Hickory nuts (and butternuts)!

Nut harvest!

Well this was unanticipated!  Evidently this is a "mast" year - when the nut trees produce a huge amount of nuts to overwhelm the squirrels so they can get a chance at reproducing.   I had my eye on a couple butternut trees this year, but as I was going around and collecting the butternuts, I discovered that a lot of the hickory nut trees that I thought were "pig-nuts" (a variety of hickory nut that is flavorless and small) were actually true hickory nuts and quite good and productive!  So I went around and collected the nuts from around the trees on the edge of my big field.  I am sure that there are many more nuts in the forest, but finding the nuts and gathering in the forest floor would be much more difficult.  Also, how many nuts do I need?  They are a bugger to crack and shell out!

The more oblong nuts are the butternuts.  The rounder (somewhat smaller) nuts are the hickory nuts.

Strange tracks in the mud

I was out picking nuts and found this print in the mud.  I have no idea what it is.  Kind of looks like a dog, but its BIG!  

Compare the size to my foot in the lower part of the picture.  Fairly large paw print!

I couldn't find anymore decent prints.  Leaves covered too much of the mud to get anymore.

More pinto bean picking

It dried off long enough to get into the patch to pick more beans.    The weather did not help these beans any this year, that's for sure!  These beans shell so nicely!

These have stayed in the garden too long and have begun to sprout and mold due to the moisture.  Ideally I would have had these all picked 1-2 weeks ago, but rain had other plans.

More grape arbor posts rotting off

Found another post had rotted off at ground level.  I knew these posts were not in it for the long haul when I used them, I just didn't have any good options when I put this arbor up.   I did hope that they would last longer than 3 years though!  I put this arbor up in 2014 when I planted the first grape vines!  I hope the new posts that I used for the 2nd wave of grapes does better (those newer posts are treated with CuNap and I believe few are even locust).  Anyway, I need to get to work and save/mill some posts.  I will need posts not just for the arbors, but also for the fence I am going to build around the grapes.

These are the newer arbor posts.  They are treated with CuNap and some are even locust.  They should last over 10 years if not way longer!

The lower left one is the most recent to rot off.  It's probably going to be a pain to replace!

Some of the others are showing some signs of decay as well.

This one took a lot of bracing.