We were out sitting in the gazebo after work last night, enjoying a glass of wine, ready to veg the night away. We were both talking about how low on energy we were. In particular, I was griping about being sore because of how hard we’d worked all weekend. We were looking out at the new garden, and Frank was pointing out a couple of trees that still have to go before we can easily skid stuff in for the sawmill.
The next thing I know, we’re out there, dropping trees madly, heh. What kind of tree-huggers are we, man? I’m reminding myself that we have 343 acres of trees, so clearing one whole acre still leaves 342 acres of trees. I think we dropped four or five small ones, plus one really big one, and it still amazes me how he can generally make them fall exactly where he wants. I sometimes get a bit of a panic, always convinced it’s going to fall right on me, or him, but he’s good, and I’m impressed. We chipped the tops of the trees for a little while, until it was basically getting dark.
For once, I remembered to grab a before and after picture. It’s really hard to tell what we’ve done, because there’s so much more clearing to go.
While he was sharpening his chainsaw, I took a container of water out again in search of more Japanese beetles. But this time I didn’t find any, unlike the huge number I found the other evening. I wonder if I was out too late? Because I know I can’t have gotten them all. I want to try to get out there in the morning some time this week to see if I can spot them then.
I also walked around a bit pulling weeds here and there. In particular, the bind weed is creeping madly from the area around the telephone pole out into the new open space in the garden. I’m pulling it whenever I see it, but we’ve got to get into the area around the pole and get it out and sprayed with poison, or something. I am composting it, by the way. I’m just making sure that it’s directly in the center of the pile, and covering it up with tons of coffee grounds, in the hopes that it’ll get really really hot and DIE, hopefully a horrible death. Can you tell I hate the stuff?
I still haven’t planted the stuff we bought last weekend from the nursery that we found on our way down to Boston. I have three purple coneflowers and two purple delphiniums that I need to get in, but right now, they are in the shade on the front deck. I think I’ve figured out where I want them to go, but I just now to get motivated enough to actually put them in.