much to do

Note:
It's overcast and - sorry! - all these pictures are murky. Could we pretend this is a deliberate artistic attempt to create an atmospheric experience for you, the reader? 
Thanks for playing along!
~~~

Piper and I just got home from a little walk in one of our new favorite places. You've seen it before; the woods road that runs between a wetland and a stream. Here's the wetland, on the east side of the road. That conical structure way out in the water is a beaver lodge:

Lots of rain lately...every time we've gone to this spot, the wetland has been draining across the road before falling into the stream:

Piper thinks this is a huge improvement.

If a dirt road is good, a dirt road under water can only be better!

She runs on ahead, while I putter around taking pictures of things like this birch:

and these ferns:

until Piper comes racing back to see what's keeping me so long.

I was dull company for Piper today. I'm tired. Really tired.

The builder I hired back in January called; he plans to come next week to build another little goat barn in the upper paddock. This is great news! But before he gets here, I must prep the site as much as I possibly can.

It's a lot of work. I must dismantle the two bungalows completely, and move all the pieces to...somewhere. Remember when my crew built the second bungalow last Autumn?

Both bungalows did a great job this winter.

Better than I could have expected, given the snow.

And the snow, and the snow, and the snow.

But the new little goat shed will be replacing the bungalows, so they must be removed.

Once I got started, it was clear there would be peripheral tasks such as dragging/dancing numerous 16' wibbly-wobbly stock panels through undergrowth and rocks into another pen, and rerouting some of the existing fenceline.
Pulling out fenceposts. Whacking in fenceposts.
Much got done yesterday.
It was a long day.
One bungalow is gone. Several stock panels have been moved to another paddock. The goats now have access to a little lean-to, which is a good dry spot to feed hay. The new fencework is functional, if not pretty.

I don't want to totally remove the second bungalow until the day before the builder is coming (he said Tuesday or Wednesday), but I may take half of it down this weekend because it's going to take hours. The stuff I build may look like it's held together with hope and duct tape, but I'm often surprised at how hard it is to un-build. Maybe it's the sheer volume of hope and duct tape? I don't know.

Another big necessary task: cleaning out the thick, dense mat of decomposing hay that has accumulated all around the bungalows and in the pen during this past winter. The builders need to start with bare ground to have even a prayer of getting a 10x20' building level in this paddock.

All the hay and muck will end up in the lower garden as excellent mulch, but getting it there is going to be truly difficult. I may end up forking most of it into a big pile this weekend to get it out of the builders' way, and then moving it gradually, a few trugs at a time, over the next few weeks. The daily trug-to-gardens method is how I've been keeping the barn clean all winter, but I couldn't do that in the paddock, because of the deep snow. So the top layer of hay where the goats were sleeping was always fresh and dry, but underneath and in the pen was a growing layer of interwoven mucky hay. I talked to one goatkeeper who had to use an axe to cut into the mat of accumulated bedding in his goat shed this winter. Mine isn't that bad, but it isn't going to be fun. That stuff is heavy.

Gosh, I had planned to take it easy today to give my muscles a chance to recuperate before spending another long day tomorrow. But now that I'm describing what needs to be done, it's making me a little anxious about getting the site ready in time. I suppose I should either stop writing about this, or get up and do some work. I wonder which it will be.

Piper's right here on the porch. I'll see what she thinks.

It's your call.
But whatever you decide, would you keep it down?
I definitely choose recuperating!

~~~~~

three notes

I was looking for my smallest circular needle today and found it

tucked into a project bag, in one of my baskets, already engaged:

Isn't this pretty?

I only wish I could remember what I did there. And why. Probably just a swatch, experimenting with symmetrical shaping. (That sounded all good and purposeful, didn't it? Heh.)

Someday maybe I will get better about making notes while I am fooling around with knitting. Or dyeing. Or cooking, even. When I used to do my own darkroom work, I was very good about writing things down, all the time. Every contact sheet and every test print and every final print carried lightly penciled numbers on the back, so I could tell exactly what the conditions and timing had been for that particular print. If I could keep good notes in the dark, hour after hour, you'd think simply jotting down a few knitting/dyeing/cooking notes once in a while would be pretty simple, wouldn't you?

Yep. I'll work on it.

~~~

Speaking of cooking, here's a fun fact that may be useful.

If you have a large crockpot/slow cooker, but only wish to make

a small amount of something,

you can simply place a smaller container in the crock

and you're good to go!

I've been doing this ever since I picked up a massive old crockpot

at a tag sale. Easy peasy!

This is a 4-cup pyrex container,

sitting on the bottom of a 7-quart crockpot:

This was an experiment with a sort of baked egg dish.

I did not want to risk a dozen eggs on an experiment,

so this was 5 eggs, a splash of milk, some grated cheddar, and a sweet pepper.

It came out pretty well, I think.

Moist and tasty.

Oh, I just realized:

by posting about it here,

I have already made notes about this experiment!

Bonus!!!

~~~

And as a postscript to yesterday's report about Piper in the woods, I have more recent excitement to share. Very early this morning, Piper suddenly exploded into loud barking - the growly, serious barking that means I am out of bed and in my dungarees before I even know what has happened.

Piper was heading for the back door, so I got in front of her and peered out the window into the dim light of dawn. And there I immediately saw the source of Piper's (ongoing, frantic) outrage.

It was a turkey.

A turkey in a tree.

YOU say turkey. I say Bizarre Levitating DeathMonster. 

I appreciate your effort, Piper, but I like wild turkeys.
I fact, I kind of hope this one will stick around and maybe raise a family nearby.
Let's try to make it feel just a little more welcome, shall we?

Hmmmph. Nothing that big should be in a tree, over our heads.
Waiting to swoop down on us because we DIDN'T BARK AT IT.
You know what? Being your bodyguard is no picnic.

~~~~~

well that was weird

Yesterday it drizzled all day and all night, except for about two hours in the early evening.

When I saw the sun suddenly break through the clouds after hours of gloom, I immediately whistled for Piper and we headed to the little pond.

There were no other cars in the little parking area, so Piper was off-lead almost immediately, delighted with what must have been a dizzying abundance of scents in the wet air. Everything was so green. Just breathing felt revitalizing.

The sun was low, and light glistened across the pond and through the trees. I tried to cajole my little point-and-shoot camera into capturing the magical quality of what I was seeing, but it was really asking too much.

I told Piper to "go ahead!" while I stopped to take pictures, but instead of racing off as she usually does, she started to run then stopped in her tracks, with a truncated "whuff" that sounded exactly like she had said, "What the...??"

Piper was staring into the woods, toward the pond, about forty feet away. I thought maybe one of the recently-arrived ducks or geese had taken off suddenly, startling Piper, but I could see nothing unusual.

And still Piper stood. Her body language was so odd, I didn't know what to think. She wasn't frightened, but she was clearly uneasy. She wasn't moving to explore whatever she had sensed, but she couldn't just ignore it, either.

Now I'll just say at this point: I am almost always comfortable in the woods. And when I'm not, I pay attention to that feeling. Frankly, I feel far more wary about other humans than I do about any other creature I am likely to encounter. I do keep my eyes open for moose, bear, and coyote when I have Piper with me, only because I don't know how she would react. My guess is, "with wild enthusiasm!" Which would not be helpful.

But yesterday at the pond, I didn't see anything, and I didn't hear anything, and Piper was acting in a very peculiar manner. And with no enthusiasm whatsoever. Her uneasiness began to make me uneasy, so I called her to me quietly and she came right away.

I asked Piper to heel as we retraced our steps back down the familiar woods road, and believe it or not, she periodically took a quick look over her shoulder, for all the world the way you do when you find yourself on a strange street late at night, and you can't kick the feeling that there is something behind you. And you try not to look, but then you just have to look. That's what Piper was doing.

A couple of times when she did that I stopped and turned back, listening for the sounds of something - a dog? a moose? - moving in the woods. Nothing. It was, to be honest, creepy. We were probably less than a half-mile from the parking area, and that walk took ages.

I still have no idea what spooked Piper, but Piper certainly spooked me.

 

I'll have to ask around a little bit the next time I'm in town. If there's a Loch Ness Monster in the little pond, or a Bigfoot in the woods, I'd hate to be the last to know.

 ~~~~~

project notes

Today it's raining, but yesterday was a gorgeous day for working outdoors!

Several dead or broken saplings near the gardens need to come down before vegetable planting begins in two or three weeks. The break on this pair of saplings is about 18 feet up:

I managed to take two of them down without hitting that power line,

but could not risk the third, or the one on the other side of that line, without using a rope.

And I could not find a rope!

I know...

it amazed me, too!

How could I not have a hank of rope???

It's like not having salt.

Or a pencil.

Or a toothbrush.

So this job is only partly done, but must be finished soon.

(Note to self: buy more rope!)

The cut saplings went straight into the paddock with the does,

where they met with instant approval.

This is Lily of the Valley and her daughter Tsuga:

They began by nibbling the tiny branches,

but in a day or two I expect every bit of bark will be gone as well.

 ~~~

While I was puttering in the goat zone, I took a look at this spot.

It's tiny; about 12 x 12 feet, with my workshop on the north side

and the Chute to New Adventure on the south,

connecting two little goat paddocks.

Can you see the little bush toward the center?

It is the last surviving high-bush blueberry on my place.
This is why I wrapped the fence around this spot;
to protect the blueberry bush from the goats.

There used to be two bushes in other places, but they succumbed years ago to the increasing canopy cover (= lower light availability) and, on one memorable occasion, to the self-serve enthusiasm of a very happy parrot.

The carpenters who built the little workshop (could it be nine years ago?) were asked to watch out for the blueberry bush. I flagged it, and carefully tied it back to keep it's branches safe from the to-ing and fro-ing of two guys carrying lumber. It made it through the hazards of the building process - hurray! - and for a few weeks each summer since (if I could beat the birds to it in the morning) has provided me with a handful of blueberries for my morning yogurt.

Sadly, two years ago a small tree came down right across the blueberry bush, damaging many fragile little branches and killing one of the three stems. Last year, the bush struggled to survive, and produced maybe twenty berries in total, which I left for the birds.

This tough winter we've just put behind us (whew!) may have taken a further toll on the blueberry bush, but my fingers are crossed. Today, I was thrilled to see leaf buds on a number of branches!

To celebrate this triumphant act of survival despite adversity, I decided to put some effort into this tiny section of ground. Just a bit of clean-up to begin with, moving a pile of flexible drainage pipe up to the loft in the workshop, and cutting down or pulling up a load of old rubus and bittersweet. Next, beginning to gradually dig a bit of earth away from the upslope corner of the workshop, seen below.

The wood was not originally in direct contact with the ground, but after years of downslope erosion and deposition is now in danger of rotting. I'd love to just jack the whole shed up a foot, but that's not a job to tackle alone and my professional shed-jacker-upper is busy fencing at the moment. So, I'll try shoveling. The ground is extremely rocky, so it's a bit-by-bit effort.

The pile of semi-rotted brush below will have to become a design element:

I'd like to turn it into a hill of squash,

but the vinca groundcover suggests there may not be enough light

once the nearby trees have leafed out.

We'll see.

~~~

Tsuga had never seen my old work boots before.

When I went into the paddock for evening chores,

she hastened right over to investigate.

 

Exactly three seconds later,

she walked away...

her work was done.

Tsuga needs a job.

Adorable goat available for photoshoots

and Untying All The Things.

~~~~~

wordless wednesday

~~~~~