4th fun!

Just kidding, regarding the "fun".

Here is what I was up to on the farm.

Friend in the basement

When I went downstairs in the farmhouse to turn on the power to the pump and outdoor outlets I found this guy:

Its neat that you can see his eyes reflecting the camera flash!

I left him alone.  I figured that he may eat some of the mice down there!

Turtle friend is back!

This time I found him trying to get into the dog fence area from the opposite side as last weekend.  He never did get into the dog pen (that I saw anyway)

he is actually close to fitting under the fence there!

And a groundhog too!

I saw this guy just taking his time walking across the driveway!  Just as long as he stays out of my gardens!

Pretty sunset

Slow weekend so here is a picture of a sunset!  Colors just don't come out as nice as real life!

Trimming around things.

The blueberries aren't looking too good.  I decided to trim around them before applying more mulch or chems.  The sawdust really doesnt seem to be decaying as fast as I would like.  Maybe next time I will mix with wood chips, or just use wood chips for mulch.

These plants are definitely missing some nutrients! 

The blossoms of these blueberries must have been caught by one of our late frosts - only 6 berries on all of these plants!

I also trimmed around all of the forsythia this weekend.  This was way more work than I remember! While trimming around these a dang yellow jacket stung me on the wrist!  Was bad sting - hurt for most of a day and swelled.

Also trimmed around this wampus ornamental grass that I planted.  Its hanging in there.  I would like to see this well established by the winter though.  It had better get a move on!

I trim around these plants because they are soo small that the grass and weeds can overwhelm them.  After they get big I wont need to trim as much!

Roundup!

Sick and tired of weeding and trimming, I finally broke out the roundup to try to keep things under control. I sprayed the driveway weeds up near the house and also around all of the garden patches.  I even sprayed some around some of the orchard trees!  I hope I didn't get too close - it can kill trees too so I have read.

You can see some of the weeds turning brown where I sprayed

Elderberry trimming

I can't remember if I trimmed around these berries this weekend or last, but in any case I also put some mulch on these berries this weekend.  The deer are hitting these hard!  I finally baited the electric fences with peanut butter.  We will see how that does...

More garden de-weeding

This time I attacked the brassicas.  Good thing too.  They are getting eaten up by bugs!  After I deweeded them (and the onion row next to them) I sprayed them with sevin.  Of course, it rained the next day so I had to reapply the spray.

The onions were really hard to weed.  The weeds would just break off because that ground has so much clay in it!  I need to cultivate that soil.

Corn issues

While I was de-weeding the brassicas I happened to look up and see a mole snipping off a young corn plant!  ARG.  I am going to have to address these buggers.  This is the 3rd planting - I am not doing any more this year - its too late in the season.  I hope enough of the corn survives for me to get some!

You can see some of the corn that I planted last weekend are coming up.

I saw a mole on the upper side of the patch.  He was trimming a corn plant off at the ground!

While I planted 3-5 seeds per hill this time, it still looks like the moles may have wiped out a number of hills completely!

Spearmint progress

I checked 2 of the 3 spearmint plantings and they look good!  The ones up by the woodshed are really kicking in!  I didn't check the ones down in the swamp - they weren't too happy the last time I looked.

This is the spearmint out near the stream.  I will need to trim this up a bit - weeds are encroaching!

Dusted Grapes

Just before I left I decided to dust the grape vines with sulfur and sevin.  I even dusted the concords which you are not supposed to do.  We will see how much they are damaged.  I had to do something. The weather is very humid now and the rust is really taking over the wine grapes!  Other fungicides just don't seem to outlast the fungus,  Stopping the fungus only to have it come right back is not satisfactory - it just does more and more damage faster than the little vines can handle it!

General Farm pictures

Blackberries are actually looking good!  I am thinking I might need a way to keep these off the ground though

One of the arbor day shrubs to survive.  I forget what this is.  It's twin died (never even sprouted)

Beans are doing well (considering the soil)

I replaced one of the Japanese beetle traps bags - the old bag wasn't quite full but it was heavy!

Nifty orange fungus that I found growing near house.  Very orange!

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!