Persistence

Wednesday I started on my annual war on weeds. I sprayed four tanks of herbicide on the weeds. I covered all my yard, the fruit tree and garden area, the ditch along the road, all around the hayfield on the fence line, and a few areas in the hayfield.

*whew* Carrying 40 lbs of liquid on my back for hours and hours got to be tiring on my shoulders and my legs.

The good news is that I covered all the areas I listed in one day and four tanks of herbicide. In the old days it would have taken me days and many more tanks of herbicide to cover the same area. So... I am making progress in my war on weeds though it often feels like I am not.

I called this blog post "persistence" as I am persistent in my effort to eradicate weeds and gophers. The weeds and gophers are persistent right back at me. Even after all these years of spraying, chopping, and burning I still find a few fresh snowberry plants coming up along the fence along the ditch. You'd think after all these years they give it up and die.

The Western Salsify weed is prevalent in the hayfield. While not a noxious weed I find them annoying nonetheless. You'd think that with all my efforts in past years there would be few of them left. There are less of them but it is hard to tell if that is because of my efforts or because this year is dry. With all my other activities I doubt I will be able to attack the salsify weeds like I'd want to. And that will mean when they go to seed in the next few weeks it will drive me crazy.

And the gophers... I trapped another three pocket gophers today and the same two kept filling the traps with dirt. I found one of my traps missing. I searched but could not find it. The missing trap was nearer the neighbor's house so I asked them if they saw the trap. They have several dogs which they keep fenced in their yard but maybe they got out and got to my trap. No, they hadn't seen my trap. Hopefully I will come across the trap like before.

I need all my traps as when I walked the hayfield I found lots of new dirt mounds in areas I had trapped and cleared of pocket gophers. I've noticed the recent pocket gophers that I have trapped are smaller so this year new crop of babies have moved out into the world.