First off I helped Fran load into her raised garden beds compost she had bought . Really high garden beds, and lots of compost to be shoveled. She can drape her cucumbers over the side and reach down to pick them without the cucumbers being on the ground.
On to CHS to buy another block of salt (with minerals) for my "girls". I spoke with an experienced employee about what trap to get to trap "prairie dogs". He corrected me and said we had gophers or brown ground squirrels. He said prairie dogs are on the other side of the mountains. Ok then, I have gophers. He recommended a poison. The label said for pocket gophers. The directions for use did not match what I researched on the internet. The label said to place the poison in the tunnel. Internet said outside the tunnel as the gophers won't eat what is in a tunnel.
I wanted a trap and all he could recommend out of the various kinds of traps the store carried was the same one I currently use on my pocket gophers, the Blackhole model. I doubt the gopher, being larger, would fit in the Blackhole. I did notice they now carried a new version of the Blackhole. This matched what the company told me last year about their planning a redesign when I called about a replacement part.
Ok, I'll try my trap on the gophers before trying the new version of the trap; else the poison.
I also bought some poison for the carpenter ants I had found in the pine tree.
I planned on attending the Planning Board meeting 6 pm tonight as Linda wrote me about a planned subdivision she and others were against. I knew I would be in the pasture burning tree stumps and as I have no watch would more than likely be late to the meeting. As controversial Planning meetings run late, I decided to feed and water my "girls" before going to work on the tree stumps. I also gave them a new block of salt.
The two north pasture stumps didn't completely burn. I thought this last effort would finish them off. I added more wood and grass and got the fire going again.
From the middle pasture I could see smoke coming from where the south pasture's "furnace fire" stump was burning underground yesterday. That fire must still be following the tree root underground - cuz we don't have coal here.
In the middle pasture two of the three stumps burnt yesterday are all burnt. The other one was half burnt and I got its fire going again. I also got the fire going on the nearby stump I had prepared yesterday evening. Then off to the three stumps closer to the river. With an ax I cut off a side root on one stump. The wood was very dense and very heavy for its size. No wonder it doesn't want to burn; it is like trying to burn steel. I got a couple stumps burning before returning home to go attend the meeting.
It was 7 pm, an hour after the meeting started. Still time to attend. Then I discovered I forgot to turn off the cattle's water. It had been running full blast for a number of hours while I was in the pasture.
The ground here is porous and doesn't hold water, but I had lots of standing water. An hour later water was still standing. Of course it had to be around the cattle's water trough where they walk.I gave the cattle more hay. I noticed they had pushed out the bottom of the snow fence in an effort to get the taller greener grass just outside the corral. I got wire and wired the bottom of the snow fence to the bottom barb wire - just to be on the safe side.
It was later now and I wasn't up to attending the Planning Board meeting. I hope the Board made the right decision.
No comments:
Post a Comment