Treenut's Forest Notes for 2019 -- in progress

Building up around house foundation.

Back fill around foundation.

I hauled many many loader buckets of fill dirt from the barnyard. A couple truckloads of fill dirt had been dumped there a few years ago by a contractor in the family and now it's coming in handy.

Much of this had been washed away by the run-off from the eves. Need to install rain gutters.

Replace fallen soffit boards

Set up 'scaffold'

I used the tractor bucket to anchor the ladders on the roof.

Work under eaves on dormer

Over the years many of the boards had fallen out of the soffits. These are long beadboard pieces and they all survived the fall intact. I have been collecting and storing these.

A year ago I talked to a local carpenter about contracting to replace these boards. I wasn't very keen on working three stories up under eaves. We agreed that he would begin that fall when he had some time. He never showed (I guess he wasn't keen on the idea either.)

So I got out my ladders and gritted my teeth and did the job myself.

Not a fun job but now it's done.

Distributing walnut seeds

A bucket of nuts

Nut Dump location

It was a pretty good year for walnuts. I picked up two bucket loads from the yard and dumped them in the woods. Hopefully the squirrels will find them and spread them around -- plant them -- and forget where they put a few of them.

Here is the GPS location where I dumped this bucket load. It is in a clearing on the north west corner of the farm where I have yet to plant anything - for no particular reason.

Ginko

I was riding bike through Madison last summer and some Ginko leaves caught my attention, for some reason, and the thought started brewing in my mind; "Why haven't we planted any of these at the farm"? I have a degree in Botany so I am very familiar with the life and lore of this ancient species. It certainly should be hardy for north-western Wisconsin. So I decided to start pondering this project.

Summer progressed and I didn't think much about it until one of our monthly plant pathology department retiree coffee. For some reason I brought this up and my friend Paul said he had a bunch of Ginko seedlings in his yard. He pulls them up like weeds. It seems one of the Ginko he planted in his yard turned out to be a female -- a seed producer -- even though the nursery assured him it was a male. (Most people avoid female Ginko because the seeds stink.)

I was planning a trip to the farm to pack it up for the winter so he gathered a dozen seedlings from his yard and I took them along.

Filling in for failed Oak

Last year I planted a number of Oak seedlings, from my back yard nursery, and set up wire cages around them to protect from deer. Some of these didn't survive the process so I replaced the Oak with the Ginko.

Planting Ginko

I don't know if deer like Ginko so I will cage them just in case.

Should I also put screens around them to keep out the mice?