Waking from a Winters Slumber

 Day One.....

Let's celebrate together the finding of my favorite rake! And yep, it was right where I left it. I'll overlook the scary evidence that I am becoming more and more forgetful and just be happy that I have the rake again!

With some sunny and warm days at our disposal, we kicked off the season with priming the handpump. Which kicks my ass. Because Woodchuck has it set for his height and I'm much, much shorter. To be pumping that thing practically with my arms over my head is near impossible! Then if I can only use one arm because I'm holding something in the other to be filled, let's just say that it is painful for others to watch me tackle that thing....I may need to have a step stool by it for me to use.

Woodchucks first project was to cut back and spray the weeds in the ditch we had been cutting bushes and trees out of when we had the drought. I pulled garlic mustard from an open area so that I could keep an eye on him. Didn't need him falling in the ditch! I should have paid more attention to my own surroundings though, since I knelt in stinging nettles. We also pulled a dead tree and some of it's branches out of the ditch before he treated it.

Then while he cut logs for the foot bridge idea, I raked out the back ditch. If you've been here awhile, you know that Woodchuck made a floating rake to get the scum off of the pond. Turned out there was just way too much on the pond and it needed an herbicide, but the back ditch is the perfect size for it!

                                                                                Before 👆

                                                                                During 👆

                                                                                After 👆

That was a productive! Time to grab a quick break before packing up to head home.

Day Two.....

This trip was really important (aren't they all, though?!). And I was really nervous about it. Today was the day we're going to treat the main pond. The plan was for Woodchuck to row while I sprayed. I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but it is not safe to be in a boat with Woodchuck. He is an Aries and is all about, "Yeah, I know how to do that", and you believe him and then you find out in the middle of the shit show that he does not know how to do that. 😄

I think too that it freaks me out that he picks the highest bank to enter the water from instead of a flat surface. So, I'm in the front of the boat while the back end is still up on the bank and all it's going to take is one little dip of the boat and water is coming in. I hold on to each side for dear life, stare straight ahead and hold my breath until he's on and we are on our way. 

We've got a nesting goose couple again this year and we were not entirely sure how they would react to us being on the water. They have been great with us being on the land around the pond though! We left their area until last so they could acclimate to us being out there and we know already that they can feel out our intentions. They have always been super calm, they know we aren't there to mess with them in any way. On a side note, I don't think their eggs are going to hatch. They didn't last year either. We'll check the nest out from the usual distance the next time we are out there, and if they aren't hatched yet, we are pretty sure it's well past time for them to be. I didn't think to start tracking the days when we noticed the geese out there, so next year I will for sure. They are actually very fascinating creatures to observe and learn about their behaviors! How they sleep in the water, how they nest, etc. 

All of the green stuff in the water is part of the reason we are needing to treat it. Once the weather warms and we get into hot Summer time, the whole pond would be covered and it smells SO bad. I made sure to cover myself up completely, because I'm a little freaked out by the thought of any herbicide. I know it was a necessary thing to do this for the pond, but I still get all up in my head about it. I was covered head to toe, but could still smell the stuff and yuck. And while I adore being in water, I am a Pisces after all, I don't like not seeing what is in the water or how deep it is. I got the sensation of a thick, suffocating liquid in that pond, not flowing, caressing water like I get from Lake Michigan water. Maybe I just need to get used to it and get to know it better. 

I think it must have taken nearly an hour to complete the main pond, with us having to get out at the halfway mark and make another batch of the herbicide up for the other half of the pond. Then it was time to go to the watershed pond and treat that one! We got permission from the NRCS to do so! What I don't understand is why Woodchuck left the smaller boat for the bigger main pond and the biggest boat for the smaller watershed pond. I questioned him. He doesn't know either! 

The thing I like about the watershed pond is that even though it is also spreading, all of the edges are flat. Once we were out there on it, I could see the phragmite in all of its horrible glory as it was sending fresh green ones up on the waters edge, as well as up on land. It didn't take us as long to treat this one, one batch only, and I'm not sure that we did all that well! Time will tell! 28 days to be exact. 

Then Woodchuck wanted to start laying the logs across the ditch for the bridge. He asked if I wanted to run the tractor or hitch them up? I was not comfortable with either one to be honest, so he chose for me to be on the tractor. Now this bridge idea is purely all trial and error. Woodchuck is REALLY good about having ideas or executing ideas that I have, but we found out quickly enough that it wasn't going to work the way he was thinking it would. 

Luckily we had a sunny day to work in! 

As usual, we didn't have everything we needed with us and he has to walk back to the shipping container a few times to grab stuff, which wore him out. I was surprised though that he listened to me and the spin off idea I have to try next time we work on this project. Some times he can be very open-minded and other times there's no budging him! Once we got as far as we could with this, we still had daylight to burn and decided to walk a couple of rows in the forest to pull garlic mustard and honeysuckle. He will never understand how much I appreciate having him with me to work on that kind of stuff. I will plow through it alone when I have to, but I won't turn his help down on the rare occasion he offers it!

And yes, friends! It is that time of year again and already turning out to be a bad season for ticks! I've stocked up on spray for us to use when we go outside 😬

Day three.......

The weather was shit...again....and it was our last day of staycation! We spent it on the road driving to Portage, Indiana to pick up fish from Jones Fishery. Woodchuck ordered two kinds of minnows. Once again my girl (my car) traveled long distances to transport a unique cargo! They were so freaking cute!

We had to let them acclimate to the pond water temperature for ten minutes, so we tied string to the tops, placed them in the water and walked for a couple of minutes to look for mushies because: we are also entering morel mushroom season as well! I've only found a few so far, it was a nice treat to run across them! 

We went back to the minnows and began setting them free into the water. There were about a dozen that were dead between the four bags, and that is to be expected. The treatment we did on the pond will not affect them, and these are not something we will fish. They will however be the "canary in the cave" as far as the health of the pond goes. How exciting! 

We are back consistently into shit weather again, and I am so over it. I mean, I'll work outside in anything, but it gets old being wet and cold, or overheated. Can't we have "perfect" weather days and more of them, please? I guess I better get over that since I applied for an outdoor seasonal position at an agriculture research farm. I should find out by the end of this week if I got it! Now a friend is saying they are hiring at her place too. Lots of options for when I get healthy, as I'm in the throes of a yet-to-be-diagnosed health crisis. Never a dull moment! ;) 

And just like that!

 We have anxiously waited all Winter for the weather to warm, and just like that the Spring projects have begun! Daytime temps have been averaging between the 50's and 70's (those warmer temps are supposed to happen this week). Intense storms ushered in great weather and gave me and Woodchuck a chance recently to start on the usual Spring-time work, but let us take a moment of silence first for my favorite work tool, an old iron metal rake that I seemed to have misplaced after raking up the branch debris from alongside the back ditch. Woodchuck and I looked everywhere for it, and we may have been looking right at it for all I know, but just couldn't see it! So we had to buy another one. Hopefully we will run across it when we least expect it!

On our latest trip out there, we started by checking the back ditch and found the drainage tubes to be nearly plugged. Woodchuck cleared them out and placed on the filter caps we bought and we decided to walk away from it for a bit to see what happened. When we went back we noticed that while the caps keep the larger debris out, it builds up in front of them. So anytime we are out there, we will need to check them and anytime the ditch may dry up again, we need to keep trying to get all of the debris out of it. This feels like it's just going to be one of the constant maintenance projects and if that's what it takes to keep things flowing smoothly, literally, that is alright. The water level did drop a few inches, so that was a good thing!

Woodchuck needed to change a filter in the tractor (which took three trips to the tractor place to get it!) and spread some stone out to fill in puddles (getting things ready for when the concrete will be poured in the pole barn!). While he worked at the front, I walked to the second CRP forest because I noticed an Autumn Olive and honeysuckle right on the edge of it that I didn't get last year. While cutting and treating those, I noticed green in the forest and got that sinking feeling.

I went in and found lots and lots of garlic mustard. It was expected, because remember I talked in the past about seed banks in the soil? The key this year is to get to all of them before they flower. I've been thinking more and more about what a friend once told me, that I should ask for help out there. But there's a whole other ball of wax with that. Keeping people safe, teaching what to look for and how to remove it, etc. And then there's the whole finding someone to give up their time to come do manual labor out in a forest. So for now I'll keep chipping away at it myself and try to get Woodchuck on board when he doesn't have something of his own to work on!

Some people treat them with herbicides, some people pull them to eat them, some people pull them and black bag them. I'm the later of the three. Though! I did pull some right before we left for us to try with dinner, and it was going to be our first time eating them! Of course, as with wild foraged foods, you want to make sure you have permission to be on that land, that you know exactly what it is that you've gathered, and that it hasn't been treated in the past with herbicides. Also, with garlic mustard, you want the youngest plants to eat from what I read. Turns out Woodchuck started having an allergic reaction to just a tiny piece of leaf that I had him try. So I ended up eating it instead. I wasn't impressed, but I ate it raw and not sautéed like I read was a good way to get some of the bitterness out. 

One garlic mustard plant can produce 600-7900 seeds on the high end, and those seeds can stay viable in the soil for years! Invasive plants change the soil composition to suit their needs over the needs of native plants, plus they come up early in the Spring and are prolific spreaders, out-competing our native plants. Just look at this one! The top was very young and not very tall, maybe a couple of inches, but look at the deep root system!

I kept stopping to take in the beauty of the day and forest. Scattered storms were in the forecast, so we figured as long as it was safe to, we'd get done what we could. Turns out the whole day was amazing and reminded me of the days as a child that I'd play outside (which was more often than being inside). There was some warmth to the air, but also a bit of a damp chill and with the cloud cover, I wanted to be sure that I didn't get cold. My auto-immune issue doesn't respond well to that and I was already hurting before we even got out there.

I would sit still and listen to the birds, some of which I can't identify. I would smell the air that had little notes of Spring on it. I would crawl around in the dirt, pulling the plants, and inhale the loamy-ness of the soil while listening to the dried leaves still on oaks rattle and green needles on the white pines whisper in the breezes. Truly in my element. 

In looking ahead all around me, there was forest. Looking behind me, there was the pond and open sky. What a beautiful place.

While being out in nature is a gift all in itself to me, there is always magic to be found in the arms of Mother E! While most people would walk right past this white pine tree with a scattering of black walnuts under its bare boughs, my eyes go right to them and I begin to feel the energy of the creature that left them there. I also began searching for the black walnut tree itself and soon found him. 💚

I kept getting pulled deeper and deeper in to the forest, drawn by the lure of bird sounds, the ambient lighting, the smells and the sense of magick. What else lies in there, my spirit always wonders. What will be revealed to me on this day? What more can I do to bring this place back to native health and what did I miss last year that I need to see this year? I am feeling less overwhelmed and more capable (at least right now) of dealing with what I find and I never feel alone in the forest. )O(

Woodchuck and I will be on vacation from our jobs next week and have a list of the projects we would like to get done both here at home and at the land. Because it is not reasonable to think that we can fit everything into one week, we agreed to work on small/quick home projects on the days the weather permits this week leading up to vacation time. That will hopefully knock at least one or two things from the list, because we don't want to be spending ALL of the time working on the vacation...we need to have a little fun too! I started yesterday by working on invasive plants along our home driveway, and he'll work today when we gets home from work on cleaning up along the front of the house where the neighbors trees drop their leaves and they get all caught up and piled around the grill, bike rack, etc. Some times it is just those little things that make us feel more accomplished, organized, and ready for the new season! 💜
  

Stepping into Spring...and back into Winter...and is it Spring? or still Winter?

 We have had a couple of Spring-like days, not necessarily because of temps but because of the Spring flora and fauna appearing. What a glorious feeling to walk outside, close your eyes and open your ears to the sounds of so many lives waking up! While I do wish the sun would make more of appearance on our days off, I'll take every little bit Spring that Mother E can offer right now!

And the appearance of Spring had Woodchuck and I going our separate ways for a little bit on the land on our recent trip. It was something to get used to! Including the walkies. He sounded so awkward when he called me on it!

He stayed behind to service the tractor while I went and pulled debris away from the drainage tubes that lead from the back ditch to the pond. We had a lot of rain coming and with the ditch already full, I didn't want to take any chances on leaving it go unchecked.

                                                            

                                                                    ☝Before☝

                                                                       ☝After☝ 

The water began pouring into the tubes with a lot of force and I moved on to my next project of raking up the branch and bush and tree debris left from the invasive removal last year. Walking back to the tube area of the ditch later though, I released that the water level dropped a good four inches!!!! I am so glad that I got this project done!

When I/we removed the invasives along the ditch last year, we would pile up everything to a particular height and then hit those piles with the tractor mowing deck (this was Woodchuck's idea). What I didn't foresee happening was then it would all get broken down into smaller branches and clubs that would roll your ankle when walking on them...and there was a lot of them! 

While it probably would have made more sense to rake them even farther away from the ditch, towards the forest edge, I am not ashamed to admit that I am out of practice on this kind of manual labor and this was the best that I could do! I figured it was a good start, getting everything away from the ditch so it doesn't get washed in, and out of the center of the path so we aren't rolling our ankles when walking. Since it's on our radar to clean up the forest edge this year, and then burn the piles (as long as we don't need fire wood/kindling), the debris will get moved again anyway. While it would be easier for us to burn it right where it's at, there is Muck Soil in them there ditches, and so burning isn't an option. So many things to factor in out there!!! I have yet to find out any information about how far away from muck soil that you can safely burn. So I'm going to just have to figure that the farthest away we can do it is the best.

Once I finished raking, I headed back to Woodchuck and showed him some large pieces of wood in the ditch coming off of the pond. I feel bad now, because when I saw them on another trip out, they were in the more shallow part of the ditch and where the banks weren't steep. Because I didn't say anything then, and they floated down towards the culvert pipe, this made it much more difficult to get them out. 😬

We tried numerous tool to pull them out, but everything we had would *just* reach them and not give us enough contact and leverage to get them moved. So there was only thing left to do......Woodchuck put on the waders and went down into the ditch. I have video of it, but it's too large of a file to post here, which is quite sad. But the wood has been removed now and Woodchuck suffered no ill-fates! Note to self: when you see something, say something right away!

We went for a walk before leaving, still looking for antlers in the woods but none to be found. Before entering the woods the blue jays were screaming at me and led me to the spot where one of there own was killed by a predator. (don't worry, I know I can't have the feathers. I gathered them for the photo shoot.) Once I found the feathers, my avian friends went another way. 

 We also have a bonded pair of geese nesting on the main pond. They are protected here in our state, so even though we aren't thrilled about having them, we have to leave them alone. Last year one was killed by a predator...I only found some feathers on a path....and there were no cute, fuzzy, adorable babies to see, so we will see what happens this year. We are also getting the ducks back as well. We don't mind those at all!

                                                            ☝eggs (goose) on the nest

The juniper tree that led to us finding out that Woodchuck has macular degeneration has its new growth now! What a good tree <scratching under its chin>

Have I mentioned at all that we met the person that bought the house next door to the land that we wanted to buy? Sure did. Only time will tell how that will all turn out. For now I am keeping my hopes up and my head down and "my hip into wind as always." 💚

Another milestone!

 Now that all of the blueberry bushes are trimmed, we could move on to the next milestone of owning Das Zem! Removing the invasives from the watershed. Woot! Woot! This task has been nearly two years in the making and I can't believe that it's finally time to start it. 

We didn't have high hopes for the weather in the sense of temperatures. It was cold. And windy. So we bundled up, him in his coveralls and me in a very thick pair of fleece-lined leggings under a pair of jeans, a zip up hoodie, a cotton long sleeve shirt, and a fleece lined oversized work coat. Oh, and we had hats on. True to nature, once we got out on the watershed, it all changed. It's like a whole other world out there. The sun bakes on you, and winds go away. It wasn't long before I was drenched in sweat, but dreaming of picnics out there on a blanket with my love. It would have to be soon, before everything starts to wake up. And what a wonderful way to welcome in a new season, don't you think?

Woodchuck handled the chainsaw, while I handled the treatment chemical. My shoulder was hurting really, really badly and I could barely use my arm for anything. Although he had a shoulder issue he's going through physical therapy and getting a lot of relief from it, so he gets the more manual labor right now. 

The first thing to do was open the entryway to the watershed. I figured making it wide enough for our tractor to fit through was a good width. We won't be taking the tractor out there, but it allows then for the possibility, and comfort of two people side by side and pulling a work cart, etc. We only had to use the loppers and pole saw in this area. Pictures above are the before and after.

I was SO excited to see that the pussy willows are getting their catkins!!! And I just found out last night about something called Pussy Willow Water. What?! I have to check into that more!!!

If you remember, we marked a lot of the stuff to come down on our last trip out there. It made it super easy and quick to see each spot to hit. Woodchuck would cut, I would pull the branches out a little bit from that stump to clear up the rest of the area he needed to cut, and then I would treat the cuts while he moved on the to next one and we continued that way for at least 10 massively overgrown invasive plants. We decided to leave them where we cut them down, to provide hiding for small wildlife, birds, nutrients for the soil as they decompose and to disturb the ground less since we wouldn't be taking the tractor out there. Since the plants don't have their berries right now, it was a good option to just leave the debris where it's at. 

I noticed that the bulk of invasives are on one end of the watershed, so that at least made it easier to not be traversing over a 5 acre span! The thorns on the Autumn Olive were insane! Woodchuck also thinks that we may have some hawthorns out there too, but I don't know yet. I DO know that the thorns on the AO range in size, but are all intense when they get you. Of course we always wear eye protection out there. 👀😬

We spent a few hours out there cutting and treating and sweating...Woodchuck even fell once while holding the chainsaw (it wasn't running at the time) and we were getting tired. There seems to only be a few left now to take care of on our next trip out there tomorrow. If we can get those down quick enough, we'll also finish marking the boundaries. We have already agreed to take our walk in the woods BEFORE we start working! We always want to get right to work and say we'll walk afterwards, but then we are too tired and next thing you know it's been months since we've walked in the second CRP. 😧

We took a look at the second ditch, which we have to walk right past to get to the watershed. It is completely full of water again and the drain pipes were working well! I can already see though that there's debris we need to shovel away from them. All of those little branches that we couldn't get out of the ditch after we worked on clearing it of vegetation have now flowed down the pipes.

When we were done, we decided to take a rest on a spot right outside of the pole barn, in the sunshine, and looking at the spot where we may one day build a house. Snuggled up to him in the sunshine, dreaming of what the future might hold for us. A perfect way to end the trip out there. Only time will tell where this will all lead us! 💖

What does the future hold....besides trimmed blueberry bushes?

 Well, it is officially done. All of the blueberry bushes are trimmed...at least the ones we could get to. There are two or three that are just in too much water for us to bother with. We noticed that the land around them has become even more wet, and I wondered if it was the bushes, and the land, responding to the situation and changes we have initiated. 

As always, we swooped in to help, and now we must step back and let the land and its plants respond. I can almost envision the blueberry bushes stretching and enjoy their new-found freedom. They aren't perfectly trimmed, by any means, but I feel everything out there understands our intentions and responds in like energy and giving us a little grace in being less than professional in our understanding of how to handle all of the things out there that we do.

It was so warm and perfect on this trip out. No cold wind, and a warm, enveloping sun. I was able to take my long sleeves off, not caring that the thorns would attack.

 I had just had two days of allergy testing (revealing no reactions, mind you) and was willing to add to the marks. I'm a girl who doesn't care about scratches anyway. To me, nature is like a cat when it lashes out a bit. They are just doing what they are designed to do, and it's nothing personal.

While Woodchuck worked on trimming the bushes, I worked on cutting down, and treating the stumps of the invasives and aggressive plants. Some times too a plant can be native, but volunteered to grow in a less than ideal location. When we say a plant "volunteers" that means it wasn't planted where it is growing. Carrying around a pole saw on dry, firm ground is a task for me. The saw is longer than I am tall, and it's heavier at one end. So I look like a clown on a high wire trying to balance it, with a bum shoulder. Trying to do that in wet and muddy conditions could be dangerous, so I had to go slow and deliberate. In those moment I always think of a friend of mine who I learned a lot about invasives from, and how she is so tiny but wielded a chain saw with strength, grace, and deliberately. I always remind myself that if she can, I can. I just have to be smart about it.

This river birch pictures above had a lot of crap growing around it. Brambles, crap tree starts, the red twig dogwood (that is native but FAST growing and takes over VERY easily and quickly!), etc. This is one of my favorite trees, with a colorful peeling bark of what looks like sheets of paper. I left a little oak tree next to it for now. When I don't know how natives will interact together, I leave it and watch. Soon enough their interactions and relationship will be revealed to me and I can make better, informed decisions.

The mud was up to my ankles again. I've had to learn the proper way of walking in mud this deep! It's all about releasing your heel first when you go to take a step! Don't twist your foot to change directions until the heel is released or you will sprain your ankle...or worse!

This tiny oak tree was being taken over by more brambles, and a grapevine that was twisting around it. I had to be very careful right here! The tree is on a little mound, surrounded by water on nearly all sides. I freed it from its captor and told it that we will be working on the pond this year and can hopefully save it from a watery grave.

                                                            Hang in there, little oak tree!

It is so open now that you can see the start of the watershed immediately on the other side of the bushes (pictures above). A tiny white sign to the upper right of each picture marks the boundary. Once the NRCS comes out this month I will talk to her about the amount of the red twig dogwood on that section. I don't want to clear so much out that I take away natural habitat and cover for the wildlife, but clearly these native are incredibly fast-growing trees and have not been kept on for the better part of ten years or more. I need a better understanding of what I should do with them.

We walked back to the front and I picked up garbage along the road while Woodchuck fired up the tractor. I am always observing the nature around me, watching and listening. I found many, many dead trees in this area that would be great to cut down now before everything on the understory wakes up and makes it difficult to get in. The goal is that once we have cleared out the non-natives and dead stuff, we can make a plan to then replace it with new, native stuff. 

                                                            Old ear fungi on a dead tree.

Woodchuck has really been wanting to plant sunflowers up front, but is thinking they won't do well there because they wouldn't be in full sun all day. Honestly, where I had them here at our house, they weren't in full sun all day either, just many hours of it. I think it would be worth a try! Speaking of flowers....

The faery lillies and daffodils are coming up! I heard my first red-wing blackbird and the doves and robins are all over the place now. Once Spring gets here, I hope it slows down. I would love a long Spring, Summer, and Fall this year. 

Now for the second update about the place that went up for sale next to the land. Woodchuck thought hard about what I was saying, and how I was feeling at the prospect of another infringing and less-than-neighborly-neighbor moving in so close to us at the land. I refuse to spend my retirement fighting the same battles that I have spent fighting here for the past 23 years. And the more he thought about it, he agreed and felt the same. So he contacted the land owner and asked if there was a way to work something out, only to find out that after just a few days on the market, he sold it already. Someone offered him cash, though a little less than he was asking for it. 

So, we are moving forward on the land as planned, getting things back to native and healthy, while we wait to see how it goes with whomever moves in. We have to come to grips with the idea that we might eventually sell the land and start our search over again. It's not ideal in the least, it took us over 20 years to find the land, and with Woodchuck being four years away from retirement, time continues to tick away. But we are letting this unfold and be what it is. We will continue to love and care for the land in the meantime, and are blessed by it no matter how we have to move forward later on. 💚