I started off the morning sitting at the computer and drinking coffee with the door open. The squirrels, crickets and birds were all talking. I was feeling sorry for all the city people out there. I sit in the middle of my 60 acres of hilly unglaciated land in the southern part of the state and the sky was blue, the air cool and the leaves are coming into color.
I am always ready to do more timber stand improvement on the place, grape vines and Autumn Olive are always popping up. When I bought the place over 30 years ago I had grape vines as big around as a saucer on the trees and wild black raspberries grow in every shady spot.
Today I was going to push some of the dead standing cedar trees down with the tractor and into one of several sinkholes I have around. I was making good work out of it using the loader on the tractor but it is always tough navigating on the heavily sloped ground. The soil type is mainly Hagerstown which is a silty/sandy loam that will grow anything. The low areas are Hammon. I am blessed with a wonderful species mix of trees. Walnut, Shag Bark Hickory, Cherry, Blackjack Oak, Black Oak, Chestnut Oak, Red Oak and White Oak just to name a few. I also have a gracious plenty of Persimmon trees, not the gathering in to make pudding kind you find in a yard but the 50+ foot tall woods kind that keep the game walking from one to another all fall and early winter.
I had chose to go from the house to the south which crosses my driveway twice, I have over 3/4's of a mile of gravel drive which is a chore to maintain in its own right. I had been working for about 5 hours when I found myself a ground hornets nest. I think it was under the right side of the tractor because I have no feeling on the outside of my right leg from surgery and they had chewed me up pretty good by the time they hit a tender spot. Here I am on the hillside pushing into a sinkhole in low range when I find myself in a black and yellow tornado.
My hat comes off and I am swatting handfuls of the angry rascals with one hand while swatting and shifting gears with the other. I was wearing shorts and they found there way up my right leg in a hurry. I said and honest prayer, "Oh Lord, take the pain but leave the swelling!" It took a while to get pointed the right way without hitting any of my trees and scuzzing the bark. I got to the house and scraped the stingers out and sprayed with antiperspirant. As close as I can tell thirty to forty got me. I had them in the pockets of my shorts and a couple flew off when I lifted my shirt. I even found a dead one in my underwear.
I guess I won't go back to that spot until next year, mean while, I broke out my LP gas powered weed burner and set to edging around the trees in the drive, I wonder what I can find there...
I am always ready to do more timber stand improvement on the place, grape vines and Autumn Olive are always popping up. When I bought the place over 30 years ago I had grape vines as big around as a saucer on the trees and wild black raspberries grow in every shady spot.
Today I was going to push some of the dead standing cedar trees down with the tractor and into one of several sinkholes I have around. I was making good work out of it using the loader on the tractor but it is always tough navigating on the heavily sloped ground. The soil type is mainly Hagerstown which is a silty/sandy loam that will grow anything. The low areas are Hammon. I am blessed with a wonderful species mix of trees. Walnut, Shag Bark Hickory, Cherry, Blackjack Oak, Black Oak, Chestnut Oak, Red Oak and White Oak just to name a few. I also have a gracious plenty of Persimmon trees, not the gathering in to make pudding kind you find in a yard but the 50+ foot tall woods kind that keep the game walking from one to another all fall and early winter.
I had chose to go from the house to the south which crosses my driveway twice, I have over 3/4's of a mile of gravel drive which is a chore to maintain in its own right. I had been working for about 5 hours when I found myself a ground hornets nest. I think it was under the right side of the tractor because I have no feeling on the outside of my right leg from surgery and they had chewed me up pretty good by the time they hit a tender spot. Here I am on the hillside pushing into a sinkhole in low range when I find myself in a black and yellow tornado.
My hat comes off and I am swatting handfuls of the angry rascals with one hand while swatting and shifting gears with the other. I was wearing shorts and they found there way up my right leg in a hurry. I said and honest prayer, "Oh Lord, take the pain but leave the swelling!" It took a while to get pointed the right way without hitting any of my trees and scuzzing the bark. I got to the house and scraped the stingers out and sprayed with antiperspirant. As close as I can tell thirty to forty got me. I had them in the pockets of my shorts and a couple flew off when I lifted my shirt. I even found a dead one in my underwear.
I guess I won't go back to that spot until next year, mean while, I broke out my LP gas powered weed burner and set to edging around the trees in the drive, I wonder what I can find there...
