Visitors

When I first saw this picture on the SD card of the trail camera I thought - What the hey!  Some guy I don't know out for a stroll with his wife or girl friend.  The nerve!

click on the rubber boots to enlarge

Then it occurred to me.  Possibly DNR personnel checking the evidence of seriously-bad deer damage to the trees on the property?

Nope. 

Trespassers!

The Big Dump

Just had another twenty yards of screened topsoil delivered.

Screening is critical inasmuch as Door County has precious little topsoil and much of it is full of rocks!

Landscaping projects this summer - planting, filling and seeding.  It'll be gone before too long...

Visitors

Not much escapes the patient and watchful eye of a trail camera.

Like Sid paying a visit and taking his hunting dogs out to stretch their legs...

click on image to enlarge

Opening the Flood Gates

Once the snow begins to melt and the frost is out of the ground things tend to get pretty soggy - quickly.  Add some precipitation and things rapidly get worse.  If enough debris builds-up at the crossing of Silver Creek a small lake forms as the water backs-up behind the jam of flotsam and jetsam.  For instance...

 

That's Braumeister slogging his way through the flood waters down at the creek.

 

So Six Deuce and I went down there with our tall rubber boots, a rake and pitchfork and cleared the jam.  Within minutes the water level in the creek had dropped a half foot and the lake receded.

 

click on images to enlarge

 

 

 



Turkey Hunter

A shot of yours truly trudging out to a turkey blind.

 

Only to sit almost all day long and not see a single bird.

After I'd left for home guess who cruises through where my blind was located...

click on image images to enlarge

Nuke The RCG

Ha!  I'll bet that title got your attention. He's talking about nuking the Republic of something that begins with the letters C and G.

Actually I'm referring to one of those rites of spring (and sometimes a rite of fall) namely spraying the reed canary grass with an herbicide.  Short form is Nuking the RCG.

I installed the fifteen gallon tank sprayer on the Polaris and filled it with water, 5+ cups of Rodeo concentrate and a blue turf dye.  Five cups in fifteen gallons of water give me an application strong enough to kill, Rodeo is labeled for wetland use and the turf dye is useful for keeping track of where you've sprayed.  Spring is good because the invasive RCG greens-up before most of the native grasses and forbs and is vulnerable because it stands out.

I've been rather diligent about this for a few years and the results are showing.  In areas that previously had been solid masses of RCG turf I now have only scattered remnants peeking thru.  Where RCG previously dominated there are now native plant like marsh marigold, sun drops and blue vervain. 

click on the four-wheeler to enlarge

Contrast

Contrast the current splendid weather with what was typical only a couple of weeks ago.

Wind, rain, snow and ice pellets!

click on the frozen hunter to enlarge

Blech!