Billy Goat

 We continue to hit the ground running concerning all things with the land. I am terrified that another emergency will happen in our personal lives and we will lose time again, though I willingly take care of my family first. I long for the days when the land will be in maintenance mode and we can enjoy it more than just work on it!

The weather on our latest trip was sunny, but that damn wind was cold/cool again, and our morning began with everything covered in frost. Woodchuck rented a Billy Goat machine to start taking care of some of the brushy areas throughout the land, so we drove to pick that up first. We were only going to have it for about 6 hours, so hubby needed to get going on his thing with it and I needed to get going on cleaning up area of fallen limbs so that he could get into it with the machine. We walked the areas first together to talk about where he could go with the machine and what to leave alone. 

I was all ready to go! I could do this! And in less than two hours, I was dragging. That was partly due to having to walk away from the area I was working in to create piles for the branches, where I would have saved steps and energy if I could have piled them closer. My original idea was to have Woodchuck park the tractor by the area, and I would fill the bucket with branches to be taken over to the burn pile, but he pointed out that I would be filling that bucket quickly and it would be up to me to drive the tractor back and forth. I just didn't have the mental capacity for that on this day an the ground was still very wet and muddy and I didn't want to deal with tearing that up and slipping around. 

I am really hard on myself when I struggle physically, because my brain is telling me, "LOOK! Look at all of this stuff that needs to be done and you only have so much of a timeframe to get it done! And you are capable!", while my body is telling me, "Lady. Stop it." My hip does really well after the injection, except for certain movements, and apparently cutting and bending and carrying out limbs and fallen trees is a thing it doesn't care for. Neither does my ankle, which still has a tear in it after ten years of doctors waiting for it to heal. I was also working in the shade, and sweaty but chilly. I was grateful when break-time came!

These are the before pictures of a corner that is kind of divided in half long-ways by a property line. I would have just gone in and cleaned the whole thing up, even what isn't ours, but I've got my hands full enough without doing other peoples work. 👇

There was a monster of a honeysuckle that I needed to take down, but some of its limbs were holding up a dead tree that I literally could have just pushed over myself. Had to think before cutting and make sure I wasn't standing in the wrong spot! I took the limbs off a little high first, then started chopping away at the trunk itself. I would say this honeysuckle was about 10 foot before I started cutting it. 👇

I was struggling and needed to keep taking breaks. So I stopped and just listened to the birds and stood in patches of sunlight. I was grateful when 11:00 came around and we had someone meeting us at the land to talk about fixing the leaking side of the pond.  He was running behind, so we pulled out some chairs and sat in the sun to eat lunch. I looked around me, partly overwhelmed at the scope of everything still left to do through the nearly 16 acres, and partly in awe that I am charged with taking care of this beautiful place. 

The contractor showed up and was a really nice guy. Gave us a quote but was also honest about concerns that the new bank won't work if it's a muck soil area that the leak is occurring in. I remembered that we were given a soil map and dozen page report from the NRCS and just looked it over.....and ugh. Muck soil. So I sent the map to Woodchuck so he could send it to the contractor. The guy got right back to him and said that once the water tables lower and we are more in a drought stage, say around August, we will come out and did the pond to find out how far down he has to go to hit sand. Honestly, I am getting closer and closer to the mindset that we just need to start completely over with that pond if he wants to keep it. In looking for all of that paperwork though, I did find I had spoken incorrectly previously about not being able to work the watershed from April 1-October 1..it's actually only until August 1!!! So that was a great reminder that we have more time out there than I remembered. So much to keep track of! I even have it written in my little land project notebook and still forgot. D'OH!

While walking the contractor around, I noticed the pipe coming from someone else's property North of us was leaking again because the brace holding it up and fallen into the water. I went in and propped it back up. We HAVE to start nipping these kinds of things in the bud if we are going to control the water levels in the pond. We have at least four other areas OFF of our land that are affecting it, yet we are the ones paying the price (literally!) for it. I mean, let's start at point A, shall we? 

Once that meeting was done, we got back to work. Woodchuck had to help me finish picking up wood from my area because he was ready to go in with the machine and I didn't have it ready for him. Plus, some of the pieces were too big for me to lift on my own. While he worked the machine in this area, I went into the forest to start pulling garlic mustard. Yes, that battle has begun already! After pics of the tree line 👇

We will go back into the area in a few days to cut down the larger dead trees on our side. We plan to use this strip to plant the elderberries we are getting next month. With a little time to spare before having to return the machine, we went for a walk to one of Woodchuck's wooden log benches he made and stopped to catch our breath. I still needed to walk the watershed to grab an ootheca that I left out there thinking that it was a Carolina mantis, and I was wrong, and I wanted to check for evidence of trespassers. We must have gotten a lot of precipitation since we were out here last Friday, because water tables were high in the ditches and pond, and there was a lot of standing water.

I found the ootheca, it was still in the same spot and had not been damaged by the rain, snow and winds. 

I came back to the bench from my walk to find Woodchuck napping 😂

 We were looking forward to returning the machine and getting home. This morning finds me panicking that we will have to spend so much money on fixing the pond and ditches that we won't be able to build. I also have things at our current home to fix, like the roofs. The price quotes for such small roofs are insanely high, but it's not a job that Woodchuck or I can do ourselves anymore now that we are older. Thank goodness I have therapy today so I can get all of these thoughts out of my head, and fling my anxiety at some pillows in frustrated rage. Hope you have a release today too!

 

Pepe Le' Pew

 Another amazing day of weather yesterday had me running for the outdoors! Of course I did some stuff around the inside of the house, but honestly, when the weather is nice I "schedule" my work dependent on the weather. I.e. if it's nice, I try to do a lot of outside stuff, or just get outside for at least an hour to read or I'll take my computer or some art with me to work on. I leave non-essential indoor stuff for when the weather is bad. If I could, I would be outside though on nice days no matter what needed done inside, lol.

I was pulling dead leaves from my plants that have been inside all Winter and nearly grabbed this guy! European paper wasp. I let him be, he was just trying to lap up some moisture from the soil.

Once Woodchuck got home, we headed for the land, straight for the land, and decided against any other stops that we had been thinking about making on the way there. We had an important, time-sensitive task and I didn't want to mess that up and not get it done! As soon as we made the turn on the driveway that leads into the forest, he noticed our crow friends waiting for us! I am hoping to build on that relationship once we move out there!

We got our supplies together and headed for the pond! It was time to try something new for the water quality! You may remember from a previous post that I ordered this barley extract from TSC because it was WAY more affordable that the chemicals Woodchuck bought from a pond company, and those didn't work the first time and we couldn't afford to do it again. Plus, this is natural. We HAD to get this stuff in the pond because the water meal was already showing back up. Although it was nice and warm, it was windy, which made application a little tricky. 

I bought 3 gallons for our main pond, which holds about 215,000-217,000 gallons of water. If we like how this works, I'll buy some for the watershed pond this Fall. But why, oh why, did nobody talk about the smell?! I read a lot of reviews, all of them were good, but no mention of the scent of this? We opened the bottle and had to turn away really fast! Think fermented cooked broccoli, and a nasty baby poop after eating vegetables. No time to be a sissy about it though! Breath through the mouth and get going! 

Our sprayer holds 2 gallons, and in my head I divided the pond up into 3 sections and watched the sprayer level so that I would know when to move on to the next area. Unfortunately, since I was not willing to go in the Jon boat, it didn't get sprayed there, but the water meal seems to come from the edges anyway, and the most important bit was getting it where the flow of water starts so that can naturally carry the product out. The leaking side of the pond was an absolute adventure to try and traverse. I was carrying a heavy pump sprayer while trying not to fall in the water, was getting snagged with thorns, etc. My favorite kind of adventure, so this nature girl didn't mind too much! I ran across this cute little fellow, a wood frog, and we heard the first Spring peepers! We didn't hear any last year, so it was a welcome sound!

Once we sprayed the three gallons, we went for a quick walk to the watershed to grab a praying mantis ootheca that I had found on Monday and forgot out there. I also wanted to see if anyone had trespassed. We have the best views of the sun overhead from that place and it always makes me smile.

I ended up finding three oothecas! I knew the more round ones were the invasive Chinese mantis, but the other one stumped me and I thought it was a Carolina mantis. I asked in a bug group and was told that the two were indeed Chinese and the other was a European Mantis, which is also invasive. I didn't even know there was another invasive kind!!! Most talks I've seen are about the Chinese vs. the Carolina and I find identification picture and charts less than helpful for me. With the winds and storms we've had since leaving the land yesterday, I doubt it would be in the same spot I left it in (I removed the two Chinese ones), but I will look when we are out there again. Still so much to learn!!!

Plotting and cutting and planning

 With our first major trip out to the land this year under our belts, we feel a bit better about the amount of work that we got done in one day and made some plans for future trips. My only concern was that things (plants) were waking up much sooner than in previous years. I've made notes about that and hopefully we can get on top of things sooner next year. This trip was mainly to work on the watershed, since I had looked at the calendar recently and realized we had less one month to work out there until October. We knew we had some invasives left to cut, but weren't exactly sure how many. We stopped working on that project when we cut nearly a dozen invasives, mostly Autumn Olive, and moved on to the next one. 

Woodchuck has been wanting to make a path on the South side of the watershed, so that would enable us to walk it starting from the North end, walk West, turn South, and now we would be able to turn East. His plan is to continue that path along the entire property line to meet up over by the blueberry bushes, just sightly Northeast of the watershed. Eventually we would also like to clean up along the West edge of the watershed pond. Various spots we want to be able to walk thru are an absolute mess of fallen trees, thick patches of invasives, and weird property lines. They did not make it easy on us when they divided the properties.

While Woodchuck took the tractor out to the watershed, I walked on my own so that I could look at areas along the way, and I was greeted by two hunting hawks. We usually hear her at the same time each day that we are out there and I am assuming it was the mother hawk teaching her juvenile to hunt. The juvenile landed in a tree directly above me! Once again I was in awe of all that I am witness to out there in such a wild and natural place! I caught the juvenile taking off from the tree! 👇

We used a GPS map I have of our property to walk where he should flatten. He did not mow it, only flattened it. This was before he started, while I stayed about halfway down the path so he knew what direction to come. I am looking West towards him.👇

I'm looking East here, where we are headed. 👇

He loves using his tractor, Ginny 👇

The new path looking East! 👇

The new path looking West! 👇

While we were making our plan about the path, I saw some garbage in a matted down area of tall grass in the watershed. Unfortunately, someone had been out there hunting yet again and doing some target practice on a plastic jug. I did find some feathers and bird poop by it too. We have signs, boundary markers, etc. but do intend on stepping up our signage and getting cameras out there. I just don't understand why people mess with what isn't theirs. 

On our regular land that is not in government programs, we plotted out where we will be planting new trees next month. Although I don't have the land as set up as I would like to be planting new stuff, I jumped on the opportunity. That way they will have a couple of years growing time before we move out there. Later on, once we are out there, we will plan on doing more. I ordered elderberry, service berry, and arborvitae. The arborvitae will go at the front, just outside of the forest line, to help give some privacy. The service berry will go along two ditches (I'm thinking that it will eventually help with erosion), and the elderberry was the hardest for me to place, since Woodchuck loves to mow everything down. I've got a couple of places in mind for those, but need to clear those areas up first and am running out of time to do it. Rush planning seems to be my new norm.

We also cut down the the existing fruit trees. The apple tree wasn't providing fruit, and the two pear trees looked like they could have been Callery Pear and the fruit was always rock hard. We will start over in the next couple of years. I am ordering some stainless steel tree tags, so there will be no guessing what we planted. I am also making notes about where they are going and how many, so that we don't have to try and remember and then guess later on.

 We started making plans on cleaning up some trashy areas of invasives and fallen trees, and talking about the pond. We have a guy coming out on Monday of next week to talk with us about getting some clean fill to build up and fill in the area of leaking, and Woodchuck and I are going today to treat the pond with Barley Straw Extract. It's our first time trying this and I don't intend on doing it every two weeks like the bottle says, just the Spring and Fall. We are already behind because the pond meal is showing up already, but I want to give this a shot. I am still worried that we are going to continue to spend money and time trying to fix this thing, and will fail or a neighbor will mess with the ditch that runs from it and back us up again. But I guess it's worth this last try before throwing in the towel. 

We recently went to get our taxes filed and she has a pond and has a windmill set up to aerate it. No electricity, which is what we needed. So I will add that to my list of things to research.

Big storms are on the way late tonight into tomorrow, so it will be interesting to see how the pond holds up when we go to see it in a few days after! Always a plan, always an unknown, and always an adventure! 💚

Nature waits for no one

 As our son continues to heal physically, we are able to make quick trips to the land every once in awhile to check on things, or do a quick project. It's terrifying trying to get back to any semblance of normality...what if I give him too much space? What if, what if, what if....but I am learning that I have to let him live his life, and our lives have to keep being lived too while also supporting his recovery from the accident mentally, emotionally, and physically. We are nearing Spring, and if I had to walk away from the land for months on end to care for him, I would; but thankfully he is doing well and nature waits for no one. 

Woodchuck had to fix the man door on the garage recently, as some shifting occurred and the door wasn't latching closed. Not only did we not need winds blowing the door open, or people easily gaining entry, but we didn't need wild animals in there either! I also need to get some wood filler into areas on the frame and repaint it, it's already chipping and rotting in some spots.

Our most recent trip was to cut the blueberry bushes. We didn't cut them down far enough last year and they grew crazy and tall again. So we put our fears aside and just did it. I've come to realize how scared I am of the trial and error method in some things. Most likely that comes from a financial point, but honestly, it's the way that most humans learn. So we went in easy the first time, hoping to not mess up and lose the bushes, and that didn't work for the proper growth. So this time we went in heavy and in the recommended way! We cut 8 bushes this year. There were a couple of more but we couldn't get to them because of the water from the leaking side of the pond.

                                                                        Before 👇

    

                                                                            After 👇

Then we talked about this area. It has a monster of a bittersweet vine in it and has killed a lot of stuff. I tried getting into it to start cutting things back and treating it last year, but I am going to need help. He also wants to take the trees down right here, but I am always more for working in steps. 

On our walks over the past couple of years in areas we don't normally get into, we found MORE blueberry bushes. They are a distance away from the original ones we always work with, and with the property lines being so wonky in spots, we weren't sure how many of these are on our side. It is out in a lot of vegetation in the middle of nowhere, and more easily accessed from our property than the neighboring one, but since we weren't sure, we just cut back two that were sure were on our side.

There's at least 4 or 5 of them in a row! Once we start working at establishing the boundary line on this side, we will now for sure if we can utilize them all. 👇

If we have the chance to work the land more, bigger projects this year include cleaning up the edges of the pond, hauling in clean fill on the leaking side, getting stone on around all banks, putting in the barley straw extract that I bought last year to try, and figuring out how to get movement in the water to help keep the that clear. With a Monday of nice weather coming up next week, we are going to work on finishing removing invasives from the watershed preserve. I was shocked when I looked at the calendar recently and realized that we have less than a month left to be able to work out there until October of this year! I know there are a few autumn olives left that I had tagged, and I need to do some research on when a control burn is the right thing to do. The mat of grasses is so much thicker now than when we first bought it and I know the previous owner did at least one controlled burn out there. We also recently ordered trees from a water and soil conservancy....arborvitae, serviceberry, and elderberry! Those will picked up in April.

Here at home though, I am still focusing on cleaning out! I have a very large pile of things that I have been working on listing on eBay and we will be doing an indoor rummage sale with next month. While I've shelved the art business for now, I have been making some lists of things that I would eventually like to put some time into. Changing the name, getting new business cards, finding a different platform other than Etsy so sell on, etc. I have also checked into a couple of markets. I am not going to pressure myself! I am done with pressuring myself and life has me under enough of that as it is. The only thing I can manage right now to work on is some cross-stitch in the evenings. My brain just can't handle anything else creative right now.

Vehicles still tend to be a sore point around here. I have had a sensor go out two or three times already this year. We have taken a little time to hit some car lots and the prices for new cars are out of our range and Woodchuck has been resistant to buying used again. So we are down to one decent car (mine) that I use for getting our son and myself to medical appointments, and Woodchucks work car that has 300,000 miles on it (but also a forever warranty). Again, I am not pressuring myself to make decisions right now about vehicles and although my boundaries are constantly being butted up against, I am standing strong at this time.

I start therapy for myself tomorrow and am really looking forward to it. There are days that I am under so much pressure from my guys and life circumstances, that I feel like my heart will explode. I am ready to let in the feel good stuff and the beauty and the joy and the peace. I am ready to heal and thrive. I hope that you find all these beautiful things for yourself in your life too 💜

(this picture is from where I currently live. I had to walk back home after dropping my car at the mechanic down the road to get the sensor replaced again). 👆