It Begins/The Wheel Turns
Jan. 10th, 2022 04:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greenstormToday was warm enough to get the snowblower working. One of the issues was that its oil was only good down to -20C, so when I tried to start it at -30C it was basically sludge. There was also a lack of fuel stabilizer and old oil, but I had to run it for a bit to get the oil to pick up all the little metal bits since I hadn't changed the-- well, anyhow. It was warm enough to get the snowblower working.
I expected it to get up to -5C today and to be working on the snowblower, so I woke up and luxuriated in being in bed for awhile. Wood on the fire, find some clothes, and I got outside as it was getting properly light, about 9. It felt different out. The snowblower started prety quickly and while I was running it I took water to the geese, then checked the temperature.
It was 1C. It was above freezing!
Suddenly the snowblower was much more important. When the snow thaws and refreezes it becomes basically impossible to move and I had a lot of snow to move. Luckily with an oil change and enough time to work a new tank of stabilized fuel through it the machine was working. I spent an hour and a half muscling it around, getting it stuck on the pig hill, trying to figure out how to move snowbanks that were twice as tall as the machine. It was lovely and sunny and warm. When I came in for lunch and tea I realized I'd stepped out just to see if I could get it working and hadn't actually put on a shirt under my light jacket before starting work. I could hardly hold the phone because of vibrator-hands.
After a break I went out again, took a video for the youtube site, fed the animals, and got back to work. I widened a path to the back chicken coop -- and incidentally the truck canopy-- that I think the truck can fit back through. I did the driveway outside the gate and may have got two cars'-widths inside the gate. I unburied most of the trailer and the 4runner. The dog paths were impossible to move since they were roughly three feet of snow compacted into six inches. Without chains on the snowblower tires I slipped and had to near-carry in a couple places. Still, I got a lot done. I also managed to shake the snow off the cedars and clear most of the snow off the deck before I realized it was 4:30 and still basically light. In fact the sun is only down now, at 5.
The outside tap got thawed yesterday and I re-dug a path to it. There was actual water beading on the wire fence and the south side of the shed. It was so warm I took my toque and gloves off and never did put on a shirt. The long cold was a very serious hibernation, a hunkering-down and surviving. Today is the beginning of waking up.
I'm not saying it won't get cold again before spring. It will: a crust will form on the snow, the dogs will try and get out on it, I'll need to problem solve, a super cold snap might still happen, the truck may still get stuck in some of this loose weird snow-over-ice. At some point rivulets will start running down the driveway and I'll need to direct them away from the carport. I'll come close to running out of wood and the blanket of snow on the roof will come off and the house might get a little chilly. I need to get several tons of snow off the deck. But. Still.
Spring will come.
Now where can I find some good LED grow lights?
I expected it to get up to -5C today and to be working on the snowblower, so I woke up and luxuriated in being in bed for awhile. Wood on the fire, find some clothes, and I got outside as it was getting properly light, about 9. It felt different out. The snowblower started prety quickly and while I was running it I took water to the geese, then checked the temperature.
It was 1C. It was above freezing!
Suddenly the snowblower was much more important. When the snow thaws and refreezes it becomes basically impossible to move and I had a lot of snow to move. Luckily with an oil change and enough time to work a new tank of stabilized fuel through it the machine was working. I spent an hour and a half muscling it around, getting it stuck on the pig hill, trying to figure out how to move snowbanks that were twice as tall as the machine. It was lovely and sunny and warm. When I came in for lunch and tea I realized I'd stepped out just to see if I could get it working and hadn't actually put on a shirt under my light jacket before starting work. I could hardly hold the phone because of vibrator-hands.
After a break I went out again, took a video for the youtube site, fed the animals, and got back to work. I widened a path to the back chicken coop -- and incidentally the truck canopy-- that I think the truck can fit back through. I did the driveway outside the gate and may have got two cars'-widths inside the gate. I unburied most of the trailer and the 4runner. The dog paths were impossible to move since they were roughly three feet of snow compacted into six inches. Without chains on the snowblower tires I slipped and had to near-carry in a couple places. Still, I got a lot done. I also managed to shake the snow off the cedars and clear most of the snow off the deck before I realized it was 4:30 and still basically light. In fact the sun is only down now, at 5.
The outside tap got thawed yesterday and I re-dug a path to it. There was actual water beading on the wire fence and the south side of the shed. It was so warm I took my toque and gloves off and never did put on a shirt. The long cold was a very serious hibernation, a hunkering-down and surviving. Today is the beginning of waking up.
I'm not saying it won't get cold again before spring. It will: a crust will form on the snow, the dogs will try and get out on it, I'll need to problem solve, a super cold snap might still happen, the truck may still get stuck in some of this loose weird snow-over-ice. At some point rivulets will start running down the driveway and I'll need to direct them away from the carport. I'll come close to running out of wood and the blanket of snow on the roof will come off and the house might get a little chilly. I need to get several tons of snow off the deck. But. Still.
Spring will come.
Now where can I find some good LED grow lights?
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Date: 2022-01-11 06:21 pm (UTC)your snow pack looks very impressive!
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Date: 2022-01-13 07:31 pm (UTC)My hands are soft from using gloves for so long, but it's definitely feeling like bare arms weather here too.
Does the flamer work on bermuda grass? I thought it was under the soil enough for that to be an issue? It really is the bane of perennial gardens; I find it deeply satisfying to pull the roots out of freshly tilled soil, though.
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Date: 2022-01-13 08:11 pm (UTC)we've never tried setting it on fire, but we've tried so many other things without success, that the plan is to borrow Hannah's flamethrower and do it this saturday. with hoses running nearby in case we need to contain it. the grass ate the whole tomato bed. in two other places, i put down a heavy layer of cardboard and started over with building soil on top of that, essentially making low raised beds, with the idea that the cardboard will adequately suppress the grass. it's working in one bed; another needs us to do something about the extremely grassy edges (such as burn them), and then start over with the cardboard & compost. the current plan is to burn, then turn the soil so it exposes a lot of roots (and reshape the bed while we're at it, which we wanted to do anyway), then burn again, repeat if necessary, then add a bunch of compost on top, not re-tilling, then plant.
so we'll see! it's a grand experiment. my main concern is that the soil is already alkaline, our water is alkaline, and fire adds further alkalanity. i don't want to alkalize the veggies to death. :)
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Date: 2022-01-14 03:52 am (UTC)I use the cardboard method myself as well and, like you say, it works where the cardboard is but not around. I know well enough now to remove all raised beds on grassy lawns.
Very curious to see how it works for you; I look forward to updates.
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Date: 2022-01-14 04:16 am (UTC)ah, this soil would love that kind of attention! if only we didn't have dayjobs.
we're going to get ducks this spring and plan to let them loose in the garden sometimes and see if that helps.
I'll let you know how the fire method goes! i know it makes a big difference with tumbleweeds and goat-heads (an evil little groundcover thorn, tribulus terrestris). we'll see how it goes with the grass!
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Date: 2022-01-14 06:05 pm (UTC)I'm curious about whether ducks will help. They eat bugs and greens, but I think of geese as the dedicated grass-grazers. They'll have fun and improve the situation either way though. Meat ducks or egg ducks?
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Date: 2022-01-18 09:01 pm (UTC)we are looking at getting a mixed group of ducks, some muscovies for meat and another breed, maybe pekins, as egg-layers. and that's an experiment; if we really don't need the eggs (which is very possible) then we'll switch to all meat ducks.
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Date: 2022-01-24 11:08 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2022-01-25 06:20 pm (UTC)it's this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arundo_donax
it turns out to be totally an invasive problem in some environments; my observation of it is mostly in backyards and alleys; we have some in front of our property wall by the road where we planted it to be a living screen from our across-the-street neighbor's aggressively glarey driveway light.* i've never seen it by the river, but maybe the very-active native plant society has managed to keep it out of that area.
*when the new neighbors moved in there, we told them about the issue with that light and asked if they'd consider installing a dark sky lamp, for us & the birds. they said Sure! but then couldn't figure how to take apart their existing fixture, so he put black duct tape across the side of it that points at us. sweet. :) also a real improvement in the lamp-glare situation.
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Date: 2022-01-25 06:45 pm (UTC)Good neighbours are lovely. :)
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Date: 2022-01-25 06:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-25 08:12 pm (UTC)That's disappointing about your grass. It's nice when things are more useful. Though bamboo can be pretty brittle too, as I recall from kink scene days. It cracks, and the cracks open and close as it flexes.
We're lucky to have some nice bamboo around Vancouver, there was vivax in the big park, some kind of maybe phyllostachys something big on a rooftop garden across from one of my rooftop gardens, some p nigra in the botanical garden... Vancouver is a little cold and snowy for it, because bamboo doesn't loose leaves so it's really sensitive to snow breakage, but it has the water bamboo needs. It cracks me up to see everyone worrying about bamboo as an invasive when it needs so much water. Like, sure, it's a problem in some places, but both dry soil and standing water kill it pretty fast so that eliminates a huge swathe of places it might be a problem.
Now, blackberries, on the other hand...
How are you for willow? Too dry? I'd have thought you were too dry for cottonwoods, your spot is so far outside my experience.
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Date: 2022-01-25 08:35 pm (UTC)this is the type of bamboo i see as a houseplant: https://mobileimages.lowes.com/productimages/645e9e17-d054-4215-9a5a-a469dbc60756/10851647.png?size=pdhi
there are some native willows! esp Coyote Willow, and globe willows do well here. weeping willow, not so much. there's on on campus next to the pond, but that's a highly controlled environment. here's coyote willow: https://www.inaturalist.org/guide_taxa/714145 and that's a folder full of stuff that lives right where i am.
i'm in/near a riparian area in a desert at high altitude, so, yeah. it's its own thing. we're not in a wetlands, but there are wetlands nearby-ish (within a 20m drive). desert wetlands are also their own thing, i am told. Isleta Pueblo, just south of us, maintains an extensive one by the river. (going back to Native land management; they are doing that for the health of the river and it's a gorgeous area with only one road through and no access otherwise).
the cottonwoods are mostly river-adjacent, and the area for roughly a half-mile on either side of the river is protected, i guess parkland. locally, "the bosque." which just means forest. the city sort of maintains it and sort of leaves it alone. so it's semi-wild. and that's all cottonwood forest, Rio Grande Cottonwoods almost exclusively. the river is as much underground as anywhere else; they are in that water table. the cottonwoods on our land, a mix of Rio Grande cottonwoods & a hybrid calle Mountain Cottonwood, are assuredly in the water table, which rests at 9' under our land - extraordinarily high, for NM. becuase we're in the old old river flow area. the plain over which it used to braid before colonization and dikes and jetty jacks.
we have a coyote willow growing by one of our flood irrigation gates, where it's very happy. it gets 3-4" of water every two weeks during flood season and otherwise relies on rain. it's outcompeting the elms right there, and every time i see it i feel proud of it for doing that. :) it self-propogated in the aquaponics bed one year and we transplanted it to a pot, and then planted it out back. super easy to grow!
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Date: 2022-01-26 07:06 pm (UTC)Yes! That is not a bamboo, much like a cottonwood is not a cotton plant. Common names! Gah.
Our willows here totally hybridize, I can't keep track. I'm thinking of getting a range of basketry willows and planting them in a rainbow fence though, since there are so many bark colours. Maybe putting them in the back by the dugout. Even if the moose chewed them down every winter, if they were established they'd keep coming back.
Wetlands are so precious. Every time I hear of one being preserved it's good for my heart.
How often would you have been flooded pre-alteration, where you are? Mostly yearly? More often? Less? I guess maybe periodically it would be river, if you're talking about braiding.
Gosh I have so many willows that self-propagate in my beds and pots. Willows and spruce! I pull out hundreds every year. They really go, when they want to.
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Date: 2022-01-26 07:24 pm (UTC)i suspect that if blackberries were that invasive here, we would not have planted them. my dad lived the last 11 years of his life on 5 acres in the mountains of western North Carolina, and about 3 of those acres are a) vertical and b) 100% blackberries & honeysuckle. so many thorns! we harvested them anyway and made pies, over my stepmother's objections that the berries were no good because they aren't especially sweet. my step-aunt still lives in that house, alone now.
willows are so pretty! and versatile.
i think, pre-colonization, this area would have been mildly underwater every couple-few years, depending on how the river bent that year, yes. one of the first things the Spanish did upon arriving here was to start controlling the flow of the middle Rio Grande, in addition to killing and/or assimilating the Puebloan people. further north, the river self-controls in the form of canyons, including the spectacular Rio Grand Gorge near Taos. north of that, in S Colorado where it originates, it also used to braid and has since been diked, and now has a deeper channel as a result.
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Date: 2022-01-26 09:27 pm (UTC)That sounds familiar. Mom used to give us a quarter per ice cream bucket of blackberries picked.
I'm slowly shifting my heart-feeling towards willows from weed to useful. I mean, I know intellectually they're useful but I haven't really loved or welcomed them. There are two big willows (not weeping, some kind of upright ones) by my driveway I need to pollard since they're shedding branches. Maybe working with them will help.
This, and the description of your greywater cottonwood setup, makes me reframe my concept of "limiting factor" into "blessings". Like, what feels like a blessing when there are spots or times of abundance of it? That's how you know what the limiting factors are. :)
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Date: 2022-01-26 09:49 pm (UTC)goats like willows. would pigs eat it? (do pigs eat brush? i turn out not to know what they eat besides veggie scraps.) folks used to make ropes & fabric from them. what i like best is a smell i associate with them, tho i think the smell also is mud/springtime/decay/fecundity as much as willow. it's specific to wet places in the spring with willows.
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Date: 2022-01-26 10:51 pm (UTC)My pigs eat willow trimmings, at least the small branches and the leaves and bark. They're less likely to eat it when it's live, I think, and more likely to eat the pieces I give them when they've eaten everything out of their pens.
I associate labrador tea with wet places up here, such a distinctive scent, and skunk cabbage down on the coast. And devil's club, smelling like brown wet bark.
I wonder how you'd make willow fabric? That sounds uncomfortable, but I'm sure there were techniques to fix all that.
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Date: 2022-01-28 04:14 am (UTC)that's neat! easier to keep than sheep, too
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Date: 2022-01-28 10:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-29 06:46 am (UTC)true. i was thinking, in terms of management, dogs are probably easier because they're not prey animals, and they're pretty smart. it might also depend on if you move around seasonally or are in the same place year round.
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Date: 2022-01-31 10:56 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2022-01-26 05:47 pm (UTC)I guess I'm falling prey to generalization. Of course there will be a ton of variability on your landscape! That's so neat. I think we have different cottonwoods though, it's p trichocarpa here (and is the identical one but with a pod that splits in 2 instead of 3 finally rolled into the same species yet? They hybridize all over anyhow).
I never see cottonwoods in town because they drop branches so easily (well, except this town, but they're along the creek). I remember those '50s ads for them as miracle trees because of how fast they grow.
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Date: 2022-01-26 05:56 pm (UTC)the rio grande tree is p deloides sp wiszenli, and the ones around the house are p fremontii. they're a non-cottoning variety, to my everlasting mild disapointment, because i love the fluff so much, but the valley is full of trees that do cotton, so we still get drifts of it in early summer. i'm also familiar with narrowleaf cottonwood, that you see in the lower elevations of the mountains sometimes - i think i've seen more of those in Arizona.
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Date: 2022-01-26 07:15 pm (UTC)So different! That's neat. I had a cottonwood in my yard growing up that was so big 4 people couldn't hold hands around it; it dropped a branch that landed break-down in the mud and stood there like a fully adult tree for a couple years. Lots of cotton! Honestly I think cottonwoods are up there with cockroaches in doing well with disturbance.
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Date: 2022-01-26 07:32 pm (UTC)now that pipe ends in open air, where i can *see* it, and i stuck a broken slab of slick marble (broken countertop part we got for free as scrap) under it, so the tree has to work harder. it doesn't stop her, but it does allow me to keep up.
that sounds like it was a beautiful tree. the Rio Grande cottonwood is considered endangered here, because the drought is so bad and the overall condition of the river is so low.
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Date: 2022-01-26 09:32 pm (UTC)I must say, my favourite part of cottonwoods is the scent, though. I WILL make balm of gilead this spring, even though I have to leave the property to do it.
I should probably plant some cottonwoods by where the dead cottonwoods are in the back, actually.
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