Flying by the Seat of My Pants: Row, row, row the boat

I felt nearly frantic to keep getting to the land as often as possible, even if it was just for two hours of work. How grateful I felt to have a proper Fall, and the good memories it brought back of playing outside in it as a child! Of course, now it's all about the work, but anytime I am outside, it's too fun to feel like I am working, lol.

This is a great time of year to find, and eradicate the Burning Bushes. Because of the monster one at the front, I am finding seedlings in the front forest, and seedlings coming up from the original location from the seed bank created. I expected it, and they are super easy to pull.

This little maple, and all of the forest, whispered a thank you to me for working to help it thrive!

It has been so nice, I was not surprised to find garlic mustard, but it was still frustrating to see it. I didn't get the time/chance to pull it before the snow fell and temps plummeted.😖

This is going to be Woodchucks office on this day! He had been very excited to get some depth numbers on the pond, it was all he kept talking about wanting to do. So, this was a perfect day for him to do it! I, however, was not getting in that boat with him. I will never get in a boat with him again that someone else isn't steering/driving. Way too many close calls and frustrations and the man clearly doesn't know what he's doing and won't admit it 😂 But to just have him in the boat? He'll be fine!

And honestly, it was a good thing that only he went out in the boat, because he also wanted to pull some logs and branches out and needed that space to put them in. While he measured though, he would call out the numbers to me, and I would write them in on a basic pond drawing he did.

I was having a great time sitting by the pond, watching Dragonflies mating and laying their eggs in the water. I mean, who gets to say, "I sat by a pond in the sunshine and watched Dragonflies mate and lay their eggs", very often?

Even the Stinging Nettle was enjoying the lovely day!

What I did not enjoy, however, was watching the North pond bank slumping into the water. Literally right in front of my eyes. Since Summer, we've lost at 3-5 feet of soil. It's going to have to get fixed next year, or Woodchuck will lose the land that he needs to drive the tractor on to reach the other side of the property. We ran out of money to get it the whole pond edging done when the company was out there earlier this year. Tis' why I am selling belongings on eBay 😂

The soil is just sliding right in. The breezes today are creating ripples in the water. That rippling water scours the bank, eroding them away. It also doesn't help when wildlife goes to the water edge. It has gotten so bad now, that there are watery holes that have opened up feet away from the pond edge. That shows me how much ground intends to cave in, and we are talking a minimum of 5 feet more of loss by next Summer.

We didn't realize there was so much cut wood in the pond until the company working on fixing the South bank told us, and with that work, some of the pieces came up to the surface!

He has a nice little pile started!

I wasn't comfortable being too far away from him if something happened. Although he has a life jacket on, he doesn't know how to swim, and with such varying depths around the pond, lots of branches and logs hidden under the water, etc., I followed him around to the other side.

I couldn't resist seeing what was coming up, but first found some debris that we aren't sure if it belongs to the company we hired?

We have some new Elderberry babies! 😍💜

And some fantastic fungi!

I checked on the bone pile, though I don't know why! Did I expect to see something different than last time? 😂

And gave thanks for this view!

Once Woodchuck was out of the water, and boat put back, we continued to walk around before heading home. We know these days are numbered for the rest of 2025.

We checked once again on the spot where we found the deceased Fox as it used the boat as shelter. I am so sad for it, and we don't know what it died of, but we left it there for another animal to utilize and for it to finish decaying and providing its nutrients back to the Earth.

We found a bald-face hornets nest that we are debating on cutting down at some point to save.

I found these fantastic leaves, the size of dinner plates and decided that I wanted to take them home and try to preserve them!

It's so hard to leave on these nice days. I told Woodchuck that once we live out there, I will likely be outside from sun up to sun set.....I might even sleep outside often!

But we can't put off the bathroom stuff for too long. We want to make sure everything is ready for when the surround comes in. The next step was taking out the header.

I can totally see why some individual remodelers wouldn't take this job on......

So now it's open!

Now all of the purple board has to come down............

It was the night before a Full Moon, and I want to be outside under it!

But the next night, we went to a program put on by the Purdue Extension in our county. It was all about popcorn! How to grow it, harvest it, etc. Woodchuck had tried growing it before I met him and thought he had done something wrong because the ears were so small. They were the red/burgandy variety, which I LOVE to look at! I thought this program might be interesting to him and it turns out we were the only two that showed up!

We each got two ziploc bags stuffed full of kernels to sort

, and he tested lots of different popcorn made in a variety of ways (stove-top, microwave in a bag, microwave in a silicone popcorn popper, popcorn machine, etc.)

They showed us how to get the kernels off of the cob, but I let mine sit for weeks and now I can't get them off, lol. We also decided that we don't want to try and grow popcorn at the land. Too much guesswork on the correct moisture level of readiness. We don't eat popcorn but a couple of times a year anyway.

The moon was full and bright when we left the program, so we came home and went for a walk around town! Even the oak leaf hydrangeas at the library were still in the Spooky Season mood! How is it already November during these photos?!

But snow is in the forecast and we need to keep pushing forward. Tired or not, sick or not, there is a lot to get done and we are the only ones to do it. So back to our sons we go....

New plumbing brace made and installed.

And we worked on the wall to support the shower head wall of the shower.

I don't mind walking back and forth to the garage when I get to see a moon like this!

Every once in awhile I do something more than clean up the messes and help carry heavy stuff...but not much, lol.

We were rewarded with a sunset on fire on the way home. Just spectacular!

Do you remember the dinner plate sized leaves that I planned on preserving? It didn't work. I don't know if I didn't use enough glycerin, or didn't soak them long enough, but it was worth a try! This is what they looked like while soaking.

Another quick trip to the land to try and knock some things out. The snow fall in the forecast was supposed to be fairly significant and when that happens, we don't come to the land because we can't get into the driveway until we plow it with the tractor and there is nowhere to park the car while we walk up to the barn to get the tractor. It's a beautiful evening.....