ANNUAL REPORT





 



  Well, it's been a year. I moved in around late October and it's amazing how much (and how little) has been done.

 When I arrived on the first day (it was night), I couldn't get in the house (the lockbox with the key didn't open so I broke it), the electricity was off, the water didn't work, and the house smelled like mold. I practically slept on the dogs that first night.

 The next day I turned on the electricity, got the pump working, and found that the water heater, toilet, and bath plumbing needed rebuilding. Oh, and the sink leaked. There was no dog fence, all the outbuildings were filled with household garbage, and the woods were filled with briars and poison ivy.

  This was not really news, but it did cause me to wonder how deep it would get. And it would get deep.

  Most of the leaves had already dropped and it would be three days before my moving truck would arrive. I didn't know my way around, had no idea where the grocery store was, had no stove or refrigerator, and though I went to visit my new workplace, I wouldn't start for a week as I needed to build a dog fence first. The briars and poison ivy would have to wait; the harshest winter in fifty years settled over New England, keeping us snowbound from December to March. April, in my case.

  In addition, the only liquor store I found was manned by taciturn unfriendly people that treated me as it I was a foreign bacteria.

  They still do. Or would, if I hadn't found another.

  Careful readers will know that I eventually solved all these problems, though it took a good deal of the winter, all of the spring, and I'm still removing trash from the outbuildings.

  But I have heat in most of my rooms, the dogs are contained and happy, most of the trash has been removed from the outbuildings, and though the briars still sway and growl on most of the property, I've managed to remove most of the poison ivy, briars, and bittersweet from the wooded areas within fifty feet of the edge of the yard.

  Trust me, it wasn't easy. I have the scars to prove it.

 

 This is what the area just behind the yard looked like when I started working on it in late May   (though the pic was taken in early October this year).

 

 Progress.

Note the vine on the side of the tree to the right. That's how big the poison ivy is.

 

 The walls (actually animal pens from the early 18th century) being reclaimed and exposed.

 

 Unfortunately, the insides of those walls (pens) are filled with broken glass and rusted steel, sometimes up to three feet deep. I'll get a front-end loader next year.

 

 This is what the area behind the barn looked like; briars and raspberries, poison ivy and bittersweet. To you uninitiated, bittersweet is the bane of the Connecticut farm (it's the yellow stuff to the right). It grows as fast as bamboo, strangles everything it touches, and climbs high to the tops of trees in what seems like a matter of minutes. It's vines are sinewy and strong enough to make rope from, pardon the dangling preposition. It gets caught in your weedeater or brush cutter and requires continual removal from the cutter head with hand clippers or a sharp blade. It can only be killed with serious brush poison; Roundup won't even phase the stuff.

 

 Behind the barn. This was the first area I cleared in May. It has been kept clear only by monthly cutting, yet still has new growth. My land is very fecund.

 

 This was big deal; cutting through the briars to begin the foray along the property line. I hope to reach the corner by spring next year. The pond lies just beyond the rock wall at the end of the cut; briars crowd both sides.

 

 One of the three stand of raspberries I intend to keep. The barn and tractor shed are in the background.

 The hornets' nest, abandoned and disintegrating.

 

 Though a lot of my time is spent getting rid of brush, this is an exception. It is a one hundred fifty year old boxwood salvaged from a restoration we are doing in North Stonington. I hope to have it live another 150 at the Standish Farm.

 

 I hadn't carved a jack-o'lantern in nearly fifteen years, and I arrived too late in the season (and had more important things to do) to decorate for Halloween last year. This year, I decided, would be different. I took some of the stick-figure designs from Blair Witch, added small pumpkin heads, and got to carving. These will likely stay until the pumpkins rot. I added some desiccated fabric on the arms. More has been found in the barn and will be added later.
 

 A ghost in the doorway?

 

 Yep. Definitely a ghost.

That's a goat skull above the skeleton. With bulging eyes. The skull came from central Texas.

 

 With all the fun of carving the jack-o lanterns, I stumbled across this huge cottontail yesterday while I set up the scarecrows and pumpkins. Its head was cleanly removed and sits under its chest. Big rabbit. But despite the decapitation, it was absolutely intact. What kind of predator does that (other than humans)?

This rabbit was found on the EXACT spot I almost stepped on the fisher cat last winter.

The 30-30 is loaded and ready.

 

            I ended the first day of Halloween Week with the first fire of the season. More will follow.

AUTUMN, HARVEST, STOP, GO, AND CHANGE GEARS

I'm sure my two readers have noticed a dearth of posts. Or not.
Well, this time of year demands different  directions, and sometimes I end up finding that I've crossed my own footprints, often more than once. That doesn't mean I shouldn't be on this track anyway.

It's presently October 12th, and the seasons are changing in that oh-so-New England way that those from other places like to come up here to see. Leaf-peepers, we call them. And though the countryside is simply the most beautiful on Earth, it also a time of scrambling, preparation, and getting things ready for Winter. And this year, all the old timers and farmers are calling for another harsh one, though the orange and black wooly bear caterpillars seem to disagree, including with each other. Their orange stripes, which should predict what kind of winter we are going to have, are wide on one worm and narrow on another, denoting opposite winter conditions. Of course they won't be around to feel it, but I will.

The weather this summer was much cooler and less humid than is normal; we broke ninety less than seven days the entire year and then the rain simply stopped in mid-July, drying up our vernal ponds and causing an early end to our usually fecund autumn tomato crop. Oh, we have them, but we are not bathing in them as is normal. They are greener later and the skins are somewhat tougher. The Weatherheads say that this is the driest summer in Connecticut since 1864.

The Standish House interior has suffered a thick coating of dust that reappears as soon as I remove it. Prolly has to do with the dogs rolling in the dry dirt and bringing it inside. Yark yark.

Lately, however, there has been a small, nearly useless rainfall once a week (still too little), and it usually falls on Saturday. So between the drought and the nuisance showers, I haven't been able to clean up the trash piles (the transfer station is only open on Fridays and Saturdays). It's also been too wet, dry or windy to burn. My brush piles continue to grow. It's also hard to describe how wet the morning air is here in the northeast; the dew is so heavy that nothing can be left outside that can be affected by being wet.

But life on The Standish Farm carries on nonetheless.

 The big maple across the street turns before all the rest around October 1st.

 

 Note the much larger hornets' nest to the right of the tree on the power line. It has grown to the size of a small basketball, and not one bothered anyone. At the time of the picture, the little buggers were busy beginning a new colony. They would soon leave to go underground for the winter, abandoning the nest.

 

 Summer sunsets like this would be no more.

 

 Speckle, Schlogg extraordinaire, will not stay still for a portrait.

 

 Say goodbye to summer thunderstorms.

 

 A pile of 500 year old longleaf pine cutoffs wait to be split into quick-starting kindling and outdoor firewood. Note the long pile of flat wood tot he left, under the tarps. Old white cedar, that. Being thrown away at work, it will be used for future projects. A large cleanup in the woodyard at Early New England Restorations is taken advantage of by their "oldest house" worker. More on what I plan to do with all that wood later.

 

 The only barbecue I get up here comes from my own smokers. Chicken, pork roast, and ribs come from the second use of the new smoker, the only thing I've bought since moving up here. Well, the only thing that wasn't directly used to fix the farm's buildings.

 

 Not a Boston Butt, but a 'chop' type roast. Not as good as a shoulder, either. Note the molasses. Brush with this before dusting with dry rub for a wetter crust that merges sweet and spicy.

 

 Where the temporary outdoor kitchen is now, so there will be a permanent one, hopefully next year. Note the luxurious outdoor recreation area to the left. Even I October I need the fan to keep the dusk mosquitoes at bay. Also note the empty black plastic tub (Speckle's Pool) on the berm. No more swimmin' weather.

 

 The new smoker, still a virgin. The weedeater is getting quite a workout this fall, as I have now seen a full growing season and know what to whack and what to keep.

 

 Some longleaf pine, already split and sitting by the fence near the future firepit.

 

 The bare dirt spot was my original burning pile (the permanent burning pile can barely be seen beyond the trees to the left). It will now be the permanent outdoor fire pit.

 

 More ENER wood scrap, this time hemlock that includes half-round timber cutoffs for fence rails.

 

 Also longleaf pine 1x for the barn siding.

 

 Large flat rocks (very valuable) uncovered in the yard. All schist, much loaded with small garnets. Note the play sand bags; I'm loading up on sand and ice-melt this year, as it disappeared by January last winter. The ladder leads to the machine shed roof, which had a couple of small leaks.

 

 More longleaf pine, this much thicker. It will be used for flooring. More will be added to the pile soon, and the piles will hopefully be moved to the tractor shed before snow falls. The wood is carefully stacked and stickered to allow for air movement, so if it has to stay under tarps for the winter, it's no biggie. My Christmas Tree awaits decorations behind the tarp.

 

 Tractor shed bulging with longleaf pine. The thin stuff in the foreground is 1/4" to 3/8" thick, and will be sanded and used as wainscot. I'd have already converted this building into the main wood storage, but the yellowjackets kept that from happening. I flooded them out a month ago; note the hornet spray can and the long black plastic pipe. I used the latter (over twenty feet long) to flood the building from a far. The YJs were buried deep beneath the white thing below the back of the pile, in the center.

 

 There used to be a window behind the plywood. It is this piece of plywood that was the favorite place for the whitefaced hornets to harvest their cellulose; I had to be very careful anytime I came near it, as one or two were almost always there, happily stripping the graying, desiccated wood fibers for their nest.

 

 The Barn Loft project is on temporary hiatus, housing mostly maple leaves. It will begin again this week.

 

 I was able to clear out the scrap wood from the barn, though a few bags' worth of trash remain. And oh, yes, the furniture. What am I to do with THAT?

 

 I got a load off to the dump one less-than-rainy Saturday ago.

 

 The pile in front of the greenhouse went, too. There is always more (sigh).

 

 The asparagus garden, with one cherry tomato and a mutant cucumber in the middle. Neither offered much in the way of vegetables, but the asparagus is thriving. I'll be lucky if I get a few spears next year, but in two, I should be swimming in it.

 

 The tomato in the herb garden, on the other hand, has been loaded all year. I made good use of the tarragon, rosemary, sage, and thyme this summer (still do). The basil was harvested last week; it was beginning to pale and scrawn out.

 

 The Standish Farm Horseradish Empire, part one.

 

 The SFHE, parts two and three. I started with over twenty plants. Sheesh. These babies will be harvested at first major freeze (it was 32 degrees this morning, but that doesn't count). Any remnant of their roots, even the tiniest, should grow into more spicy roots next year.

 

 Last of the hydrangea.

 

 Hard to believe that this was a spray of peonies. Now the wild phlox and goldenrod are fading. I kept the goldenrod, a weed by most people's reckoning, because it attracts tons of bees. Our bees need all the help they can get, thanks to our overuse of pesticides.

 

 Last of the front garden. Only a bit of a geranium and some small vestige of SkyBlue remain, but they will be back. The wildflowers perty much took over (note the yellow/orange flowers and pale green leaves). Weeding stopped by late July.

 

   My two tropical bonsai starts, ready to be replanted and slowly acclimated to the inside for winter.

 

 First harvest of pears from a windstorm that came through this week. This is a sampling. There will be many more, except for those the dogs eat. Them pups just lubs they pears.

 

 Basil destined for pesto!

 

 First load of split firewood, mostly maple and ash, destined for the woodbin. Gotta get me some kindling!

 

 The ....LARCH. Only the top is green.

Wait a minute. Isn't this where we...

...came in?

 Basil and cherry tomatoes.

 Other things got harvested this week. This is a load of red cedar, boxwood, and a living white cedar to be replanted somewhere in the yard. They came from a property the company is restoring in North Stonington. I am a natural with the chainsaw (besides I have a Stihl with a 20-inch bar), so I got to cut down the trees (as well as make off with what will eventually become carved walking sticks (cedar), Naturamas, and tool handles (boxwood).

 

 One of the 100+ year old boxwoods in the yard. I cut down the shrub to four feet and had the track hoe pull up the rootball. We then replanted it to keep it alive over the weekend and will pull it up again on Monday for transport back to my house. Old boxwoods are very hard to find, and they grow VERY slowly. Trained properly, this one will make a permanent oversized bonsai in the yard. It will not exceed eight feet high (prolly only half of that). Thanks Oswaldo, for giving the pic some perspective!

 

 Hate to have had to move it at all.

 

 This dogwood will produce some very fine (and extremely hard) wood. I have some ideas for it.

 

 The Hornets' Nest, showing less and less activity at the beginning of October.

Note that the tree has lost almost all its leaves in a week's time.

 

 Five days later, after a rainstorm (finally!) Abandoned now, it will disintegrate quickly in the autumn rain.

 

 The forest beginning to turn towards autumn.

 

The cellar bulkhead door also disintegrates. Another project that has to be done before snow....

 

The Standish House awaits the snows. It will get nice autumn cleanup first; I want it ready for spring's re-emergence next year.