June 17-18, 2011

I made this trip solo since Sally was preparing for her Katy ride. The temperature was in the 90s, high humidity, and with only a quarter inch in the rain gauge it was still very dry.

More Wood

I drove out the short cut, and low and behold right in the road is a nice green oak already cut (short lengths). I guess it had blown down and they had cut it up for me to take, so I loaded it up. I ran across two more trees that had been similarly cut. I picked up three more pieces, but they had been down awhile and were beginning to deteriorate (lighter, not as dense, not really good firewood). The green oak split nicely, but I can't tell what kind it is. (The other seems to be what I've called black oak.) More firewood for the kids.

Garden

I pulled up all the onions but one, the only one whose leaves (stalks, shoots, or whatever you call them) were still upright. I also picked green beans (had some with dinner) and one jalapeno. There were blooms on one of the tomatoes, lots of little squashes, and a little bell pepper. I think I watered three times and spent an hour or so before dark weeding (but didn't get around the whole garden).

Mow/Weed-eat

Everything needed mowing badly. I did most of it Friday and finished it up Saturday. I did just a little weed-eating to clean up right around the house. Lots of big stuff needs whacking around the barn, spring, and pond.

Thistle

I took a shovel and bag on my way to the pond planning to dig up the 1 thistle I had seen the weekend before. While getting it I noticed a few little ones that were not large enough to bloom. As I started digging them I noticed more and more and more. And then I found this huge patch of blooming giants on the other side of the creek. They were taller than me. It would have taken lots of time to dig them all up, so I decided to just spray them.

So on a second trip down I brought my backpack sprayer and hit them hard with clear pasture and diesel. That's when I realized many of them had already gone to seed. This is the reason they are here -- last summer I got to some in this area late and this is the consequence. I came back a third time with my hand pruners and a bag and cut the seed heads off and carefully placed them into the bag. That took awhile. The plants were already showing signs of distress from the spray. Now I need to check the back pasture for thistle, since I've found it there before -- and I'll pay the price if I let go to seed.

Bird Houses

The new bird house at the pond was put out two weeks before, was empty the week before, and now has a nest and blue bird eggs! The one down the road was still empty. The one in the front which had had baby birds the week before was now empty -- just a dirty nest with lots of bird poop, so I cleaned it out. I should have done the same with the house in the back.

Pond

On the way out I stopped at Tractor Supply and bought some Cutrine Plus, a copper based herbicide for the pond algae and grass. It said to break up the algae mats, so I tried raking first. The mats were not nearly as bad as 2 weeks before and I wasn't getting much up, so I decided to forget raking and just spray it. I tried to cover out about 6 feet along the dam, along the south shoreline, and the shallows up near the inlet. The grass looked worse with a few patches reaching the surface, though the center of the pond actually looked good.

I also brought to the pond 7 of the large heavy plastic bags they use when selling you live fish. There did not appear to be any leakage under the north culvert. (My patch job of two weeks early was still holding?) Water was clearly running under the south one. I cleared out the gaping hole under each and the water really began to flow right through the dam. I then stuffed the plastic bags in, alternating with clumps of mud and grass. While laying on my stomach on top of the culvert, I used a 4x4 to try and drive it all in and compact the mess. (My chest is still very sore from this task.) I'll just wait and see what happens from here. Obviously this is still just a patch job. I think I need some heavy equipment -- Maybe I can rent a back-hoe.

Lop

While at the pond, I wanted to venture into the area behind it where I had planted pines (got brush hogged), walnuts, and northern red oaks. The persimmon and elm compete with my trees for nutrients, so I took my loppers and attacked them. This doesn't kill them (you could tell most had been lopped before), but eventually the desired trees should capitalize on this advantage and out compete them. (My hope anyway.) You can see the size of the persimmons in this picture, with a line of the few pines that didn't get brush hogged in the background.

Japanese Beatles

They are back. I didn't see any in the garden, but in previous years I had noticed they seem to really like the willows that grow around the pond and along the creeks. These were on the big willow at the pond. (I wish they would eat the entire thing.)

Water Baby Trees

Thankfully no more of the baby trees I had put out in the spring had died. Though I was expecting some rain in the coming week, I went ahead and gave them a quick drink before heading back home.