Mr Skunk Took Care of Our Yellow-jackets!

 I was surveying the property and came across the carnage the a skunk wreaked on those freaking yellow-jackets that stung me a couple weeks ago!  He really tore into the nest!  Look at these pictures!

Bits of the nest are strewn all over the place.  It was a pretty big nest.  There are still some bees floating around there, but most of that nest is gone!

Sawmill, tree-cutting, wood-chipping

I started by taking down a bunch of dangerous trees that were dead and threatening to fall on my buildings  or me on my trails.  One tree was in surprisingly good shape so the next day I popped it on the sawmill to see if I could get something out of it.  In fact, I got two nice long 2x4's (oak).  The rest I put through the chipper.  In fact, i put all the slabs and odd pieces I had collected in the barn through the chipper.  It made quite a pile - I figure about 3 cubic yards!

Two new 2x4's on top there

Wood slabs and end pieces from sawmill were put through the chipper.  I have more to go, but this was enough to mulch 10 trees!

I also chipped up some of the debris near the grass mulch pile near the big patch.

Here is where I put the mulch.  The brighter ones are new - 10 more trees mulched.  I think I have 6 to go.

I saved the peach trees till last since they seem to be in a good location - not terribly sensitive to frost or freezing there.

Just a random shot of some deer wandering through the pecan and butternut trees.  Quite a herd growing there.  There are 6 in that herd that I have seen.  I really need to get my trees protected - they will be rutting soon I bet!

The harvest

Decent broccoli harvest.  I keep being surprised about how much these things are yielding.  I blanched and froze this.

Tomato harvest is looking rough, but I was still able to use these.

I got 6 quarts of sauce from those tomatoes!

Cabbages - these are split so I harvested to make some Cole-slaw.  Also a decent yield of eggplant.  Katherine does the eggplant up into Parmesan and freezes it in individual portions.  Makes a nice fast dinner!

Lots of mowing and some harvest

Flail mowing and regular

I mowed all of the fields down to get rid of the tree-lings and weeds.  This will help the fields stay clear and help keep out the weed seeds that get in my gardens too!  Sorry, no pictures of the fields.    

Trimmed trees along paths and fields

I was tired of catching the tractor and UTV on the low hanging tree limbs so I finally got the chainsaw and fixed that issue!  While trimming up I happened to see these neat fruits in the pictures below.

They are fruit of the Sassafras tree!  I didn't taste them, but the web says they taste bitter and acrid.  Eat the leaves, but not the fruit!

Shell beans ready for the freezer

Finally bagged up and ready for the freezer!  Not much, I know - but I didn't have many seeds this year. Now, with these, I have enough to plant a sizable amount next year!  My biggest concern right now is if a big harvest comes in, how do I shell them!  Even these few took me about a week to shell!

"Accelerate" on top, "Velour" on the bottom

Into the deep freeze next to make sure there are no living worms and things!

Weekend harvest

Not a big harvest, but not as bad as it could have been since we did get a little rain this week.  The broccoli was good, but there was lots of worms!  I dusted with sevin after I harvest this time.  I also got a nice load of kale that I eventually braised like I did it last weekend.  Delicious.

Nice amount of brocolli.  Froze this - got a little less than 1 quart.  Lots of worms I had to remove though.

Tomatoes were good.  Not as many as I would have liked, but good none-the-less.

A nice load of tomatoes

Processed the above tomatoes into 8 and a half quarts of simple sauce.  Not bad.

I also picked the squash and eggplant.  This is pretty much it for the squash.  The squash plants are about gone now due to mildew and SVBs.  So many SVBs its ridiculous!   I might not grow any squash or pumpkins next year just to let these bugs die off a bit!  Fortunately, the eggplants are doing really well this year.  Besides what I picked below, there are many more on the plants getting bigger.  The plants still look nice.

Squash and eggplant harvest