Memorial Day Weekend 2013

Memorial Day Weekend 2013. The big maple-again. I got to sleep in every day to 6:00 a.m. I had been working 10 hour days for the previous ten days including the weekend at my regular job and getting up at 4:30 a.m. every day. Losing the previous weekend put me a little behind in my plans.

I had one pile of wood to cut and split before moving everything to the wood shed. I had planned on doing this Saturday but only managed to get it cut before going to Sacha’s mom’s place for dinner and bit of a break.

I finished splitting the rest of the wood Sunday and moved all of the cut and split wood to the shed with the tractor. The tractor probably saved me close to a day’s worth of work.  This huge time savings is why I leave the loader bucket on the tractor even though it is a pain most of the time because the tractor was not intended to have a loader on it. 

Monday I finished cleaning up around the maple stump as long lines of holiday traffic zoomed by on Highway 20. I started stacking the wood in the shed and got about two-thirds done. A couple of hours should finish the job. I also moved the cows back to the home pasture.

One other thing worthy of note, I heard Swainson’s thrushes Saturday evening. Sacha said she had been hearing them for several days prior to that. I had been listening for them but evidently missed hearing them or just didn’t pick them up out of the normal background noise that I am used to and half ignore.

These birds are kind of non-descript brown but have a beautiful song which they sing at dusk and in the morning. For many years I did not know what these birds were called though I was familiar with them from a young age. Their song signaled the start of summer for me when I was a kid. I believe they winter in Mexico and maybe other places. They usually show up here around the end of May and are usually gone sometime around the end of July-or at least they quit vocalizing at that time.

P.S. If the reader is getting tired of hearing about the big maple, I’m pretty tired of it myself and can’t wait to get on with other things.

Saturday morning. Last pile of wood to cut up. 

Last pile of wood cut up. 

Beginning of day Sunday. Last pile of wood remaining to be split. 

Sunday morning. Last pile of wood split up. 

Beginning of process of moving wood to shed. 

End of day Sunday. 

Beginning of day Monday.

Brush and wood scraps cleaned up from work site. 

Beginning of stacking wood in shed. 

End of day Monday. 

End of day Monday. Wood remaining to be stacked. 

Pictures of the week 5.20.13

Somewhere in North Cascades National Park summer 2005. I took this photo on the second day of a three day trip. 

Somewhere in North Cascades National Park. I took this photo on the second day of a three day trip. 

Somewhere in North Cascades National Park summer 2005. I took this photo on the second day of a two day trip. In less than an hour, the low clouds in the foreground rose and hid everything in a thick fog bank. That was the end of the photos for the trip.  

Red columbine (Aquilegia formosa). These flowers are about to open. In my mind's eye, I imagined these to be dragon's eggs waiting to hatch. 

Same place as above a few days later. I went and looked at these every day to make sure I would catch them just as they opened. 

Red columbines are (probably) our only native columbine west of the Cascades. They have been blooming for several weeks as of this writing. 

Oyster mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus). I have noticed a large number of these edible mushrooms fruiting lately, probably due to the recent rains. I find these mushrooms almost any time of the year as long as it has been fairly wet, though they seem to fruit most heavily in the fall. I also find them most commonly on alder snags and logs though this clump is obviously on a birch log. Oyster mushrooms may actually be several different species that look very similar. All of the species are edible according to my reference material. On an interesting side note, I meet a guy once who did a study on a species of springtails that is closely related to oyster mushrooms. Apparently this species completely disappears unless there are oyster mushrooms fruiting. Oyster mushrooms were the only place this guy was able to find them. Springtails are tiny macroinvertebrates with tail-like, spring loaded appendages by which they spring around like tiddlywinks to escape predators.

Mother's Day Weekend, a new cow and the big maple-again.

I had planned to go to the auction in Everson on Saturday to try to get a feeder cow to butcher this fall. We lost two calves last spring and will be short two come butchering time. I don’t usually like getting replacement cattle because it increases the chance of introducing disease into the herd and the new animal is always a bit of a wild card as far as behavior goes. But I wanted to get at least one replacement so we wouldn’t have to turn down any of our regular beef customers.

When I have to buy replacement cattle, I usually hope to, at best, break even. I once paid $900 dollars for a big steer and had it drop dead on me several months before butchering time. So I paid $900 with the end result of having over one thousand pounds of smelly dead beef carcass to deal with. The bears, coyotes and turkey vultures loved it though and had it cleaned up within a month.

This time around I was ready to go to Everson but tried an ad in the Little Nickel first and it sounded like as good a deal as I was likely to get at the auction. The guy I called had to work Saturday so we agreed to meet on Sunday.

I spent the rest of Saturday morning rounding up cash and doing a little last minute Mother’s Day shopping. The afternoon I spent working on the big maple. I was able to get most of the remaining tougher blocks split and got all of the largest logs cut into blocks before quitting for the day. The temperature in the morning had been pleasant but by 1:00 in the afternoon when I got started, it was in the mid-80’s and very muggy due to humidity spreading ahead of the rain that was coming that evening. It didn’t take much to work up a sweat and keep it up.

Sunday morning I was up at about 6:00 a.m. I was supposed to be in Marysville to look at the cows at 10:00 in the morning and we were supposed to have dinner with my mom and Sacha’s mom at our house at 5:00 p.m. I got up to the farm at about 6:30 and hitched the stock trailer to the farm pickup and made some final adjustments before walking the dog and picking some lilacs, flowering dogwood and serviceberry for a bouquet for Sacha.

I was on the road at about 8:00 a.m. I stopped and presented some European chocolates and the bouquet to Sacha (Vashti liked the bouquet too) and was on my way. The trip to Marysville was pretty uneventful. I took the back way so didn’t have to do too much freeway time with the old pickup and trailer.

There were several cows to choose from and I chose a yearling freemartin heifer. Freemartins are females with male twins and are usually sterile. Freemartin was a new term for me though, according to Webster, it has been in use since 1681. I had been aware of other problems associated with twin cattle. The trip home was uneventful as well and when I released the new cow in the pasture, it looked like things would go well. It is always interesting when you release a new adult cow into an established herd. Sometimes there are challenges and a lot of head butting, sometimes not, but usually there are a few laps around the pasture by the entire herd and the new cow.

Sacha was at the farm, working on her grapes. I helped her a little bit in getting the weedeater going and doing some minor repairs on the rototiller.  She suggested naming the new cow Mary since she came from Marysville. I am a little cautious about naming this cow since she won’t be with us that long. In addition, she isn’t supposed to be able to have a calf but what if she did? And being named Mary? I am not overly religious but I don’t even want to go there.

The trip to get the new cow had taken about 4 hours so I had a few hours left to work on the big maple. I managed to get all of the blocks that I had cut the day before split. It was a lot cooler with rain showers this day but it was still muggy and the sweat flowed freely.

Dinner was very good. Afterward both our moms jumping into cleaning the dishes. I felt like kind of a slacker. Washing the dishes is usually my job and it was Mother’s Day after all and I ended up hardly touching a dish. In addition, Sacha cooked a very delicious dinner that I had not a hand in making (other than raising the beef that was the main dish).  I know Sacha is worn to a frazzle trying to keep up with our toddler daughter. I wish I could have done a little more for her and our moms who were undoubtedly worn to a frazzle with us on Mother’s Day. There don’t seem to be enough hours in the day to get everything done that needs to be done.

Start of day Saturday.

Start of day Saturday.

End of day Saturday.

Sunday. New cow apprehensive about leaving stock trailer. 

The greeting committee arrives. 

Much bellowing from both sides ensues. 

Grapeleaf usually leads the way when a new cow arrives.

Grapeleaf is not the dominant, or herd cow but she is very pushy. She is also fairly small and often gets thumped in these situations. 

Of course Lil' Blackie needs to check out the new girl in town. 

And they're off. 

Miss D is lagging behind because she is very pregnant. 

They've made a turn and are headed back. Miss D has cut the corner and momentarily caught up. The new cow is actually near the rear of the herd at this point. 

Off into the mist they go.

The new cow after settling in.

Sacha tilling around her grape arbor. 

Start of the wood project Sunday.

Start of the wood project Sunday. 

End of the wood project Sunday.

End of the wood project Sunday.

Sacha and Vashti.