FALL IS HERE

The maple trees in our front yard were spectacular this year. The leaves turned from green to a flaming red in abount three days. They lasted less than a week and then a stiff wind took them all down toward the pond. I hated to see them go. They gave the farm a splash of color as the season turns drab.

This old farm is a warm place to be after years woking on the road and out-of-state. It was neglected for most of the last twenty years. Now I am spending a lot of time cleaning up after nature. Land goes wild quicker than we think. I have to reclaim the pastures, gardens, and orchard. The county bulldozed a quarter mile of fence to widen the road so there is fence to rebuild as well. I have worked hard but enjoyed it. I wish my health were better so that I could throw myself into the project and get it going quickly like I used to do. My grand mother once said that ..."when God takes away our youth he gives us wisdom and patience in return". I finally understand what she meant, however, I am thinking that it was not a fair trade. I liked young and stupid.

I have a lot of the worst jobs behind me. Now it is a matter of finishing my list of projects and maintaining what I have already done. The pastures were in terrible shape. The sweet gum trees send out clouds of seed on the wind and the southwest pasture had thousands of saplings up to the size of my forearm. The other two pastures grew up in weeds and persimmon sprouts and much of the grass we established was shaded out. I will have to mow three or four times per year to keep the weeds from seeding out and give the bermuda grass a chance to send out roots and smother the weeds. I had second thoughts on mowing the southwest pasture. It went wild and the animals moved in. There was a large herd of deer bedding in the sweet gum thicket, the turkeys had active nests,in the fringes near the woods, and there were so many rabbits and quail that I couldn't get an accurate estimate.The thicket was matted with black berry vines and sumac. the edges were still full of lespedesia. Pretty much a critter heaven. I waited until the turkeys left the nests before I mowed. It was still not comfortable to destroy that habitat but I had to do it this year or the trees would have been too big to knock down with the tractor and bush hog and then I would have had to cut individual trees with the chain saw.

The gardens were also ravaged. they were solid bermuda sod. I worked the vegatable garden numerous times with the breaking plow and disc and then hit it with the Troy Built tiller. Dolly worked her flower beds all summer long. I pruned fruit trees in Februrary and they all bore lots of fruit. There is still lots to do but I no longer feel like I can't take a day off to fish or work on knives. I will post more pictures as soon as I figure out how to load a slide show.