Beavers, Over Grown Garden Plot & Worms

I wanted to grow some worms so I found a guy to buy them from (The Worm Pin - you know instead of a King Pin). Yes, that's exactly what his business card said. Anyway, I bought them from him & he was very passionate about worms. I had read up on what to do & the instructions were basically all the same but not very detailed. I had some old 18 quart bins that I used. It just wasn't working very well. I have two of these bins with proper holes drilled but the worms just didn't do very well in them (yes, I had covers on them at the time). They didn't completely die but they weren't frolicking either.

Enter in a new friend! I gave her a few plants since hers had died. She saw my pitiful setup & took pity on me. She built me a worm hotel just like hers. It's the same basic principal but much more compact. when I get ready to add another layer (I want 3 processing bins) I'll take pictures. Keep your fingers crossed these do better.

We went to the Country House this past weekend. The grass & weeds are definitely growing. These pictures show three weeks worth of sun & rain.

This bed is the one we just covered w/paper then added leaves, poo & straw/hay. I thought the paper was to prevent the weed from coming up! Once I was down on my hands & knees inspecting these weeds I realized that most of this was oats sprouting from the poo that I had put down. I didn't have time to compost it before adding it so I'll just have to tackle removing it until it's broken down into compost. There was also some bermuda (boo!), & other weeds that birds had obviously 'dropped'. I was expecting the birds leftovers but was surprised about the horse poo. What I added to my compost bins broke down quickly & beautifully. Oh well, live & learn, no harm no foal(sp?).

As I may have mentioned before, this property was last used as farmland. That patch of trees in the above picture are the only trees ON property. There are several along the fence line but none on property. We need shade in some form so we have slowly been buying trees to eventually give us shade at various points. One place we wanted some shade was down by the pond. I have always loved weeping willow tress so we decided to put 3 down there. We bought more mature tress (aka more $$) so they would have a jump start on the shade thing.

Earlier in the week I get a call from my Dad (he was up there for about a week) that one of the willow tress was 'down'.

This is what it looked like last year (it had been in the ground for 2 months & doing great).

This is what it looked like when we arrived.

I propped it back up. The stupid beaver that decided to 'chop' it down didn't realize that it was attached with wires to stakes to keep it somewhat straight in the wind & he couldn't carry it off. He picked what he could off of the left side of the tree, while on the ground.

Here's his handy work. A lost cause ($$ down the drain).

Oh well, my Dad placed blocks around the other 2 & hopefully they won't try to get them as well.

Plus, Greg & a couple of cousins went out around dusk & displaced at least one of them.

We think there is at least one more & an otter & a gator in the pond. We have to have spend more time up there! Plus, we have at least a hundred turtles that have moved in. Not to mention the 6 or 8 rabbits up by the house.

We have a wild kingdom around there!

The driveway is moving along slowly but you can almost drive the whole way. We'll need to add a top layer of gravel or something to keep it from washing away with the next storm. More on that later.