Between PGE crews clearing dead trees from near their power line and our efforts to cut brush back from our driveway, the goats are getting plenty of browse delivered to their field. And Johnny is putting up lots of firewood for winter heat... presuming we are ever allowed to burn wood again. Oregon is burning up too many live trees currently. We have lucked out so far in western Oregon but we keep working on the brush to make it easier to contain any fires that might start. The weather is still dry.
One tree that PGE cut was huge, although young. They left us big hunks of the trunk that looked to us like perfect seats for enjoying the view of the creek that runs through our property. So today Johnny loaded them into the bucket of his tractor and drove them down to the creekside area where I often sit and watch birds... and fast flowing water (at least it's fast flowing in the winter) ... and deer... and whatever else wanders by.
Naturally, I took photos of the operation. Here are two of the prospective seats...
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| Lightning struck this tree when it was young, as Johnny explained after seeing the scar that ran from near the center (youth) of the tree to the outside |
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| The view from the new "seat" |
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| Johnny pretending he has binoculars |
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| The view from the second seat |
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| Johnny modeling the second seat. We will have to put something over the sap-oozing lightning wound |
Then Johnny went off to do his thing and I went off to do mine... which was cutting blackberry vines and tansy that had escaped me earlier in the year from the flower meadow. I was so sure I had dug and pulled all the tansy but, alas, I was wrong. Whether the Himalaya blackberry vines had already sprung up from where I had cut them off early in the summer or if I missed this patch, I cut a big EZ Go load for the goats. The tansy is bagged for the fire pile whenever it is safe... and legal... to burn it.
Most of the flowers in the flower meadow are done blooming and have seeded out. But happily, the Hall's Asters are in bloom now. What they lack in height, they make up for in numbers.
Also blooming are blue Douglas Asters. They can be seen on my Wildflowers blog under "The Flower Meadow".
Maybe next year I'll remember to take photos throughout the summer as the various flowers bloom. Or maybe I'll just sit by the stream and enjoy our new log seating.
The day after the new log seats were in place, I checked back and found that someone else had discovered our seats and left its mark on them.
It was full of blackberry seeds. I suspect a Gray Fox. We have seen them here and their scats are always full (this time of year) of blackberry seeds. I set up a trail camera to see if the visitor returned, but so far, it has not.
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