Clearing Cedars, Draining Low Spots

I've been debating on knocking down some cedars near the four-wheeler shed for some time now.  I'd hesitated because they looked kind of nice, but deep down, I knew they had to go.

The problem with clearing is that knocking down the trees is relatively quick and easy.  Cleaning up the mess after is a lot tougher.

The usual process is to cut off the stumps and push them to the stump pile, take the center log to the log pile, then burn the top.  It's a lot of work, but after several years of experimentation, seems to be the way to go.

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This fall has been cool enough to give us nice leaf color.  This view is looking down a road I cut last year.  The fallen leaves on the road reminded me of the The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost.

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One thing I've trying to figure out is how to keep the water away from the new pole barn.  It's on high ground so it is fairly dry, but the drip lines above the doors still cause water to accumulate.  I've started cutting some small trenches to drain it.

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Once I feel pretty good about where the water wants to go, I'll put some french drains in and see if I can guide it towards a little water collection area down the road.

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It's a lot of work but it's a productive way to spend a rainy day.  Nothing like cutting the drainage in realtime.

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Where does the sweat begin and rain soaking end?

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Building a Rain Barrel

I finally got around to one of my backburner projects, which is turning a few old barrels I had laying around into a rain collection system.

Hopefully it will serve the dual purpose of keeping this area from getting so soggy as well as giving us a supply of water when the old well dries out during dry spells.

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The first step was to drill a hole in the bottom of the barrel to put a spigot in.  I decided to go with a ball valve instead a normal spigot since it's supposed to have a lot better flow.  From preliminary tests, it seemed to work well.  However, the plastic fitting I used seemed to leak a lot so I ended up having to put a lot of silicon around it.  Hopefully it will hold once it has full pressure on it.

After I got that done I turned the barrel over and cut a hole in the other end for the water entry point.  Since these barrels are kind of dirty inside (gravel and such), I'm not too worried about screening the incoming water.

I'm just going to send the water right in.  If too much junk eventually collects, I'll just open the valves and drain it.  All it takes is one or two storms to fill it and we get plenty of those so I'm not too worried about it.

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Once I got the barrel leveled and seated as well as sealed up tight and not leaking, I put up a rain gutter on the end of the carport that drains most of the water.  I didn't really take height into account when developing my plan.  I ended up having a few minutes of worry when I realized I didn't have an inch to spare.  Luckily, it fit just right.

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Now, bring on the storms.  Let's fill this baby up.  If it works as expected, I'll start adding more barrels for it to overflow into.  Look for more updates as things progress.

Planting Clover

We took advantage of the nice weather this weekend to get our clover planted in the summer pen.  Last year's experiment in growing clover in the forest went pretty well, that is until Sadie the donkey figured out how to get past the electric fence we put around it and ate it all.


Step one on re-planting is to have Seth disc the soil with a disc attachment on the back of the quad.  It works pretty well for a low-cost, amateur attempt at farming.

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It's actually pretty fun because all you do is ride randomly around the field as fast as you dare.  Here's a video of the disc in action.

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The aftermath.  It looks pretty good I think.  Most of the soil has been broken up and is ready for planting.  After we walk it with the seed spreader, we'll take the top off a cedar and drag it around to cover everything up.  If all goes well we should see a green fuzz in a week or so.  Check back then for updates.

From 2015-10-09

Since Sadie is in the winter pen now, I decided to get into the summer pen and start clearing and thinning out some of the scraggly saplings, cedars, and dead trees.  It was going well until I got in between two trees that were too close together and caused the track to come off.

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Luckily I have a great mobile mechanic who came by and got it fixed right up. I have to say, I was pretty stressed when it first happened.  I had visions of paying thousands to get it fixed.

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While we were burning the aftermath of some previous bulldozer work, I found this interesting shaped rock.

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I'm pretty sure it's an arrow head or some kind of Indian tool.  I can't really see this being a naturally worn rock.

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Here's the burn pile from the previously mentioned bulldozer work.  It's amazing how quick you can knock trees down and how long it takes to clean them up.  My lovely assistant Sawyer has just lit it up.

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It was a lot of dragging and cutting to get it all burned but it was nice to get out of the way.  That pile has been sitting there for almost a year, waiting for the right moment to burn.

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It seems like it's always too muddy, too wet, too windy, too hot.  There's always some reason to not do it.

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The fire crew striking a pose after a morning of hard work.

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Mushrooms

We recently added a few more logs to mushroom log stack.  This time we put in some Ash instead of Oak.  It will be interesting to see which does better.

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We put foil tags on the end so we can remember that they are innoculated with Warm Blue Oyster spawn in  September 2015.  Looking forward to tasty mushrooms in a few months.

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Wildflowers of Southern Middle Tennessee

I didn't use to pay too much attention to flowers. I liked them and didn't have anything against them but, other than noticing they were pretty, I didn't give them much additional thought.

However, once I started keeping bees, I started paying a lot more attention to what was blooming during honey season. As I became better at identifying flowers during the honey flow, it naturally led to more interest and curiosity in blooms year round.

In order to not lose my previous work, I've decided to keep a running list on the blog so I can go back and reference what I've discovered so far.

(disclaimer.  These are just my thoughts and observations.  There is a huge margin for error)

The flower below is called "Mouse Ears" or the Asiatic Dayflower.  Despite being kind of pretty, it's considered noxious and an invasive species.  The bloom period Mouse Ears is early September and I haven't seen many of them since.

After checking the wildflower identification site, I found that the bloom for these only lasts for one day, thus the name.  From what I've read, the bees like the color and they can be a food source but, due to their short duration, are probably not very dependable other than for a quick bite.

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The flower below is a "Late Purple Aster".  I was happy to see a large number of these start blooming this fall.  There were a lot of them that came on at the end of September and start of October.  They are a small, pretty flower and are very important for late season bee feeding.   The picture below is a little washed out because of direct sun but, to the naked eye, they are nice shade of purple, which you can see in the background blooms.

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I think the flower below is a "Bellflower".  They grow on a long stem and seem to be a favorite of the bees.  This bloom showed up around the first part of July.  Apparently it's kind of noxious and not highly desired by anyone but beekeepers.

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The flower below is the ubiquitous "Brown Eyed Susan" (or possibly the black eyed).  I'm not entirely sure how to tell the difference.  Brown/Black Eyed Susan are a pretty easy flower to identify and can be found all over in fields and on the side of the road.  Also, bees seem to love them.  The blooms show up around late June early July and seem to last for quite a while, up to a month.

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More Brown or Black Eyed Susan.  I'm not sure why the petals are different on the top flower.   Maybe it's a little dried up or something.

I'm not a 100% sure what this is.  It looks a little like Phlox but doesn't match up exactly.  The closest thing I could find was the "Carolina Wild Petunia".  The bloom showed up in late June and with it's blue/purple color and big, open landing pad, looks like it's pretty bee friendly.    I'll have to pay closer attention next year so I make sure what it actually is.

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The following two pictures show the Bergamot or "Beebalm" flower.  With a name like that, how could a bee not like it?   They're very pretty but don't seem to last too long.  These blooms showed up in mid-June and seemed to last about a week or two.


Closeup of Beesbalm

The "Woodland Pinkroot" is striking to see in the forest, with it's bright red standing out against all the green.  These aren't really bee friendly since they have a long cylindrical shape that keeps bees out.  Also, bees seem to like yellow and blue and ignore red so they probably don't pay much attention to these.  

The Woodland Pinkroot also have a short bloom period.  These showed up in mid-June and didn't stick around too long.  An additional item of interest is they are supposed to have medicinal properties but can be dangerous if not prepared properly.

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There is a lot of "St. Johns Wort" in the forest.   These started showing up in early June.and seemed to have a season of about 3 weeks to a month.    It's more of a bush than a flower and easy to identify by it's bullet shaped buds when not in season.  It's also supposed to have medicinal properties.  Being yellow and with an open flower with lots of landing spots, it's a bee favorite.

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The flower below is most likely the "Oxeye Daisy".  It's pretty but not a native species and is considered noxious and invasive.  These bloomed in early June and seemed to have a pretty long life, lasting several weeks.  Although they are white, the yellow center probably attracts bees.  It also has the nice landing platform.  I'd guess the bees probably like these.

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Pole Barn

My dream of getting a pole barn finally came true.  The delivery truck showed up last week and the builders weren't far behind.  Here's the first step.

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We had a heck of a time getting the posts set.  It seems we found solid rock under several of the beams.

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We ended up having to rent a compressor and a heavier duty jackhammer to get the builders moving again.

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After a surprise visit from a building inspector (who woulda thunk you need a permit to build a pole barn in the middle of nowhere) shut things down again, we were able to pay the government their extortion money and get going again.

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It was really exciting to see things coming together.

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Ta-da!  The shell is built.  The money I was going to use for a concrete floor ended up going to the building inspector, so we're probably going to have a dirt floor for a while until I can build up the war chest again.  But that's ok.  It's not too bad to have dirt.

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This is my drive through section and mechanical area.

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Here's the barn from the front.

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And looking at it down the road.  I just need to paint a nose in the middle and it will look like a face

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New Wildflower - "Dayflower"

Found a new wildflower called a Dayflower, because the flower only lasts for a day. Apparently, it's invasive and a weed. It's sure a pretty weed though.

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dd Here's the official description

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Late Summer Bees

Summer is winding down and the bloom is definitely off the rose.  There is just not much blooming right now so I decided to go out and check on the bees and see how they're set for food.

The strong hive seemed to have a decent amount of honey, but the the split and the nuc didn't seem to have a whole lot.

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These are the frames I bought from a local guy who traps bees for a hobby.  They looked pretty good in his yard, so I'm hoping they'll take when I combine them with one of my weak hives that appeared to be queenless.

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I also decided it would be good to start feeding the weaker hives so they can stock up some stores for winter.  I've been experimenting with top feeders (shown below) which dedicate the food for the weak hives but require more visits and manual work.

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As opposed to a community feeder which can be left for longer periods of time but has no protection for weaker hives.

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At this point, I'll probably continue to do a mixture of both.

Forest Creatures XIV

Latest Forest Creatures video.  Got some great footage of a deer in velvet, a hawk, and flock of turkeys drinking at a vernal pond in the forest.

How To Inoculate a Mushroom Log

We had some extra time Saturday so Sarah and I decided to make good use of an oak tree I had to cut down for a fence we're building.

We had a few packets of  Warm Blue Oyster mushrooms from Mushroom Mountain sitting in the fridge that needed to be used and this was the perfect opportunity.


After cutting the tree, the first step was to section up the trunk into approximately 2 foot lengths.  Once that was done then next step is to start drilling holes in the log to tap the mycelium covered plugs into.

As you can see, the plugs in the packet are covered with white mycelium, so they should work great.

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We started off the drilling by measuring 2" in from the end and drilling a hole the same size as the plug.  Then we drilled another hole every 6" in a straight line down the log.

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After the holes were drilled, we followed up by going down the line and gently tapping the plugs in.

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After that was done we  rolled the log about an 1/8 of a turn to start the next row about 3" across the circumference and 6" down from the end.

By doing this, we created a star pattern that gives maximum coverage for the mycelium to take over the log.

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While we were drilling, we got our double boiler going to melt the paraffin wax we'd be using to seal all the plugs we'd recently tapped in.

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The purpose of the wax is to seal the hole so insects or competing mycelium don't get in and take over the log before our warm blue oysters do.

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The tree we cut wasn't huge, so we made the logs a little longer than usual.  A rule of thumb is that you get a season of mushroom fruiting for every inch of diameter.  It would seem good to get the largest diameter possible.

However, the larger diameter increases the amount of time it takes for the mycelium to fully take over the log. With this skinnier log, we're expecting 6-9 months before we get any fruiting.  With a bigger one it would be proportionally longer, not to mention being harder to lift and handle.

Also, notice the aluminum foil at the end of the log.  We wrote down the date and what kind of mushroom on it and stapled it to the end because, after 6 months, I'll have no idea what we used.

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As you can see, the plugs are hard to spot once they're tapped in.  We found it effective to wax them immediately after tapping them so we wouldn't miss any.

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Plugs waiting to be tapped.

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After a couple hours of work, we got them all done.  We were able to get about 100 plugs put into about 20 feet of oak.  Not a bad days work.  Looking forward to sampling the fruits of our labor. (no pun intended)

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