Gator

It's a total splurge, but today I got my long-coveted John Deere Gator.

Front view. We added a windshield, roof, and back grate.

We'll use it mostly for road maintenance and collecting brush and firewood.

Action shot. Turns out I really miss rear-view mirrors when backing up! We checked it out on most of the roads/trails on our land.

Two more action shots caught by our game camera.

Getting the mail.

Lon loves the dumping bed.

Lightning Strike

When we came home from a weekend in Alabama, we found a shattered tree near our road.

The debris on the ground was what first caught my attention. The odor (aroma?) of "freshly-cut" oak was strong.

Then I looked up and found the damaged tree.

It must have been a glancing blow, since the damage started below the top of the tree.

Viewshed Maintenance

Lon has been working hard to restore the view from our deck.

1 July 2018. Small pines and black locusts grow quickly and block the view of our meadow (aka septic drain field).

8 July 2018. Lon left the two persimmon trees and a few oaks. Next he'll mow the meadow to stimulate the growth of grass and cut down black locust seedlings and the inevitable blackberry growth. Unfortunately, small trees don't make for much firewood.

11 July 2018. Lon has cleaned up the logs (see below) and mowed the meadow.

Most of the trees Lon cut down were black locusts. Here's his nicely-sorted log pile - with a few chestnut oaks in there as well. Firewood for next year.

This 'n' That

I've been so busy with the Field Ecology Summer Regional Governor's School, that I haven't taken any time for a blog post. But things have been accumulating, so here goes...

Today one of my favorite wildflowers, Indian Pipe (Monotropa uniflora), started popping up in our woods. As in the past, when Indian Pipe comes out, there are many patches that emerge simultaneously.

Two days ago there was a lot of moisture in the early morning air, ...

... and there was a rare morning rainbow in the southwestern sky.

The moisture put tiny pearls of dew on spiderwebs. This web has clearly seen better days!

The pine trees were particularly heavily coated with spiderwebs. I'm pretty sure these are webs of the basilica orb weaver spider (Mecynogea lemniscata). We've seen egg sacks of these spiders in Virginia Pines we have cut for Christmas trees.

Back in May, carpenter bees had made holes in the post that holds our wildlife camera. This week it appears that a pileated woodpecker found the contents (bee larvae?) of at least one hole a tasty treat. Given how the woodpeckers have attacked our gatepost, we may soon have to find a different post for the camera. (It's on this post because the tree it was originally on blew down several years ago.)

And finally, it continues to be a good year for snakes.  Last month Lon saw this good-sized timber rattlesnake near our woodsheds. Earlier this week we found two snake skins in the woodshed while moving firewood to our deck.

They're a bit blurry, but you can clearly see the triangular head (left) and rattles (right).