September 17-18 Visit – Grapevine cutting and property line marking
On Thursday, we tramped back to the back 20 acres and cut grapevines and marked more property lines. This area is a young forest with redbud, red oaks, some beech and maple. The understory is spice bush and multiflora rose with lots of ferns and mosses. There are some really impressive fence line trees that must be 200 years old.
On Friday, we walked around the pond and observed many frogs. The cattails seem more frequent and larger than just last month. The dam surface is now well covered with grasses, clover, and some wild flowers. Six of the weeping willows we planted are alive and several are about 48″ high. It is hard to believe that this pond is only one year old and was not filled with water until this spring.
We also walked along Sharp’s Fork. There is more water this year than last year, but one can walk down in the creek bed. There are many minnows and small fish. We also found mussel shells.
I tried to find the seedlings we planted this spring. The seedlings I did find were about 10″ high, but as the golden rod is 36″, the seedlings are hard to find. I did not find any successful willow cuttings. I can only hope they are there and just buried in the golden rod.
I noticed that rodents had gnawed a hole in the bunk house siding. The hole did not go through as there was a metal plate bracket attaching the post to the rim joists. It seems that the plywood siding tastes good to rodents. I nailed up a piece of 3″ trim board along the bottom of the siding to discourage chewing. This worked on the other side of the bunkhouse.
As we drove out to return home, we saw five or six white tail deer on the driveway. Earlier, we saw many squirrels, and chipmunks, one box turtle, many gold finches and swallows. We saw only a few viceroy butterflies.
