The Great Blackberry Project.

I'm warning you now, that you are probably going to find this post kind of boring.  At some point last Fall, I decided I was going to tackle the blackberries, which have been growing and spreading for years.  We do cut them back, and Larry tries to mow along them at times, but we never get rid of them, and they are just spreading along more and more fence lines.   I would justify their existence by saying that they give us some income with the fresh berries and the jam made from the those berries that I sell.  But we have waaaaaaay more blackberries than I would ever want to pick.  (Larry has mostly retired from blackberry picking).  

People say how wonderful it is to have our own blackberries.  I joke back that if we left them untouched for 5 years, we'd have 10 acres of nothing but blackberries.  They are very invasive.  Every year they send up new canes.  The canes from the previous year bear fruit and then die.  The three year old canes are dead but still there, and form a support for the new canes.  Those canes can grow to 30' long and more, with side branches nearly as long.  Then when the tip of that cane arches down and touches the ground, it starts to grow roots, and forms a whole new plant up to 10' out from the original root.  Every year when we are picking the fruit on the canes from the previous year, we have to cut back the new canes that are overhanging and covering up the fruit.  But still somehow those rows get wider and wider.

Larry mowed along the face of this row with the tractor.  See that scraggly naked tree (Hawthorn) on the very right.

Here we are looking down the row from the end,  with that Hawthorn at the front.  The weight of all the canes have pulled the tree over.  The row is about 10' wide here, and about as high. 

 

I've already cut back the first 20'. Note the closest fence post.

I was lucky that when David was visiting at Christmas, he took an interest and cleared about 40' for me.

Nice to be able to hand the work over to someone younger for a while.  You can see that same Hawthorn tree in all the pictures.

Larry came and raked some of the cuttings away from the fence for a while.

That section is all done.  Looking from the west end

And looking west from the east end.  That poor Hawthorn is going to stay.  I'll be glad of the bit of shade that it will throw when I'm working in that garden.

Some of those canes are monsters.  And those thorns..... I had a cane swing down from over head.  It barely hit me, but one of those thorns poked into the vein on my right temple, and I ended up with a black eye.

Tucker, David's dog, had a good time hunting for voles.

Do you think he knows how dirty he is?

Time for a rinse off!

The tools of my trade.  Loppers,  as well as some lovely light Fiskars hedge trimmers gifted to us when two of our customers moved, and some heavy duty leather mitts of Larry's.  At first I was using some of my gardening gloves, but was constantly having to dig the tips of thorns out of my hands.  The mitts are large and clumsy,  but perfect for grabbing those thorny canes and not feeling a thing.  I also added a pair of protective goggles.

This photo below is about 18 years old.  David on his bike (where the heck was his helmet?)  Our riding ring is in the background.  I think by this time I had stopped showing horses, and had started into the dog agility, so I used to have some of that equipment set up in it.  Oh, but Meredith was in horse 4H, so I guess she used it for riding occasionally.  Anyway, that ring is 150' x 70'. It used to be 200' long, and came to the fence post at the bottom/front of the picture.  The hogfuel (chunks of cedar bark) that was the footing in the riding ring had all rotted, so we cleared it out, made the ring smaller, and added sand for the footing.  David is riding on the pile of rotted hogfuel, which eventually became some of the base for the garden there, and is pretty well in the spot where the scaffolding tomato support is now.   And that fence post is the one that I asked you to take note of earlier😉 The Hawthorn tree is out of the picture to the left down that fence line.

The wood rail fence in the old photo is the west end of the ring, which is a big rectangle with a gate at each end.  Notice that all the wood rail fences are clear of blackberries.  When I started the blackberry project, 380' of the wood fence was covered in blackberries, with only 30' and the two gateways being clear.

Here I've cleared that west fence line

And uncovered the old hay rake that was buried in the corner.

Lawn ornament anyone?

A look down that west fence from the north end.  You can just see the corner of the tomato support on the right.

And here is a look at the north fence line of the riding ring, from the field side.  Larry can try mow some of it back with the tractor, but I'm not tackling that.

  

   I've worked on this job in all sorts of weather, but this sunny day was stunning with the big dramatic clouds in the sky.  

Here's another boring picture when I finished the inside of the south riding ring fence.

And this is where I'm at now.  The south riding ring fence is all clear,  the hayfield fence on the right is cleared on the outside, and just a little bit to remove from the inside of this fence line.  Of course in the background going off to the right, the east fence of the hayfield is a mass of blackberries, as well as the back hayfield in the distance.  This laneway below was a solid mass of blackberries, you could not see anything of the back field.  The cattle didn't even push through it last summer.  It's nice to be able to see a little bit of the back field again from the house.  My goal is to finish off the fence line on the right, and then to clear off the far end of the riding ring in front of the shed.  That will be it for now.  I've made more work though, as now there are fences that need repairing.  Blackberries make good fences, but they just keep getting bigger and wider and messier.

To bring it into perspective, here's a map of our property.  Approx 330 ft wide by 1320 long.  The green squiggles are the fence lines I (and David) have cleared.  Doesn't look like much does it?  The red is blackberries basically untouched.  The aim would be to bring them all under control, and push them back closer to the property line. We shall see.  This year the plan is to keep mowing off the new shoots that will come up where I cut them back.  That's Larry's job.  

It may involve some nagging.😏

People ask my what I'm going to do with all my spare time now that I'm semi retiring.

I just laugh😆

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Today

I have another blog post I've been struggling to finish.  One of these days I hope it will be done, but really now it just seems like old news.

Anyway, after monsoon rains we morphed into winter.  It's been a cold week, wind chills of -20 at times.  We are situated such that we are wide open to the east, so when those arctic outflow winds come roaring across the Fraser Valley, we get hit pretty hard.  It was such a relief yesterday when they had ended.  We had some fresh snow yesterday, a bit of sunshine, more snow overnight, and then woke up to this, as seen from the bedroom window.  Blue sky!!

The sun coming up in the southeast.  One of the hummingbird feeders.  I like to leave it out overnight if possible, so that I don't have to get up early.  Although I did exactly that two mornings, as I had brought it in because I wasn't sure that it wouldn't freeze.  We have at least a couple of hummingbirds around.

So pretty this morning.  I'm standing by the south chicken coop

 There's not a lot of protected out door space for them, although they can also go under the coop.

Up until today I'd had a windbreak set up along this east facing side.  All the way along from their little chicken door so they were protected as they made their way to their little leanto on the south side.  I had that all protected too so that they could stay out of the wind.  I took it all down this morning as it wasn't needed, and I wanted them to be able to feel that sunshine.  The ones by the door are pecking at a dish of cooked squash innards and skins.  A little lure to get them to come out.

That's the rest of their field on the left, it extends to those farthest evergreens.  No hens would be tromping down there today.

Larry was taking care of the hens at the north coop, along with Ramona the old sheep.  Back in for breakfast and then the morning dog walk around the property.

Our bush/woodlot is reaching the end of it's life.  Lots of dead and dying trees, well the alders at least, and a few of them have come down lately.  I joked that they are so soaked with water and therefore heavy, and they just can't hold themselves up any longer.

Looking across the back hayfield.  That's yesterday's and last night's new snow on that fence rail.  At least that snow came straight down instead of creating drifts and bare spots.

Yesterday's snowed over snow angel!

I was worried about the rhubarb that was starting to show.  I think it's pretty safe under it's two foot drift.

Today's snow angel.  She has a pin head, lol.  Yesterday I had tried to find a drift deep enough that I could hold myself stiff and just fall back into it.  Couldn't do it, my sense of self preservation just wouldn't let me.  

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Christmas Day at the Brandson's

It was a pretty low key Christmas in our household this year.  Just the four of us.  David made a rather treacherous drive from Edmonton, dividing it over late afternoon and evening of the first day, and all the daylight hours of the second.  The second day was bad, blizzards, stuck for an hour and a half at the summit of the highway, waiting for the road to be plowed and the semi drivers to get the chains on their trucks, which were blocking the road.  It was such a relief when he finally arrived at dusk on the Friday before Christmas.  

Christmas morning I was the first one up and wandered around turning on Christmas lights and snapping a few pictures.

The outside animals are all taken care of first, and then the dogs are fed, and then us.  We had some leftover chicken/bacon/sweet potato/onion/egg patties left over from supper the night before, and they made a nice brunch meal.

A few years ago we said we didn't want any more gifts.  We do fun little stocking stuffers, and of course there are random things I find at the thrift stores for a dollar or two that I think *may* be useful.

In the afternoon we took the dogs for a walk down on the dyke.  I thought that would be a good place to do our annual Christmas photo, and Larry insisted on taking the tripod, which in retrospect was a good idea.  ( I was coming up with ways we could manage without it).  By the time we got there the light was already fading.  Everyone else and their dog seemed to be there, so it took us a bit to get along to the swimming hole.  

These were the only three posed pictures taken, so I'm pretty happy they came out as good as they did.

Jake had had enough by this point.

Tucker even had an actual swim!

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas, full of love and laughter, with family and friends.

Big Holes

Now that we are finished with the farmer's market for six months, we can get a few jobs done that have been waiting in the wings to be finished.  Because we are rural, we have a septic tank.  That said, we are on 'city' water though, so no well and pump to have to worry about.  When we bought this place in 1986, (wow, that's a long time ago), a new septic field was being installed.  We were good at getting the tank pumped out for the first while, and then it kind of got forgotten about.  I pushed Larry to dig the lid clear so we could get it pumped out this summer.  We did add to the height of the lawn in this area when we added on to the house.   

Anyway, Larry had a pretty good idea where it was, and did manage to hit concrete without digging a lot of useless holes.  I was shocked though, at how deep it now was, and how big the lid was, and how faulty my memory of it all was. I thought the top of the tank was much closer to the surface, an the lid much smaller!  The hole was about 20 inches deep and 30 inches square.  That was a lot of dirt to dig out, as seen by the three wheelbarrows full.  And then the job came to a halt.  We are both very good at letting things slide, and just ignoring the 'elephant' on the lawn, so to speak.  I think I finally nagged again and the tank was pumped out.  The Pumper Guy, yep that was what the company was called, told Larry that we could get a riser and lid to save ourselves all the digging the next time.  We decided to do it ourselves to save a few dollars, and the 'elephant' was there even longer.  Finally, yesterday, after much discussion over the size of the riser, exchanging the one Larry had first bought, overthinking the whole job, etc etc, we heaved the heavy concrete lid off for the last time, and installed the riser.  

So much fun, working over an open, full septic tank.  Yuk.  The base was sealed to the concrete around the hole, the first riser was screwed to the base, the second riser screwed to the first, and the lid screwed on top.  Happy to say that no tools or screws were dropped into the septic tank.  That was a miracle in itself.   At this point the hole still has to be partially filled in.  Of course not all the dirt in the wheelbarrows will be used.  I think the tires on two are flat, so we will have to bring the little compresser around to blow them up to move the heavy wheelbarrows, that are now filled up with rainwater.  The lawnmower may have to be brought out to cut the grass that had grown up under the wheelbarrows.  The lid will be pretty well level with the lawn, maybe a bit lower on one side.  In a few years it will be much easier to get the tank pumped again.

It was a relief to get out up to ground level and straighten up.  And I looked up, and wow, the sky was so cool looking.

It was already getting to that feeling that dusk was coming, so we got the dogs into the car and headed down to the dyke.  It was a beautiful evening with partially clear skies.  Down at the bottom of the hill I noticed these clouds, although I didn't take the picture until we had gone a mile and a half west to the dyke.  These are called Fallstreak Holes.  Here's an explanation.

The nearly full moon was rising to the east

I love taking pictures of sky and clouds.  It wasn't as dark as it seems, it was just the camera adjusting to the sky and making the trees appear dark.  Looking south.

Looking east southeast. Mt. Baker is just visible above the tree tops in the right quarter.

The holes are falling apart, but another one is starting to form.

Looking southwest.  I love reflections too!

South

Lovely sunset

Ground fog rolling in.  Time to head home, shower the funky septic smell away, and get ready for square dancing.

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