Little projects add up

Today was a day of small projects. I:

• added more wire to the middle pasture/hayfield gate to strengthen it
• added a twisty stay wire (I don't know the official name for it) to a longer than normal stretch between posts in my north fence. This item is two wires wrapped around one another. You twist it on a strand of barb wire and the barb wire will slip between the two wires. You keep twisting and eventually all the barb wire strands are imbeded in this twisty wire. The barb wire strands are then held in place but more importantly they are all joined as one unit so when the cattle stretch through the barb wire they stretch against four or five strands and not just one strand.
• repaired a broken barb wire strand between the north and NE pastures
• fertilized my yard
• pruned the tree branches they cattle had munched on in the NE pasture, fruit tree and garden area and the yard. The cattle were in the corral so I gave them the pruned tree branches so they could eat the leaves. I swear, some cattle would rather eat leaves than grass.
• replanted cabbage, broccoli, cucumber and zucchini plants as almost all of them that I had planted earlier died. None of my watermelon or cantaloupe plants survived. Half of my sunflower plants died. Only two of ten pepper plants lived- though it looked like something ate the leaves as the stems are left (no deer tracks in the soft dirt). All my tomato plants live, though they are smaller than desired.
  
• found two large parsnips growing among my raspberry plants. I noticed them as they were starting to go to seed. How did they get there?
• checked gopher and pocket gopher traps (only caught two pocket gophers with four other pocket gophers filling the traps with dirt)
• chatted with Jan when I was checking traps in the corner of the hayfield kiddie corner to her yard as she was out doing yard work
• bought groceries
• in the evening I chopped a number of burned tree stumps with an ax. I completely got rid of two stumps and put the dirt back in the holes which was no easy task as the holes were big and deep. I chopped on two other burned stumps and got rid of over half these stumps by the time it got dark. I think I will have to burn the rest of those stumps - I'll get a better look and understanding tomorrow.

Of the tree stumps this year I have:

• burned 14
• chopped out one
• have one more to chop out
• burned three ant piles

Of the 14 tree stumps, I have four left to burn again: two major stumps and the two minor stumps I have left after taking an ax to them. When Tammy gets here this weekend we will have a few bonfires and get rid of at least three of the four stumps. Of the fourth stump I have to dig it out more and I am not sure I will have time to do that.

To give you an idea of the work involved in burning these tree stumps, here are a few photos.

Photo 1: After the first burn.
Photo 2: I dug more around the stump after the first burn. This photo was taken from the opposite side of the first photo.

Photos 3 and 4 are from the second burning of this stump.

Photo 5: near the end of the second burning.
Photo 6: what was left the next day. I took an ax to this stump and removed all of it today.

Now for another stump...

Photo 1: first burn
Photo 2: what was left

Photo 3: second burn
Photo 4: what was left

As you can see with this stump the second burn didn't accomplish much. This is one of the stumps I have left to burn.