More weed pulling, etc.

An early start to the days goat's beard weed pulling. I was out there by 9:30 am. The flowers were still open. That meant I got distracted by weeds in the northern part of the field as I made my way to the southern unpicked area. Yes, even though I picked the northern part of the field many, many times, new goat's beard weeds are coming up. And I do find a few older ones I missed earlier.

The plastic bag I used today turned out to be a little larger than the standard grocery bag - which I didn't realize. I quit for the day when I filled the bag with seed pods. That turned out to be 4 pm. Later than I thought. A long time with no break. Time flies when you're having fun...?

This morning (or was it noon?) my main eastern neighbor came with a tractor and mower and started to mow his weed infested field. Hurray! By the end of the day he mowed the majority of it. He should easily finish the mowing tomorrow. That just leaves a small section to the north of this neighbor, but still east of me. This property is owned by a land developer who has done nothing with it since he bought it a few years ago.

While I was pulling weeds I thought it looked like the Holstein steer had gotten into the south pasture yet again today. Later I seen he was in the middle pasture with the herd. Either he found his way back to the herd or always was in the middle pasture. It is hard to tell as he usually is near the herd but not among the herd, and the herd was along the middle/south pasture fence.

Tonight when I felt the seed pods in my plastic bag they were hot. Even after picking them the conversion to seeds is going on.

I think I only have two days left to finish my first pass at picking the field.

The gopher that moved the trap yesterday somehow triggered the trap today but did not get caught. Must have scared him as I didn't see him popping up to see what I was doing today as I approached the hole.

Even though I painted my marking sticks and rods fluorescent orange, I have trouble finding them. Today Jan gave me a bunch of white milk jugs to place over the tops of the sticks and rods. I need a few more then I'll have all the traps marked. They certainly help. Today I wandered and wandered looking for that final gopher trap. That gets old fast.

I took a few minutes to look over my garden. The weeds! The weeds! I fear a repeat of last year where the garden weeds took off as I was battling goat's beard weeds.

The apple trees look great. Even the one sickly looking plum tree is looking better. Fortunately my fruit trees and berry bushes do fine without attention from me. The raspberry plants are really taking off. Maybe a bit more than I'd like. They are coming up solidly together. If I remember right they are a little scratchy. So it may be a problem searching them for raspberries.

His first day of driving from Minnesota, Brian made it to Buffalo, Wyoming. Not as far as he planned for the first day. He will arrive Sunday sometime.