out to reach the TOH.

With another task finished, and us waiting on the contractor, we parted ways. Woodchuck went into the garage and started cleaning up his table spaces, while I went out to the farthest part of the watershed to collect the trail cam SD card. The warm sun heats up the plants and it smells so amazing! Tropical, floral, green, and fresh! The mantis are moving all around, mating, and flying!

The birds are calling

There are still butterflies to be found

A feast for the senses

You can't help but smile and feel at peace out here

I identified another issue along the way. A small grove of Autumn Olive, with some Fallopia wrapped around it. Unfortunately, even though we pulled several bags of the Fallopia, we weren't able to get to it all before it went to seed. Now we need to pull this, and work on the phragmite.

Unfortunately, I can't stay out here. It's time to head back, but I am better for having had the time out here in nature.

I've been looking into a local auction house that does online auctions. There are a lot of things that I felt we could use for the new house, but with the contractor not getting back to us, we aren't sure how to proceed. I don't have measurements/blueprints/schematics to know certain things like the wall space size above the bathroom sinks to know how big of mirrors we can get, I don't know the kitchen cabinets I could get for certain and so far all of the quotes we have gotten are guesses at the layout. So we have resigned ourselves that building won't start this year, and that's ok, we just need some communication about it. So we will check into some things in the auction that we know for sure we can use and will have to let the other things go for now. Our oldest son needs help remodeling his bathroom, so we can focus on that for the next couple of months and get some cash in hand (hopefully) for doing that work for him.

It is easy to get caught up in the timeframe that we think things should happen in, but I practice following the timeline of the Universe, and in the meantime, continue to manifest. 💜

I will be at the Edge of Liberty Craft Fair this Sunday, September 21st, from 10-3 (CST). Located in Valparaiso, Indiana at 606 N. Calumet Avenue. I will have new sea turtle earrings and new Harry Potter items.

One thing leads to another, yeah, yeah, yeah

 Where has this year gone? How are we already in September? It seems like we went from freezing to melting to Fake Fall. But I am grateful to be enjoying it and to be moving down the list of projects at the land. The main one for 2025 being the pond! It is done now, though not completed. We ran out of money to finish it, so we will spend the Winter saving up and continuing to clear out the house and sell belongings. The goal is to have the guys out by this time next year to finish it 🤞I handled the sight of everything well. Of every beautiful and native plant and tree that was downed, I know that this is what needed to happen for the long-term health and functionality of the pond. We were very happy to hear that we have a great clay base soil in this area, so as long as we do, and don't do certain things, we will not have slumping again. They also dug the center to at least 14 feet, maybe 18, I can't remember 🤔 But it's deep, lol. Next year they will need to clear the East bank, we would like to talk to them more about a waterboard they brought up, we need to get a fountain for water movement/circulation, and we are on the fence now about lining and rocks on the shore. Lots to pick up in 2026!

As we continue in drought, low humidity, and mild temps, we are making as many trips out here as we can! Two hours a day doesn't seem like much to others, but it is absolutely game-changing when you have so much to do at once! And honestly, being out here is a great way to the end a day! 💚

We can fit a lot into a couple of hours, one of which is constantly checking back to areas that we have worked before to check for anything coming back. Once Woodchuck cleared along the front ditch (West side), we were able to positively identify a mature Tree of Heaven and a bunch of saplings it was sending out. So on our recent walk in the area to treat the juveniles, I happen to look up and see.....

That's right. Hops. A lot of Hops! Woodchuck wants to hire the same peeps who took care of the pond to come clean the edges of this ditch in Spring of 2026. May as well harvest these now and see how it goes. So we added that to the list of things to do, and to research how to do it.

                                A rare appearance of a Turkey Vulture that got very near to us! 

One project that has been on the back-burner for awhile is hanging more lights in the barn. By the time we were able to start getting out to the land earlier this year, we needed to get to work on other things and saved the lights for rainy and cooler days. Fast forward, and we finally got started this week! There are 4 lights total to hang, and we got 2 of them up in one trip. It seems that even on Woodchucks day off, we are only getting a few hours at the land, which is really cutting in to getting something done at all once. There was a little hold up trying to figure out where the best place to hang them would be, but he decided and got to work! I am always in awe of how Woodchuck figures this stuff out, and how much he knows! 😍 

A little friend came to visit us during the project! An adorable, fuzzy butt, bee fly! 😍

Woodchuck was ready for a break after two lights....it was hurting our necks looking up for that long, lol, so we took a little time for my things before having to leave sooner than we would have liked. Fallopia was my target once again. I think so far we have pulled at least 7 contractor bags full of it. From the watershed, from the banks of the ditches, from tree stands. Then I found a bit of it here at home in the railroad tree line next to my driveway. Some was getting too high and too far out in the ditches to reach with just my arms. So when we were moving stuff from the barn to the shipping container to make room for us to move around to hang lights, we found our old, trusty tool. The hot dog roasting fork! Just bend the prongs, and you have a handy tool to pull things down and to you!

When leaving the watershed, I spotted this Monarch caterpillar and hoped that we didn't accidentally harm any while pulling the Fallopia from all of the milkweed and other surrounding plants. 😬

As we prepared to leave, a bald-faced hornet was on my car, taking a breather. I gave it space, but I was not afraid of it. A healthy distance, and dose of respect, and we can both be on the land. 

On our next trip out, we were going to harvest the hops, but went for a walk first so that they weren't sitting too long after cutting them. We have also been harvesting elderberry as we find it, but there isn't much as the original trees are not healthy. Luckily I still have some frozen from last year. We did spot some beautiful feathers on our walk, turkey and most likely hawk? 

I was able to get to the Lespedeza on the watershed while it was blooming and will send these pictures to the Invasives group to make sure that they still feel like the identification they gave it earlier (while not blooming) is the correct one. 

Some thing came flying at us, twice, and it was a Chinese Mantis! We only saw the one on our way in, but on the way back? Oh my! I have not been able to bring myself to unalive them. I think I am worried that the one time I do it, I will have misidentified it and unalived a good one. Woodchuck will need to take care of the situation moving forward. 😵 As I was walking away, I told them that I am taking their Ootheca! 

The sightings of butterflies is slowing down now, but not zero. Little by little the flowers and plants that we see them on are in the final stages! This one is thistle. 

The walk is done and it is time to harvest the Hops! We are not making beer with it, but I am hoping to use it as a culinary seasoning, make teas, etc. The plan, originally, was just to pick enough on this trip to fill my drying screen, but Woodchuck got excited and insisted that it all would fit.

Once we got home and were separating the cones, he said he didn't realize my drying screen was so small, lol. So, luckily our youngest son still has the window a/c in his room, and his screen was in the workshop...and was much bigger! The perfect size for all of the cones! I will leave them to dry for two days in the workshop with the dehumidifier and fan running, then on the third day (which is tomorrow), I will put them in the dehydrator to finish. I do plan on powdering some, and leaving some whole. 

I miss being outside all day, seeing sunsets, and sunrises. We are hoping to camp at the land soon, if the weather levels back out in temps. Of course it is warming back up since we were going to try to camp this Sunday. 😒

Here at home, it's harvest season! I have apples galore, thanks to a local friend with lots and lots of apples! I've made applesauce (gifted one container of it to my oldest for his birthday because he LOVES it and I didn't make any last year because I was working), two apple crumbles, and some apple butter. I am saving the skins and drying them out to make a stove-top simmering potpourri for Fall and Winter.

One of my favorite cooler weather meals to make is Turkey Salisbury Steaks in the Crockpot! Served over mashed potatoes with gravy, there's rarely any leftovers 😛

My friend and I try and meet at least once a week to do our 3-mile walk. It's been great spending time with her now that neither one of us is working! We have been spotting these fungi on one tree alongside the track. 

We usually follow that walk with a trip to a couple of resale shops, which I went to some new-to-me ones with another friend recently and found a new/unopened kitchen faucet and two new/unopened towel bars for the bathrooms in the exact metal finish that I needed! I get so excited when that happens and am grateful for the savings to help make our dream come true! 

The most recent Sunday market was a success and saw around 4 items go to their forever homes! The cash helped me to pay medical co-pays, and put gas in my car. Every little bit adds up and I am grateful to the Universe to have some of my pieces speak to people. I had to mark my prices down on 3 of the 4 pieces to get them sold, but honestly, it was worth making it happen. 💜

Thank you for being on this journey with us!