April 8-9, 2011

Weather/Garden

It was windy, warm (80+) and dry both days. The garden needed watering bad and the basil and pepper plants put out last weekend had gotten zapped by the Tuesday freeze (while the cilantro held up just fine). Actually, there is one tiny green leaf at the base of both of the basil plants, so we are going to wait and see. The onions and garlic are looking great. A couple of spinach plants are looking good and the tiny sprouts from the summer spinach are showing up everywhere. The other tiny plants are still, well, tiny. Sally poked a few bush green been seeds in the ground just to see if they would come up (don't recall when they should be planted, we've just been saving seeds year-to-year). I did some more weeding Saturday. Now we just need a decent rain.

The apple tree and the lilac were blooming. The lilac smelled heavenly. Unfortunately we forgot to take a cutting home. The dogwoods were also blooming and pretty to look at across the valley, while the redbuds are now done.

Birds

Two weeks earlier there were birds all over the feeders -- mostly gold finch. This weekend (and the previous) there were very few birds around. The thistle feeder didn't even need filling (its usually empty). Very strange.

However, on our walk to the pond Saturday morning, we did notice a blue bird leave the house that is half way down the hill! The other two houses are still vacant though.

Haul Cedar Poles

With just a bit of time available Friday, I barely shouldered these cedar poles I had left in the woods up the hill, and carried them down behind the house. (Actually one of them I had to drag.) Later I will take them to the barn (in the truck) to add to my collection. (I really need to find something to do with all the poles in the barn.) I still have more scattered through the woods up the hill. I've left them there partly to let them dry out so they will be lighter and easier to carry.

Sharpen Saws

Also on Friday, I sharpened the Stihl and the Poulan so they will be ready to go to work when needed.

Pond Scum

On Saturday morning we found a great reflection in the water on the pond, but also found these heavy mats of algae. This is what I had feared. Plus, you could see weeds beginning to grow on the bottom.

I brought some fish food down, but no fish came to eat. It was the catfish that would come. I hope they aren't all gone.

Later in the morning I came back with copper sulfate in my backpack sprayer and treated the north side of the pond. Later I read that colorant can be added to block the sunlight to stop the growth, but that it needs to be done much earlier in the year. Someday I hope I can learn how to manage the pond -- preferably without chemicals.

Cut Pine/Cedars

Since I was driving to the pond and looking for morning projects I brought my recently tuned Poulan and decided to clean up the ice storm damage under this field pine. Since Larry hasn't been able to get close to the tree due to the debris, there are lots of volunteer trees coming up under it. I suspect many are walnuts. If so, I will let them grow and eventually cut the scraggly pine.

While in the area, I cut some of the cedars growing up around the rocks and trimmed some lower limbs from the big cedars. The saw ran fine, but twice the chain got thrown off the bar (even though it wasn't loose). I remember having this problem before with the Poulan while cutting cedars, but need to figure out why.

Mow/Drag Cedars

I went out later in the day to lop cedars, but when I saw the mower I realized I needed to see if the battery had held a charge from the previous weekend. It had, so I mowed instead -- down to the pond and back. I'll be doing plenty of this soon enough, and I guess my battery is good for another year.

To finish out the day I went back up the hill and dragged more cedar limbs to the burn area. I hauled three more sleds of limbs (built by laying a big wide limb down and then piling others on top).