We are slowly getting ready for some more fencing projects. This new fence line will run from the corner of the garden to the chicken pen. It will be around 200 feet. Unfortunately, there was a huge pile of limbs that we had saved for firewood which was right in the pathway of where the new fence will go. (There are other obstacles that need to be resolved, so don’t expect the fence to go up tomorrow.) Lee decided to attack the limbs with a bow saw and in just a few hours he had cleaned up the whole mess.

It actually added up to more wood then what I thought it would–almost half a cord. When we finish super insulating the house as we plan, then I foresee the possibility of keeping warm on just a little bit of gathered wood like this.

I really am glad to get rid of that eye sore of a mess. This is our new view where the pile of limbs were. Okay so it’s not super grand yet as we still have a TV out there from the previous tenants. Most the the previous tenant’s stuff is gone, but not all of it yet.

Oh well, I can live with one rotting TV for a little while longer. It sure beats what it used to look like when we bought the place.

Oh yes, I have to add another picture too. It makes me feel better about how far we have come since buying this place. You can see why one little TV is no big thing after all the work we’ve gone through cleaning up.

After we had finished cleaning up our limb mess, Lee started sweeping debris off his tractor and found a vine growing up it. I didn’t realize these vines were growing yet. Lee’s tractor has been parked since he finished moving the chicken coop into the garden about a month ago.

This vine is about five feet tall and very determined that it wanted the tractor as a trellis.

I have no idea what type of plant this wild vining species is. When I saw it growing last spring I didn’t pull it up as it reminded me of a squash plant and I wanted to see if it would grow any sort of fruit. Now granted, when I showed it to my mom her advice was just to pull it up. It never did anything last year, so this year I will just pull them up. That is unless someone tells me otherwise about what an amazing plant this is.

The first of the bleeding hearts are up finally. Now, didn’t I tell you they were the matronly color of purple and not the pretty two-tone ones you can buy in the store? Oh well, I still have a special spot in my heart for them.

Finally, on a wonderful, amazing, spectacular note, Jack, our little one eyed throw-a-way cat is becoming a mouser. We keep finding dead bodies at our back door. We love our little black Jack cat. I hug her all the time much to her dismay. (She secretly loves it!)

I’m still working on the summary of our third forages class, but I wanted to share some (hopefully) good news about Himalayan Blackberries. Anyone who lives in Oregon is probably wondering how there could be good news about this species. For everyone else, here’s a quick summary of our local blackberries:

• Rubus ursinus (Trailing Blackberry) – A native species to western North America. It has thin stems that can grow up to 20 feet. This species has been used in the breeding of several commercial berry crops including marionberry (a blackberry cultivar), and loganberry and boysenberry (raspberry hybrids). I do not have a picture of this variety, as it is has been largely supplanted by the exotics.
• Rubus laciniatus (Evergreen Blackberry) – An exotic invasive blackberry species from Europe. It spreads rapidly, but can be controlled by repeated mowing. I’ve seen this species on our property, but couldn’t find a specimen to photograph today. It’s easily identified by the deeply incised leaves which remain green over the winter.
• Rubus armeniacus (Himalayan Blackberry) – An exotic and extremely invasive blackberry species from Asia. The stems grow up to 30 feet in length in only two years. They are constantly replaced by new growth, with the dead old stems forming a progressively thicker wall of thorns. Himalayan Blackberries are resistant to many pesticides and occasionally swallow up tractors (those that have been parked for too many years). A 10 foot wall of blackberries looks like this:

Where’s the good news?

Well, in 2005 blackberry rust was discovered in Oregon. This is a fungal disease which is has been used in other countries to control invasive varieties of blackberry. The disease creates bright yellow spots on the bottom of the leaves, which eventually bloom into shades of orange and red. The leaves turn brown and die, and many of the plants are killed or severely weakened. (You can find pictures here.) The state had been investigating this fungus as a biological control well before it was discovered here, but they were being understandably cautious given how many other imported “problem solvers” tend to go awry. In this case, the disease seems to only affect the exotic blackberry varieties and the cultivated “thornless” blackberry.

We heard about the rust in the forages class (the instructor was apparently briefly accused of importing it), and the response from almost everyone was “Where can I get some?” It’s really only a matter of time, as most western counties in Oregon now report cases of the rust, and the spores are carried on the wind. As with any biological control, you have to wonder if there will be unintended consequences, but so far it seems like a great measure to restore balance to many native habitats. More details are available here and here.

It must have stopped raining enough here in Oregon to send all the flowers into spring fever. Okay not really, but according to beekeepers at February’s Lane County Beekeepers Association meeting they all seemed to think spring was hitting really early here.

Our Camellia bush is very much in bloom. Its not as pretty as the Camellia bush we gave to our neighbors down the street. That one was in front of the house and needed to go. It didn’t die in the summer transplant and is also blooming for them.

We have lots of violets coming up. This first one was given to me by my Aunt last summer. I then tried my best to kill it by leaving it on the porch for three months without water. Well, it survived my best attempts. I’m also assuming it is a violet because unfortunately I already forgot what she told me it was. I will have to ask her the next time she is out and then write it down. I have a VERY bad memory.

I am also assuming that these are violets. Why, I don’t know. Some are purple, some white, and some yellow. Maybe I shouldn’t be saying this as I will be shortly proved wrong. These ones grow wild all over our property.

The Dandelions have been out for a while. Lee wants to eat some of their leaves in salad but we haven’t yet. It has something to do with not being sure where the dogs have peed last.

The Magnolia tree is not going to bloom as splendidly as it did last year. Lots of it’s flower buds came out and then we had a cold snap come through with freezing nights. Many of the buds have brown centers now. I was disappointed as I was looking forward to another amazing bouquet of white. Ah, well, such is life.

The Flowering Quince is out in bloom. Ours is a rather sprangly plant that is in the middle of a Lilac bush. Not much to speak of really, but it is pretty.

The wild Bleeding Hearts are coming up in full force. They haven’t bloomed yet but I love seeing them come up. They remind me of my childhood. They grow wild up at my parents house still. These will not be the fancy Bleeding Hearts that you can buy in the store that are two colors. These will be a matronly color of purple when they bloom.

Oh dear, here is another bush that I was told the name of and already forgot. I am going to ask one of my neighbors again and then write it down. Several of my neighbors have this exact bush in their yards. This one is a less then stunning example as it has a huge blackberry bramble growing through it along with lots of dead looking branches. I am going to whack on it some and see if it helps it’s general appearance. If not it’s no huge loss as I don’t really like where it is located. If I can manage to make it come out in it’s full glory next year then it can stay. Maybe…

For over a month now, there’s been a lonely voice calling out to us in the early evening. Sometimes a week will go by and I’ll think it has left, but then I’ll hear it again as I step out for firewood: “Who’s awake? Me … Too …” Yes, I’m awake, and I’m talking about a Great Horned Owl.

When I first heard the sound, it triggered a memory from a camping trip as a kid. One night at an Indiana state park, we joined up with a dozen people tromping around in the woods on a Ranger-led owl calling hike. Assorted poorly rendered owl calls broke the silence–futile attempts to lure in one of the puzzled birds. I don’t think we heard any actual owls on that occasion, but the call mnemonic is permanently engraved in my synapses.

Great Horned Owls range across all of the Americas, from the beech-maple forests of my midwest childhood, to the towering stands of conifers outside our window, and from Alaska to the Straits of Magellan. There’s probably one sitting in a tree near you right now.

The weather here has been a bit wild. First it’s warm and sunny and then it turns cold. Add onto that we have had a lot of rain. Two days this week we have seen almost an inch a day. I think Fall can’t decide what it wants to do. Something about the weather this year has made a huge crop of mushrooms sprout up all over the property.

In the first picture the mushrooms are huge. They are a little smaller than a dinner plate. Then in the second picture a puff ball looking mushroom grew up next to the dinner sized plate ones.

The first picture here reminds me of the coloring in some snails. The second picture I thought was neat. One big parent mushroom and little baby mushrooms gathered all around.

When I look at this first picture I see a floating sting ray. Lee said he thought it looked like a jelly fish. The next picture looks like a sea shell to me. Like a Sand Dollar.

There were quite a few of these little yellow headed ones. My camera decided that it was going to pretend that it couldn’t take the color yellow. The second picture reminds me of a snail shell again.

I loved this little mushroom. It reminded me of summer and blowing dandelion seeds.

Of course I had Jack and Jasper following me around while I was trying to take pictures. Jack is getting much bigger. Her eye we think is also getting a little better. I feed her some Lysine mixed in with soft food. Lysine is supposed to help herpes infections and is what we used with Jasper and his herpes eyes.

Our holly tree is in full berry bloom. I like how many birds it attracts but I hate all the spiny leaves that it sheds. Too bad I couldn’t use it’s berries for something useful. I could make a berry jam that would cause extreme diarrhea but I suppose but that doesn’t sound fun. With the weather being so wet we haven’t got a good fall color in the leaves this fall. The rain and wind knocked them off early along with stunting the glorious color. Last year the leaves on the ground were awesome color. This year not so much…

We have this tree that Lee and I had been scratching our heads over. Actually we didn’t know that the tree was alive. I had been telling Lee that I needed to clear out this dead brush by our house. Then all of a sudden the dead brush leafed out. I looked at it and told Lee to come over quick and look at the leaves. To me they looked like marijuana leaves but not quite right. So we would go around joking about our unknown marijuana tree after that.

Lee tells me to look at the tree again one day. It had bloomed out in flowers. Here is what a close up of one looks like.

A few nights ago Lee was reading one of his blogs he keeps track of. There was mention of this tree that has leaves somewhat reminiscent of marijuana. That is the story of how we found out we had a Chaste tree. We are actually quite excited about having one on our property as the tree has a lot of herbal medicinal uses. For example, it can be used as a relief for symptoms of PMS or menopause.

The tree is rather tall. Here is our view from from the second story window of our house.

We have a lot of fungi that pops up here and there. I think I need to get a book so I can start identifying whether I have psychedelic mushrooms, drop you dead mushrooms, or just plain delicious mushrooms.

Lee said he heard something thumping on the window that sounded like a small bird. When he checked outside with a flashlight there was this enormous bug on the window sill trying to get in. It had wings also, but they are closed up in this picture. I wonder what it was.

When we bought this house my parents walked around and my dad said “Oh you have some sneeze weed.” My dad also referred to it as Arrowwood. The bush has been blooming for a really long time. Well I finally got around to taking some pictures of it. I wanted to make sure it was really called Arrowwood before I posted. All the pictures I found online weren’t quite right as the blooms were wrong. Finally I found someone who had a picture of it. They referred to it being called Arrowwood sometimes but gave a Latin name. After looking up the Latin name I was then bombarded with the bush that I was looking for. It seems as if this bush is more commonly known as Cream Bush or Ocean Spray.

I think it’s really pretty and am impressed with how long it has been blooming. It almost reminds me of a bridal tree in that I could see someone getting married under it. I haven’t noticed being affected by the pollen so maybe Lee and I won’t have to call it “sneeze weed” like my dad.