Late to the Party!

 

"Little Sioux River Valley-Autumn" - color pencil drawing - ©Bruce A. Morrison

It's Autumn and I'm late to the party!  What can I say?  We haven't been complacent or lazy, there is just so much needing attention around here!

Like our neighbors, we are busy harvesting seed since the wet period of the past month finally ceased.  We didn't get a lot of rain here, it was just "wet" every day it seemed.  You just cannot harvest seed when its wet or damp...not a good move. 

We don't have a lot of ground here, but everything is done by hand.  Our only machine assistance is my old '82 electric golf cart and our riding mower.  The mower simply keeps the firebreaks clear for late fall or late winter/early spring burns.  My old "Prairie Schooner"...the 1982 EZ-GO golf cart is my support carrier of buckets, weeding assist vehicle and transporter of old people (me).  I will admit this...I am feeling my age...not fun!  

I really felt my Prairie Schooner's absence for several weeks this summer when the speed board melted down after arcing over some metal contact on the board. Luckily the cart is not complicated...if it was a combustion engine, I would have had to take it somewhere for repairs.  I was able to fix it myself, however the parts are not as available as I'd like, making them harder to find.  A supplier I was used to using, held me up for weeks before I gave up and looked elsewhere. I hope I can keep the schooner running as long as I still am!

Hauling out Lambsquarter from the south pasture planting.

 

During the beastly hot summer, I spent most of my pasture time in the early evenings, pulling and cutting weeds in last winter's planting in the bottom of the south pasture.  That planting was more successful than I had hoped!  It should shake out really well for the future.  But it was a Lambsquarter, Marestail and Pigweed mecca...there was a ton in the seed bank there, as was there Brome seed.  

The Brome was handled with a grass herbicide and may well need a couple more years of followup there.

Great results from last winter's seeding! (All of the above)

 

Seed harvest is underway! 

 

But ya, seed harvest is under way - we are looking at a small section above the north pasture, that is shaded about 2/3 of the day...it has some volunteer New England Aster and some limited other species, so this will be an ongoing experiment for a while.  Kind of fun to see what can come of it.  The section used to be a part of the north grove.  The previous owners tried removing about half of that grove and introduced brome and quackgrass...kind of a mess. we'll work to at least eventually make something more native out of the section.

The neighbor's Avery Thrasher...B.E. (Before Elms!)

I have another planting project - this time for our neighbor.  A few years back, our neighbor brought an old Avery Thrasher and placed it upon a knoll behind us.  He wanted to know if I could do a prairie planting around it for him...this was back around the beginning of our 4 year drought that started in 2020.  The planting did not work out well and the planted area only gave us 3 foot tall brome...nasty!

I pretty much gave up on it and the following years have brought fourth an Elm and Ash forest. BAD!  The last thing we need is a forest of elm seeding our pasture.  I've spent hours over the past 5 years cutting and trying to kill hundreds of Elm and Ash seedlings.  This is not winnable if trees just feet from our property keep raining seed down on us.  (This is now an issue on our south pasture as the neighbor's ground is growing dozens and dozens of Elms there as well.) 

This fall the neighbor agreed to let me try and plant around his Avery again...it was now being buried behind 10 -15 foot Elms.  He can hardly see his "prize" possession from the road now...the Elms are beginning to block it completely.

So, I have a mission.  We are collecting seed for the neighbor and spent yesterday cutting out the smaller trees around the thrasher.  Then I mowed tall brome all around the Avery and partially down the side of the knob...we'll just plant maybe 20-25 feet down the slope and directly around it.  I'll go back and cut tighter in a couple weeks - we can't burn there, so we need to expose as much dirt as possible.  We'll plan for a late fall or early winter planting and do some brome spraying come spring...with follow ups. 

Elms growing around and under the Thrasher.

 

We still have some larger Elms to cut down and many 6-18 inch clumps of volunteers that we'll spray if possible.  The chain saw will have to come out for the big trees - Elms can grow FAST!  I should have taken some shots yesterday before we started this project...I only have one showing some small elms growing underneath and around one side...doesn't give the issue justice. 

Our first frost is due in two days...then it'll be on to Indian Summer weather!

We're late to the party but trying to catch up! 

Please be good to one another - we are all in this together.