More pictures

If you are reading this it probably means I am driving Mrs ERJ to Detroit Metro Airport.  The original plan was to have her drive the minivan and park it.  But the right, front wheel bearing is crapping out and I did not want to run the risk of having her stranded on a freeway, 90 miles from home.

Guerrilla gardening update

Marking off a "line" with surveyors tape.  There is a second orange tape in the picture but it is partially obscured by one of the twigs on the bush in the foreground.

My main line was a row of walnuts.  I planted a row 900 feet long with nuts placed on  6' centers.  It was a mix of Drake and Emma Kay cultivars.  The pollen parents were local talent of no particular merit.

Walnuts are easy.  Take two steps.  Drop a nut.  Step on it to ensure it is pressed into the dirt.  Most mice won't bother chewing through a walnut shell. 

Sequence for planting acorns.  Take two steps.

 Acorns are a little bit more work.  Mice will gobble them right up and there is no shortage of mice in an overgrown field.

15 pound spud stuck into the ground.  Most of the stubble you see is goldenrod.

Wiggle it back-and-forth to enlarge the hole.

Remove spud.

Select acorn.  This row was planted to Northern Red Oak acorns from Bennett Park.  I usually drop them in from higher but I wanted a good picture.  I carry them in a carpenter's apron.

That acorn just disappears down that hole.

Kick the hole shut and take two more steps.  Lather, rinse, repeat until done.

Deer stands

I got some help from the Captain.  He is a real go-getter.

The Captain was feeling under the weather but he brought over his tractor and helped me limb out some spruce poles and horse them through the pucker-brush.

They are about 20 feet long and maybe 10"-to-12" at the but.  The will be two of the four  vertical supports for the elevated deer blind.

He was a little too quick for me.  He just dumped them over the fence near where the blind will be built.

Crappy picture, but there are two poles in that mess.

The plan is to build it with a 6'-by-8' footprint and to have the floor 8 or 10 feet off the ground.

I picked the location by moving a 12 foot step ladder around every few days.  It finally got to where I could not improve on the location....and that is where our first elevated blind will go.  It is about 50 yards from my south property line and 30 yards from my east property line.