I found pocket gopher mounds around my fruit trees. By the end of the day I had two dead ones. Then after I started weeding (finally!) the garden I found fresh pocket gopher mounds in the weeds. I uncovered a number of tunnels under and around my corn and peas.
As if my lack of weeding weren't harming my plants enough!I set one of my traps in the garden and ended up playing "cover/uncover the dirt from the trap" game with his pocket gopher that evening.
Monday morning I found I had trapped my garden pocket gopher.
The game we were playing... he lost!I spent all day picking goat's beard weeds. In the morning I picked the NE pasture and fruit tree area as they have now started growing for the year.
After breakfast I started on the north end of the hayfield and worked my way south. It had been a week since I picked the northern 3/4 of hayfield. Not as bad as I expected in the number of weeds, and in the number of weeds where the seeds were now gone, dispersed to vex me next year.
While searching the middle of the hayfield for weeds a young whitetail fawn leapt up from the tall grass and alfalfa startling me. It bounded off to the NW. I am not sure if there were one or two fawns as a short time later I seen a fawn in that general direction about halfway to where I last seen the previous fawn.
Later, near the south power line tower, I spotted what I think was a badger. I couldn't get a good look in the tall grass as I only saw a glimpse of brown moving low and moving fast. Mainly I saw the grass moving as it rapidly went away. I followed in hopes of seeing it better then wised up in case it was a badger. It may have circled around as a few minutes later after I returned to weed pulling I disturbed it again. That, or there were two of them.
The temperature was in the upper 80s and late afternoon I took a break from weed pulling to stop over at Bob's to get some water. I chatted for an hour and a half, and must have drank a gallon of water, before I went back to weed pulling.
I didn't finish the field as the southern 1/4 had many open seed pods which made the picking slow going. One has to be careful when gathering the open seeds into the bag so as not to cause the seed ball to break apart and the seeds to float away. The seeds are so light that the motion of one's hand can cause them to float away faster.
The mosquitos were also bad in the evening. I didn't have my long sleeve shirt nor mosquito repellent with me. Try picking a seed ball delicately when attacked by many hungry mosquitos!
After I called it quits for the night I walked along the road back home. I encountered the owner of Huckleberry Haven out for a walk. We talked about goat's beard weeds, huckleberries, and huckleberries from the Oregon Coast which are called coastal berries. Coastal berries are not as big nor sweet as mountain huckleberries, which is in line with what I found from the Fall that Sarah and I picked these huckleberries on the Oregon Coast.
He said there are seven varieties of huckleberries. He buys from people who pick huckleberries. He wasn't sure how this year will be for huckleberries. Then again, people out here closely guard their huckleberry patches and info on them until after the season is over.
Me? While huckleberries are great, I think I prefer Juneberries, else called Saskatoon berries or serviceberries. In Glacier Park and the Valley the businesses sell the tourists huckleberry 'everything'. At Waterton Park they sell Saskatoon berry 'everything'.
I have a couple of Juneberry pie recipes that are scrumptious. I planted three serviceberry bushes and I see one bush has some berries on it this year. Not enough for a pie as the bushes are young, but if I can get to the ripe berries before the birds (I failed to do so last year) I'll see how Montana's serviceberries compare to the ones that grow in the North Dakota coulees.
With only a quarter of the field to search I felt Tuesday's weed pulling wouldn't take too long. Was I wrong! Lots of open seed pods. Late afternoon I had to go to Bob and Jan's house to get another plastic grocery bag as mine had split across the bottom.
It was another hot day with the temperature approaching 90 F. A rain storm threatened as a cloud built from the West. But all it did was hang from the western mountains and it never rained here. The most it did was provide shade before dissipating. Then it got humid. For Montana standards at least. Brian didn't think it was humid here. But you have to remember he lives in southern Minnesota. I suffered through many of their miserable humid summers before I wised up and moved here. Montana's humidity doesn't hold a candle to Minnesota's. That is the reason the farmers grow corn there and not here.
It was almost 7 pm before I finished the field. All day I watched the cattle as they made their rounds of the south pasture interspersed with a few siesta breaks in the shade of the pine trees. When they passed near me when I was in the western part of the hayfield some would stop along the fence and watch me before moving on. Was that pity in their eyes?
The mosquitos even bothered the cattle. Whenever they would toss their head back to lick at their back a cloud of mosquitos would rise until the cattle's head went back down. In the heat the herd gave off a strong cattle smell when near. Call me odd, but it is a smell I like. It is attached to some forgotten memory; perhaps of when I visited my grandparents on their farm?
After two long days of weed pulling I was beat. I found the energy to go to the grocery store to get a watermelon. "Water" was sooo appealing. I got the cashier's standard "How are you this evening?" It was said in the same manner as "Paper or plastic?" as they put your groceries into a plastic bag. Obviously they weren't looking at me as I hadn't washed up before going to the grocery store and only changed my tshirt from one stained all over with goat's beard sap to a less dirty shirt (no sense putting a clean shirt on as the mere act of putting it on would render it dirty!
) . "Ti - ured" was my response.After a simple supper I laid down for a minute on the love seat and woke up several hours later. After a dish of watermelon to help re-hydrate I went to bed. It wasn't even midnight - that's how tired I was.
With all that sleep you'd think I'd get up earlier this morning. Nope.
Oh yeah, yesterday I found the pocket gopher hole in the garden was plugged with dirt. Sign of another pocket gopher. I moved the trap back there and yesterday caught a second young pocket gopher.
Today I finally got around to checking my gopher and pocket gopher traps. It had been several days so I couldn't tell if the sprung traps were because the gopher escaped or the hawk had a meal.
As I checked the traps this morning a large red tail hawk flew from the tree I was close to on the east side of the gopher "city" to the very top of a tall tree on the west side. He was either waiting for me to release his lunch from one of the traps, else he was waiting for a gopher to come out of their hole.
With the hot weather (89 F) the gophers were fairly inactive. That and I have been reducing their ranks may be accounting for only one or two of them chirping warnings to the 'city' that the mean ol' rancher was out and about.
When checking the pocket gopher traps in the northern part of the hayfield I found several dozen open seed pods for the goat's beard weeds. *sigh* One pod is about 64 seeds so I have to get everyone and all they need is for a few plants to release their seeds.
In the garden I found more pocket gopher dirt mounds. This time they were in the opposite corner of the garden. I tried to find their tunnel but the dirt was too soft to hold a tunnel. I put the trap back in the hayfield. Later in the evening I found the area I dug up had a fresh bump of dirt. This time I found a tunnel. Tomorrow we will see how successful I am with my trap.
I also found fresh mounds of dirt since this morning along the yard/corral fence. The first for this year. I had started my line of traps along the northern fence and have moved south but some pocket gophers are still migrating and jumping the line of traps.
It was an early evening off work for me as a rain storm came before 8 pm. First we had really strong winds then the rain came later. Only a tenth of an inch tonight but I'll take any rain I can get.
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