A fence for the taking

We needed a break between the dog yard and the lily hill in the back of the house, but I didn't want to put up more cedar fencing. I found the solution in the lowly hackberry tree of which we have plenty in Deerfield.

The hackberry tree is useless for anything except firewood and now my ersatz fencing. Hackberry is never milled as lumber because of its hardness and twisted grain. Its bark is rough and gnarled which gives the fence a certain rustic look.

Putting up the fence and building the gate is like working a jigsaw puzzle, some pieces fit and some don't, but you can usually find a spot for each piece if you look hard enough.

All I need to do now if find some native vines to trellis along the fence, and remember to sharpen the chain on my saw dulled by so much hackberry cutting.

Vegetable garden on temporary hold

Assuming that discretion is the better part of valor even in vegetable gardening, I've decided to wait for the late summer/early fall planting season.

Three reasons:

1. The soil needs further amending. I have access to some good barnyard manure, but it's been too wet to get it.
2. My drainage problem is more serious than I thought. I need to figure out that conundrum before a garden is planted.
3. The fence posts are in the ground, but I still don't have the stringers and chicken wire up. Our five inches of rain (more is on the way) will keep me from working on the fence for at least a week.

I'm glad I'm not a settler depending on a vegetable garden to stay alive.

Ants marching . . . on peonies

The Internet has put an emphatic end to the myth that ants crawling on peony buds are responsible for making the flowers open. Just about every gardening website has a story debunking the myth. The simple fact is that ants happen to like the sweet resin produced by the peony buds, but the flowers would open just fine without the ants.

The ants are not so preoccupied with peonies, however, that they won't show up at your first picnic.

Rescue day at Deerfield

First, neighbor Larry found this small bird hopping along Deerfield Drive, unable to fly. He brought it up to our house since we are sans cats. Two parrots reside at Larry's house so he's partial to birds. We couldn't find that the bird was injured so we put him on a level fence rail. I kept an eye on it for about half an hour, and then it was gone. Larry and I couldn't identify the bird, but Betty later got our her books and pegged it as a female Downy woodpecker.

Later in the day, another neighbor called to say the family's beloved Shetland pony had gotten out. We quickly got it corralled and the fence patched up.

Now, it's raining in torrents on top of the almost three inches we have had in the last two days. So I may be next in line to be rescued.

Springtails revisited

Here's a photo Larry took of the springtails on the walkway around his house. He reports that their numbers are growing. Possible movie title: "The Springtails That Ate Deerfield."

Deerfield version of "the Blob"

My neighbor Larry called me up to his place recently to see something unusual. At first it appeared to be a simple oil slick on his concrete drive. Then it started moving!

After a call to the UT Extension Service, Larry found out the moving blob was a mass of "springtails."

Here's what the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture says about them:

Springtails are tiny wingless insects with distinctive heads and a hump-backed appearance. Their name comes from a forked structure attached to the underside of the abdomen which acts a spring to flip them into the air. This behavior gives them the appearance of tiny fleas. Other than being a nuisance, these unique little creatures pose no threat. Most springtails live in rich soil or leaf litter, under bark or decaying wood, or associated with fungi. Many are scavengers, feeding on decaying plants, fungi, molds, or algae. Springtails become abundant among wet leaves, soil, and plant material along a house foundations or sidewalks where they can be a temporary annoyance. Masses of these insects can be swept up and discarded.(Photo courtesy of University of Kentucky.)

You never know what kind of wildlife you're going to see in Deerfield.

Ashes and mud

The long anticipated rain finally arrived about 5 a.m. We got about a 1/2 inch in the first three hours. I went out to check the fire, expecting to see a watery mess, but the smoke was still billowing from the hot hole.

The small mound of dirt/mud is about all that is left of the large pile you can see in the previous day's post.

At last, the fall 2008 land-clearing exercise is almost complete.