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. 💚

More blueberry bushes, and some bad news

 I'm just kind of over it. Over a whole bunch right now. I punched a few stuffed animals at work over the work week, but that didn't help (don't worry, no stuffies were harmed.) Nothing made me feel better, and I shut myself alone in a storage room for ten minutes while breathing through a panic attack. But that was yesterday and the answer I need to prevent these situations from happening again will occur to me soon. 

We are now up to 6 trimmed blueberry bushes! I helped initially, but it was so rainy and slick that I slid right down a smooth bark branch that was on the ground and I fell in the mud. I landed on my right side, which has the fixed hip but still-to-be-fixed shoulder, and I jarred both of them. So I let Woodchuck work without me, while I got even more cold and took some pictures.

Before. A blueberry bush with a grapevine, multi-flora rose, and dogwood tree growing out of it.

After. We will have to use a chainsaw to cut down the tree, it was too big for our loppers.

We are close to losing at least two more bushes to the slumping pond. The last one he worked on on this trip out had no more than five feet of land left between it and water, and if he took one wrong step he was going to end up in the drink. We will be heading out there today once he's off of work, and I will be starting to move the trimmed debris out into the open so that when it's not as wet and muddy, he can mulch it with the tractor. He will be meeting with our neighbor to the North of us to give him a generator that needs a little work, but that he thought might be useful to him and his family if he wants to put a little effort into it. So while they are dealing with that, I'll be piling the debris. But I also know that hubby wants to approach the neighbor about buying this guys portion of the front CRP. Because here comes the bad news.

As I've most likely stated before, the person we bought our land from got a hold of Woodchuck late last year and said he was putting up the place next door in the Spring and would we be interested? Woodchuck told him to please get a hold of us closer to the time he was selling it and we'd see how far along we were on the land and what he would be asking for it, etc. Well, we'd noticed a work truck and trailer in the driveway the past several times we have been at the land and Woodchuck called the owner, and the guy said he wasn't selling he was just fixing things. 

But then soon after, the person renting the house walked over when we were unloading the car and said that he was selling it and she was fixing it and moving soon. Woodchuck and I looked at each other. What was the point of the seller lying to us? At any rate, Woodchuck called him again and they guy said he was selling but he rejected the price that we offered. He promised to stay in touch after an appraiser came out, and he kept that promise, but unfortunately the asking price is even higher now than before. We have to let go of the idea of buying it, which makes me really, really sad. For numerous reasons. Part of our ditch, the last part of it in fact, before it heads out under the road and to unknown places, isn't even owned by us. It was divided up and is with the land of this newly listed plot. There's a trailer on it, that we would be taking down, we just wanted the land and the garage that's coming off of the trailer. 

These are our closest neighbors at the land, and the land division is set up in a way that the back of their house faces our prairie because of the direction of boundary lines. It would have been nice to not worry about lack of privacy, less than courteous neighbors, and such. It really would have brought some peace of mind, as well as the ability to finish the ditch clearing. I am super bummed, and super worried, and hate the fact that money, or lack of, creates obstacles. We are beyond blessed with what we have, but fear keeps me wanting more. With my job barely covering tuition, and most months lacking to cover it, there's no possible way for me to even be able to help contribute to getting the money for it. 

And honestly, Woodchuck said that even if he was a millionaire, he wouldn't pay the guys price. That's Woodchuck livin' up to Woodchuck's way. Me? Fuck yeah, I'd negotiate still, but I'd pay more than I felt was fair just to not have to worry about neighbors in my retirement. And that's me livin' up to my way. Don't get me wrong, I WANT a healthy neighbor situation. I have literally never had it. Never that I can remember, even into childhood. And I guess the fact that I would drop tens of thousands of dollars on a piece of shit trailer and land that will chew me up and spit me out, is just a trauma response and me trying to control something based off of past experiences. It is hard to give in to that, hard to just put my plea out to the Universe to not let our golden years be filled with the daily stress of not being able to enjoy our home that we will have worked so hard for. Because we work really hard for this one that we are in now, even with all of its flaws and four colors and types of siding on the back, and we can't even open our windows and enjoy the sounds of nature and Spring because of our neighbors. And to this nature girl, that is like living in a cell.

I didn't realize, or maybe in the back of my mind I did, how much I am fighting for peace every day and the chance to HONOR each gift of each day and those beautiful things that surround me, unhindered by the people around me who just want to bash through life. Clearly, I need a dose of nature and stat. I need the comfort and peace and beauty and kinship that I feel with it. For in nature there is a fierce gentleness. A connection to each thing around it in a symbiotic relationship, when in balance of course. And I feel that, I identify with that. When I am hard on myself when I need to get fierce and what I perceive as cold, it's because truly at the roots of me there is a peace that is being poked at. It's because I am sensitive that I have been such a warrior in my life. But I admit that I just want to live in peace and connection with the wild kingdom around me, because it is there that I truly feel at Home and alive, and me. And I feel that nature deserves my best fight for it. 💚