Some of these are worth a click to see more detail...
Although there were a lot of thistles and I don't think I have ever seen it as wet as it is now.
Liz did most of the thistle stomping, while I carried the hammer (in my handy dandy hammer loop, something which I usually cut off of jeans because of the danger from power take offs. However I don't use them any more, PTO's that is, being an old broad, and the hammer loop was sure handy). We got the field behind the barn up in single strand electric in just a couple of hours. Amazing that the snow and odocoileus didn't take it down worse than it did. usually heavy snow and rampaging deer are rough on fences every winter. This year in places the fence was up for several sections in a row and all the insulators were lying around in plain sight.
It was GOOD to get outdoors.
Wish you could smell the maple trees in bloom. You don't smell much of anything outdoors in the winter, as many of us who work out there notice when things warm up and you can again. Yesterday as Liz and I came down after getting the electric fence up, wave after wave of it wafted over us. It was sweet as hot sugar and in fact smells a lot like hot sugar. It was wonderful for me...not so much Liz who is allergic to maple blossoms. (For some reason she won't let me plant any maple trees down by the house.) I have read that it was a poor season for the maple folks, with a short and spotty run.
Joated posted this video arrangement of the weather maps of the last 22 Hell Storms that have nailed the northeast. Wow! I had actually noticed that they looked a lot alike on the weather map but it is something to see them slashing up from Florida or over from the left coast one after another.
Cool pictures. Wish I only had one wire to have to put back up in stead of 3 or 4 strands of barbed wire. What kind of thistles? Russian thistles, like the tumbleweeds? That is what happens around here. Someone plants something in some farm ground and it doesn't grow but the thistles do, then they break loose and get caught in a fence and pile up collecting snow and causing a mess. In spring we used to walk along with a pitch fork and throw them off the fence and burn them. Slow, dirty, messy job!
ReplyDeleteLooked like--and was--a great day to get out in the field.
ReplyDeletePoor Liz and her maple allergy! Terry has a similar problem with white cedar (no other kinds--just white cedar). Working for the EPA, they used to take her to south Jersey to find the swamps in the spring. She'd get all sneezy in about two minutes if there was a white cedar swamp within a mile.
Beautiful views! Putting up a fence may not be the most fun thing to do but at least you get to do it in a beautiful setting.
ReplyDeleteWhat beautiful country.
ReplyDeleteAnd now this city girl is going to reveal her ignorance:
"danger from power take offs"
(what's a power take off :0) ?
Dang. And a "PTO"?
If the answers are too painfully obvious - please delete this comment and I'll just slink away :-D
JB, we put up barbed wire and electric both most places, but this is just a little temporary bit of fenced hayfield really. It is internal with other fields around most of it and doesn't need much.
ReplyDeleteI believe the thistles are Canada thistle.
http://www.ext.colostate.edu/Pubs/natres/03108.html
They don't blow around but they are nasty and get real tall, die and tip over on the wire.. I don't think we have the tumbling kind here and from the sounds of things I guess I don't envy them!
Joated, it is a misery for her, although she hasn't been as sick so far this year as usual. Sorry for poor Terry too!
SCMomma, it was so funny...I was commenting on your post on fence and came back and you had commented on my post on fence.
Cathy, here is a link to a pictorial explanation...http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://web.extension.illinois.edu/agsafety/images/pto_image006.jpg&imgrefurl=http://web.extension.illinois.edu/agsafety/equipment/ptosafety.html&usg=__D6qwCW2NONbE-w3lZUincJCAGbM=&h=393&w=611&sz=20&hl=en&start=20&sig2=9KhOSbGlop42cVtHnxl6Og&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=bz1q86R3RnPmyM:&tbnh=87&tbnw=136&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dpower%2Btake%2Boff%2Btractor%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26sa%3DN%26rlz%3D1R1GGGL_en___US345%26tbs%3Disch:1&ei=qou2S5iPNsSqlAfKzIBh
Thanks for clarifying the nature of PTO's.
ReplyDeleteWhoa! That half devoured scarecrow is very sobering.
And now I understand why one would prune any dangling apparel.
Thanks, TC.