Hello Everyone!
A hazy day, Searching for edible stuff, Cherry eating chickens, A few invasives, Making a hugel mound terrace!
Alright, I have been up since the wee hours of the morning and now that it is creeping towards dawn... I best dive in here and see what all that I can spell out. Given that I need to get busy outdoors soon, I may not make too much of an effort here... but one way or another I want to stay on track with my writing routine.
I spent much of yesterday morning waiting for it to dry up some outdoors... and largely that never happened due to how overcast and hazy that the sky was. So instead of working on the terracing project, I went on several hikes looking for mushrooms, paw paw trees and any other fruit bearing tree or bush.
Unfortunately, I did not find anything 'new' (or any paw paw trees for that matter) and even though the cherry trees still had cherries way up high in the tree... the chickens had gotten all the ones on the ground. In hindsight, I probably lead them to that tree because the first time that I found it they were following me through the woods... and had previously not spent any time in that area.
I never mentioned it but I also found another big mulberry tree (a living one this time) that is located near the foot of the hill. Although it also had lots of berries (really high up in the tree) there were none on the ground... which makes sense given how many squirrels and birds frequent the treeline that it is located in.
Eventually, I want to spend some time working in each area where there are fruit trees... and thin back the vegetation around them as well as add some compost around their bases. Since there really is not much in the way of 'edible' stuff here in general... I need to look into finding ways to get some trees and shrubs even if I have to get them from the Forestry Department when they do their big giveaways each year.
Before I do any of that though, I need to finish the necessary forestry management here first... because I already have too many trees of all sorts... and a couple of invasives that have to be dealt with. Heck, I even found another mimosa tree downhill of that last big one that I felled... and it already has a bunch of seed pods on it.
A few weeks (or maybe a month) ago, I found some privet growing too... and ugh I am torn between trying to make a living hedge with it... or doing what I should do... and start working to eradicate it. Thankfully, it is not growing everywhere here... and thus far I have not seen anywhere that it is taking over the 'under canopy' so that is good... because it means that I probably could eradicate it if I tried.
Anyways, late in the day yesterday I wound up finally working on the terraces some more... and although things were mucky they were not as bad as they were a few days ago. Not to get lost in the details here... but I decided to turn the lower terrace into a hugel mound, lined it with the most 'brown' logs (poles) that I could find and started covering them with dirt.
Calling it 'dirt' is not really accurate, because I was getting it from a big mound behind the new building where we had pushed a bunch of the original topsoil and leaf matter into a pile for later use. It still had a lot of clay in it... but primarily it was this dark mass of rotting leaves, blackish soil and silty sand that mostly kept it all from sticking to the shovel.
I was actually hoping to get more of it done than I did... but I figure that it will be a slow process (taking weeks) of me shoveling 'dirt' on top of everything, letting the rain wash it down into the cracks (and hollows under the logs) and then adding more 'dirt' to the top. Once I have a nice first layer covering everything I am going to layering on a bunch of green vegetation... and then more dirt... before 'topping' it all with the soil and plants that I have growing in flower pots.
Well, I need to wrap this up, go let the chickens out of their coop and get my day started outdoors before the heat sets in. I hope that folks are doing well. Ciao for now.