Chimney cleaning, etc.

Since Fall is just around the corner I guess I should do my annual chimney cleaning. Usually I do this in the middle of summer but this year this has flown by. The forecast is for a big cool down with rainy weather next week, and cleaning the chimney now when the day is beautiful and the temperature 80 F is the smart thing to do.

Last Christmas my mother gave me a chimney cleaning brush. This was the first time I used it and I can say it beats using a long pole with a pair of my dad's old jeans tied to the end.

It takes a while to clean the chimney as the cleaning also involves dis-assembling and cleaning the pipe that goes from the wood stove over to the chimney. Not only is ash in the pipe and chimney but also stuff (hard ash?) that needs to be scraped off. Not creosote, as I do clean the chimney and stove pipe each year to not let the buildup become creosote.

When done, from the chimney alone, I ended up with a gallon of the soft and hard ash. I spread it in the NE pasture. While ash can be good for a garden, I also remember that ash is high in a mineral that my soil doesn't need more of.

All the brushing and scraping took a good part of the day, and yes, I got very dirty. But now I am ready for when the time comes to burn logs in the wood stove to heat the house. Well... not completely ready as I want to cut and split more logs to add to my pile. Always something to do.

Pocket Gophers

I finally rid the front yard of pocket gophers. A few days ago I finally caught the one pocket gopher who had eluded me for over a week. When I pulled the traps from the middle pasture I put an extra trap out to catch the tricky pocket gopher. Of course once I got this pocket gopher I found new dirt mounds in another part of the front yard. *argh!* But good news, today I caught that gopher.

Beavers

I checked the dam and traps. Dam still not repaired and the trap was not triggered. The other trap was triggered but nothing in that trap. No more trees felled by the beavers. I haven't seen Daryl for a few days so I don't know what's up.

Cattle

I gathered a few more boxes of fallen apples for the cattle. However they haven't left the middle pasture since I let them in there last evening. I figured that after 24 hours they would return to their routine of coming by the house for apples. Guess not. Can't blame the cattle as they haven't been in the middle pasture for a few months now so the grass re-grew and is younger and greener than where the cattle had been.