November Pasture Fun

 So I'm sure this Election Day will be well remembered.

What did you do? I'd voted already, voted early. My goal for the day was to mix up Chicken soup, make bread, and head out to the woods to do battle with more Buckthorn trees. 

I'm doing the easy route first before I go tackle the harder stuff. I'd cleared 8 trees from one area that I've been working on. I didn't use the Black Bag method, but I did saw them down with a hand saw, then applied brush killer to the stumps [per instructions from DNR videos and foresting videos]. I then wrapped them in white bags and painted other stumps yellow so I can see if they sprout this coming spring.

The Black Bag method is supposed to deprive the stump and roots from getting sunlight and nutrition. I thought since I didn't have the bags, I'd brush the killer on the stump and wrap it in a plastic bag to deprive it of...I don't know...water? If nothing else, it will keep me from tripping over them for a while.

I've let the trees sit for three weeks to dry out a bit. Then I've chopped them up and put them in a small pile to burn. I make a small fire and just add to it.

That little job took me all morning. But the trees were burned and the coals raked out. I moved west to work on another section of pasture. Rich had cleared things with his skid steer quite a few years ago. I personally think that all that disturbed soil let in more Buckthorn Trees and nasty weeds.

Below are more piles I've made by clearing out multiflora rose bushes and Elderberry trees that have choked the area. In the spring I can pull most of those plant stumps up right out of the ground. But here I have won the battle of against the burdock!

There is a small outcropping of rocks that are really neat. Over the years they have become overgrown with the dreaded Buckthorn too. But since the roots have to be very shallow on the rocks, many have died leaving a huge mess.

I'm going to take that little area and do 'something' with it. Clean it up for sure, but I'd love to make it a place I can walk to and sit. 

The soil is very rich and fertile around the rocks.

I'm thinking of moving some ferns into the area.

Maybe I'm just a dreamer. But I needed an outdoor project to keep me from going nuts this November. 

For my inside entertainment, I've taken the huge balls of material that I inherited from my Grandmother by way of a cousin...and I am crocheting a new rug to be placed by the kitchen sink. Grandma used to weave her rugs, but I don't have room for a loom and crocheting is easy. Well, sort of. My rag rugs have usually turned out lopsided. However they are very functional.

Off I go early tomorrow as the sun comes up. 

Staying home is a good thing.

Covid-19 has sickened a whole house on our ridge as well as infiltrated assisted living in town, as well as one of the nursing homes. 

[One house is a lot ... we have 5 homes on our ridge.]

Grandma's Hands

One of the things I recall from childhood is my Grandmother's hands.  

She gardened with gusto, she almost never wore shoes in the garden or around the place either.  She had a razor sharp hoe, but when it got to the nitty gritty, she got into the dirt and pulled weeds with her hands.

She never wore gloves.  I'm not sure there were gardening gloves back then for women.  You just went out into the garden and got your hands dirty.

I can recall going over to her house to get her.  Mom was going to get in the car and we were all going to go to town.

Grandma was in her house with a scrub brush soaping her fingertips and scrubbing away at the dirt that had embedded itself into her fingers.

I always thought it was neat how the dirt made the lines in her hands stand out.  

I learned to understand that she didn't.  She didn't like the dirt that was embedded and tried to get it out before she went anywhere public.  Especially to town.

She explained once that the women in town didn't have dirt in their hands like hers.

I didn't understand it when I was young, but I think the town ladies looked down on the ones who lived in the countryside and worked 'in the dirt'.  I saw it as cool and a sign that my Grandma Pearl was tough as nails.

She wasn't a soft lady who drank tea and always wore dresses.

I think her hands embarrassed her when she was around the church ladies or town people.  It never bothered me, I liked her rough hands.  They were nice to hold as a child.

I looked down at my hands after pulling weeds in the perennial garden this year.  The gloves were still in my back pocket.  I always intend to wear gloves when weeding and pulling, but they always come off.

My hands become embedded with dirt and sometimes the hardest scrubbing won't take the dirt out.  I find myself then thinking about those hands of Grandma's and I smile a bit.

"A little dirt never hurt anybody," she was fond of saying.

I think she was right.

I do love getting my hands into the soil.  It just doesn't feel right with gloves on.  You can't feel the roots of the plant you are pulling out.