Mowing Pasture Weeds

Much of the last two weekends I spent mowing the pasture at the home farm. I ordinarily make hay on this pasture but the ground is played out and needs amendments, mainly a dose of lime and some fertilizer.

So I moved the cows back down onto this pasture in an effort to control the weeds. This seemed to work somewhat on some weed species but the buttercup (Ranunculus acris) seems to have increased significantly. This species produces compounds that are toxic so the cows avoid eating them. In grassland or range management terms, this species is called an “increaser” because livestock won’t eat it so its population increases under grazing.

Fortunately, when this species of buttercup is cut the toxic compounds volatilize (evaporate) and the cows will then eat it. This was my goal. Cut the buttercup before it got a chance to increase even more. I have heard it said that buttercup is not safe for stock under any circumstances, including in hay but I know a lot of people, myself included who feed buttercup infested hay with no apparent ill effects. So I will take my chances.

The mower I used is an old John Deer No. 5 sickle bar mower. A bar with a set of triangle shaped teeth mounted on it slides through a another fixed bar with serrated edges or ledger plates attached where the teeth slide through. The grass is guided into the cutting edges by longer guide teeth. There are probably a lot of mowers that would have been better for this job but this is the only one I have. It has been cobbled together in order to work on the Case tractor, but for what it is, it works well. As with a lot of farm equipment, these mowers are very good at cutting off fingers or other appendages as well as grass, so one has to be careful when using them. 

I spent a big part of the previous weekend mowing one section of the field and a good part of Saturday of this past weekend mowing the remaining section.

This past Sunday I walked up the Cow Heaven trail. This will be the subject of my next post. 

Starting a swath. The yellow buttercup is faintly visible. The cows may not have eaten much of it but they did manage to trample quite a bit.

The cows sometimes stand right in the way as the tractor approaches but always move well before they are in any danger. 

Pictures of the Week 6.19.13

Somewhere in North Cascades National Park summer 2005. Day one of a four day trip. It took me 10 and a half hours of brush bashing and stream wading to get to this point. I was almost pinned by a large boulder in the stream I waded to get here. I ended up almost completely soaked with a jammed thumb from the experience. This mountain is also visible but not really accessible from a U.S. Forest Service road on the Park's border to the south but the road is now closed, requiring a solid day of walking to access the viewpoint. 

Somewhere in North Cascades National Park summer 2005. Day 2 of a 4 day trip.

2005. Day 3 of the 4 day trip. 

2005. Day 3 of a 4 day trip.

2005. Day 3 of a 4 day trip.

2005. Just over a low pass from previous photos. Day 3 of a 4 day trip. 

Somewhere in North Cascades National Park summer 2006. Same place as previous photos, one year later.

Same place as previous photos summer 2006. 

Zoomed in waterfall from previous photo. I have heard this may be one of the taller waterfalls in the state, depending on how one measures one's waterfalls. This is only the upper part of the waterfall. I believe parts or all of this waterfall were visible from the Forest Service road mentioned earlier. 

Western coralroot (Corallorhiza maculata mertensiana). I have noticed this native orchid blooming in the woods lately. These plants have no green leaves or chlorophyll except for a small area in their ovaries so they don't photosynthesize to make their own food. Coralroots depend on connections with fungal mycorrhizae (fungus roots) in the soil to provide them with food water and minerals. Mycorrhizae are not true roots but they serve similar functions and are actually more efficient than true roots for transporting water and nutrients. Mycorrhizae are often attached to nearby tree or other plant roots and provide nutrients, minerals and water to the tree or plant. In return, they apparently get food in the form of sugars from the plants. Evidently coralroots are just along for the ride in this equation. Because of these connections, coralroots do not need fine roots and their roots end in large branching stumps that look similar to coral. 

Coralroots were once classified as saprophytes (and probably still are by some) because it was believed that they derived their nutrients from  decaying wood and forest litter. It is now known that many of these nutrients come from living plants and trees via fungal mycorrhizae. However, many fungi also break down dead wood and forest litter and there are many connections in the nutrient cycling of the forest soils so it is likely that some of the nutrients that sustain these plants do actually come from dead wood and forest litter. 

Since coralroots do not need chlorophyll, they can be found in a variety of colors. This western coralroot is light yellow and almost white. This color seems to be uncommon but not rare.

This western coralroot is intermediate between light yellow and pink. These plants are slender and grow to a maximum height of about 18 inches and the flowers are small. At a glance, they look like weird sticks protruding from the forest floor but are really beautiful on close observation.  

Spotted coralroot (Corallorhiza maculata maculata).  I seem to encounter this coralroot more commonly at lower elevations though I have been seeing a lot of western coralroot at lower elevations lately. Though spotted coralroot is a different subspecies, it looks quite a bit different in form and coloration. Almost all of the spotted coralroot I have ever seen has been reddish brown with little or no variation beyond being a little lighter or a little darker, unlike the western coralroot. 

Wild Strawberries

I’ve spent time several evenings after work the last two weeks picking wild strawberries (Fragaria virginiana). Wild strawberries are a bit tricky. Though many plants will flower, not all plants will have berries. And they are so small that you need to find a concentration of plants with berries to make it worth your while to pick them.

My dad introduced me to wild strawberry picking. He picked these berries as a kid and my grandma would make jam from them. I don’t know why someone would want to ruin fresh delicious berries by making jam out of them.

Wild strawberries seem to like open areas with sandy, gravelly, well drained soils. Bluffs, open mossy gravel bars that are not overgrown and shaded with trees and old pastures with poorer soils and short grass that haven’t been ploughed or grazed heavily for many years are good spots to find them. Probably the best areas that I have found are the sand and gravel of open roadsides that aren’t heavily used and old pastures. One has to be careful that roadsides are not sprayed before picking berries but usually they won’t be if they are not heavily used.

Patches of wild strawberries may persist for years with the next year’s plants establishing by runners but eventually they play out just like domestic berries. This is usually reset by a disturbance of some kind, floods making new gravel bars, ploughing, fires, and of course new layers of gravel and sand.

The flavor of these small berries is intense. It is hard to describe but the closest I can come up with is that they have a very nice perfume, which may be where the genus name Fragaria comes from. In my opinion, these berries are better than even best domestic berries and I like domestic strawberries. I read somewhere that many domestic varieties of strawberries are descended from these wild strawberries and coastal strawberries (Fragaria chiloensis) which do not, to my knowledge, occur here in the Cascades.

Most of the berries I have picked this year have gone to my daughter. She really likes them. With the first batch she started out eating one at a time. After several berries, it became two at a time, then she started eating them by the fistful until they were gone, at which point she demanded more. 

This is the yield for about 15 minutes of effort. 

Yield for about 30 minutes of effort. This is the most recent batch I picked this year. The berries were pretty big for wild strawberries, making the job go faster. I like to hull the berries as I pick them. The brownish flakes amongst the berries are old flower petals.

Vashti digging in.

This, of course, is not a strawberry. It is a salmonberry and they have been ripe for the last several weeks. This is Vashti's other favorite berry (for the time being). I am not unfond of them myself. We have been giving her lots of these berries as well. We will have to keep an eye on her and, as soon as she can understand, make sure she knows which berries are okay to eat and which ones are not. 

Community Hall Work Party

I spent the day Saturday running errands and getting a couple early loads of hay and rearranging tools. 

Sunday there was a work party at the Marblemount Community Hall. A dozen or so people showed up. Many of them were the regulars that usually show up for these types of things but there were some new faces as well.

In about 7 hours we got a number of things done.

Yard work was one of the first things on our list. The vegetation is relentless this time of year and the mix of rain and sun really made things grow. The lawn was mowed as well as weedeating the edges around the buildings. The back of the hall was particularly bad. Blackberries were growing into the shake siding and would have eventually pried the shakes off if left alone. In addition, a troublesome maple clump and a holly tree both growing right at the edge of the building were removed along with a lot of thick brush. We also weeded the gravel in the playground area.

Inside, the hall was spruced up with some new decorations added and the bathrooms and kitchen were deep cleaned.

We also worked on some infrastructure projects. A water line was excavated in order to install a new outdoor spigot but it was determined that we did not have the proper fittings so the hole was temporarily covered until we could get the right parts. We also inspected several areas where the floor of the hall was sagging and determined the materials needed to fix this problem.  

All the help was greatly appreciated. As the old saying goes “Many hands make light work”. 

Receiving instructions for operating the riding mower.

Blackberries grown into the shake siding of the hall. The vines would eventually pry the shakes off. It is important for the life of a building in this area to keep the vegetation down around it. Vegetation traps moisture, increasing the rate of decay of wood and harbors insects that eat wood.

Excavating to add new water spigot.