Blue Heron and mother nature

We made a trip to the farm on Thursday, Dec. 17th to check things out as we hadn't been there for two weeks. Everything was in good shape, we had gotten some rain a few days before as you could still see the puddles. I also had a red maple tree to plant and two blue hydrangeas. We planted the two hydrangeas down under the lob lolly pines where we planted the Hostas. The red maple we planted down by the south pond.

While I was planting the red maple I noticed a funny looking area over on the dam, it looked like something white laying on the ground. When I got over to it, I could tell it was feathers from some bird. Once I got to looking closer I found a skeleton laying down on the side of the dam. It had legs and a head with beak. It was the blue heron that we have been seeing quite regularly in both of the ponds on the farm. It apparently got caught by either a coyote or bobcat. Mother nature in a complete circle, the blue heron eats the fish then is eaten. Here are before and after pictures.

here are the after picture

I worked on the oak tree and am happy to say that it is completely cut up and moved. I did take the main log and cut it so that we could have seats that we can sit on down where we have a camp fire. Once I get it all done it will have log seats and a walled fire pit. This is just the start. I thought I had taken pictures of these but apparently I didn't, so you'll have to wait.

Next we went down to the south pond and started clearing some of the brush away from the west side of it. We have some nice plans for this side of the pond and to get it done we have to get it cleared first. As usual I didn't take before pictures but hopefully as we do more of this you will be able to see what we have gotten done from the pictures I do take.

There wasn't any exciting pictures on any of the game cameras and what was there I am going to try and post them on the game camera blog.

Hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Holly & Hazelnut bushes, Oak tree

I made two trips to the farm since the last time I posted, one on November 24 and the other on December 3. On both trips I planted some holly bushes along the north fence line, this will help to isolate us from the neighbors on that side who have dogs that bark and bark and bark.

I don't know just how many I planted but it is a start.

Next I planted three new Hazelnut bushes, these I planted up by the loblolly pine trees. On all these plants that I have planted lately I have used a combination of sand, dirt from the side of the barn that has a lot of cow manure in it and dirt from the original hole. Hopefully this will be better for the plants.

I next planted four azaleas bushes to replace the ones that had died this summer. I also started working on the azaleas so that when it rains the water will be caught to help water them better. I started digging around the bushes so that there is a dam around the lower end of the bush.

On the third I worked on the oak tree that had fallen down last spring and if I hadn't run out of gas in the chain saw I would have gotten it all cut up. I did get a lot of it done as you can see from the photos.

This is a picture from June 23rd.

These are pictures from Dec 3rd

Here is the brush pile that is left from the cutting.

This will be left here for the quail, birds and rabbits.

Here is a picture of the 1 loblolly pine tree that died last year from the drought. It was seventy foot tall and the forestry man said it was at least 80 years old. It fell down sometime between the visit on the 24th and 3rd.

Until next time have a good day.