The rain stopped a week ago; the winter grasses are brown or browning, the early wildflowers have gone to seed.  But soil moisture is still good. The tallgrasses (switchgrass, Eastern gama, Indiangrass, big bluestem) are doing very well (switchgrass in the secondary drainage is taller than we are.)   There's an area in the east grass we call "The ( Read more... )

Most but not all the surface water has dried up, soils that were seeping and running with water last week are dry enough to walk on in regular shoes.


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The sooner you get into the field after a large rain event the better, especially here.   This involves rubber boots (mine leaked today...I bought women's boots last time.  Just sayin'.)   What you want to see is how the water's moving on the land, if any checkdams or gabions have been damaged, where erosion is active (you hope for nowhere, but ( Read more... )

Working on the revisions of Cold Welcome.  Rehearsals and services for Holy Week.   Getting sick on Holy Saturday and thus unable to sing Easter Sunday.   A little knitting (presently close to the end of the cuffs on a pair of royal blue socks, which will be the 4th pair of the year.)  A little (in the past two weeks) taking walks on the springtime ( Read more... )

It's not wet now--things are drying up rapidly--but the frequent soaking (and sometimes flooding) rains have really made a difference to our summer after five years of stark drought.  The creek is running.   Fish fry are back--tiny almost glass-transparent minnows a half inch to an inch and a half long are swimming happily in the shallows.  ( Read more... )

Today--in mild temperatures and under a sunny sky, I finally cleared enough chores to go out and work while the weather made that possible and the ground was firm enough (barely) to ride the bike out.    I needed to work on the east trail in the dry woods.  It enters the dry woods on the east side, near the north fence, and angles away from the ( Read more... )

My bike functions for work (errands in town, doing trail maintenance on the land), exercise (anytime I'm on it, including planned rides) and play (just enjoying riding on it.)    Today was a mix of work (trail maintenance) and fun--as I improved the trail through the dry woods, it made it more fun to ride that trail.   At first, it was "ride a ( Read more... )

Last week (Monday the 7th)  I was riding the bike on the land, checking the wildlife waterers and doing some trail maintenance  while R- was digging postholes along the south fenceline where he's building fence.   As I came around one narrow, snug turn (around a big juniper and between others on the outside) on the way back, I miscalculated my ( Read more... )

Those interested in the wildlife management-prairie restoration project might want to look at some of the archived photos and essays on the land project on my main website, or the newer website for the project (not yet connected to the photos--Other Lifestuff keeps getting in the way)  or my LJ scrapbook, which has a lot of wildlife and native ( Read more... )