Musings from the miscellaneous file
It's springtime and there's just a lot going on. Have you made the most of it?
Springtime: A period marked by unpredictable weather and loaded with necessary chores and more opportunities to do things outdoors than you can possibly find time to enjoy.
Turkey hunting, the white bass, and paddlefish runs, crappie and bass moving to the banks, mushroom hunting, snake hunting, photographing the bird migration, an ideal window for habitat management and planting native plants and seeds, clean-up before green-up, and death and taxes, these are the things that have been on my mind of late.
Summer approaches, the grass is high and the ticks are thick, turkey season closes this week, and the real heat of summer humidity is starting in Eastern Oklahoma, while out West the drought continues to oppress.
Change is in the air, and it’s time for some updates of past columns. A little mental spring clean-up.
Death and turkeys
I am responsible for the death of our beloved old dented but reliable 2000 Honda Odyssey. At least, I was the last one to drive it. (told my wife I tried to race a guy with a 2010 Odyssey for pinks and that was the final blow) The deep green was sun-scorched in places, and it wore battle scars, but at nearly 300,000 miles, it still was reliable.
It was the van DeAnna, and our daughters drove here from Fairbanks, Alaska in 2008 while I stayed to wrap up my time at the newspaper there. In the sound system, a CD our oldest daughter burned for my wife when she was in high school. A folded map of Edmonton, Alberta, they read in a panic as they navigated through the Stanley Cup traffic.
When the transmission failed, it was just too far out-of-date and, if the parts could be found, a big if, the repair would be ten times what the car was worth. My wife, DeAnna, and I are not a good one-car family. I’m always late. She’s always early.
But with the new-to-us Buick Encore in her hands, she went shopping and I prepared for what would probably be my only chance to hunt turkeys this spring. Camo was piled, the shotgun was oiled, a diaphragm call tickled the back of my palette and the house filled with clucks and putts and purrs—and my phone buzzed.
She was stranded. Dead battery. I followed her to the next store to make sure the battery was taking charge. It wasn’t. My good buddy offered to turn around and get me so I could swap vehicles with my wife but that wasn’t really an option. The new car was kaput on her first weekend and the stress continued. We mourned together.
On Monday the dealership replaced the looked-like-new battery for free. I never did make it out to the turkey woods.
Tickle my soles
Back in March, I announced I was working with NeuroGen Medical on the neuropathy in my feet. Progress is happening!
To touch on the issues briefly, I was losing the feeling in my feet and in recent years it had progressed from my toes to include most parts of both feet. A traditional doctor said there was nothing I could do about it and it likely would get worse as I aged. NeuroGen said if I did something now I could likely regain most of those lost nerves and that if I did nothing, indeed, it likely would progress.
It’s pretty amazing, really. I had my doubts. Treatments to my feet that I couldn’t feel a month ago I now endure as the early stages tickle—a lot—right down to my toes. It takes time with nearly two hours of home treatments every day. Thirty minutes on both feet morning and night, plus 20 more on each foot at least once a day.
Part of this treatment includes a new diet, which started 30 days ago today. I won’t bore you with the “leaky gut” mumbo jumbo. Google it up. It’s interesting. I’m a skeptic, but it seems harmless to give it a shot.
It’s not a hard one to follow, whole foods and lean meats. It even includes a recipe with chicken thighs fried and then baked with veggies—with the skin on. The crispy chicken I can handle.
There are a lot of “no-no” foods. Much of it is processed junk none of us should eat anyway, but I do miss coffee and refined sugars. I really, really miss my coffee, but the days coming off of it reminded me just how hooked I’d become. Oy! Those headaches.
I’m eating better foods and trying to keep to regular meals at regular times most days. I’m not doing worth a flip at keeping the food journal they want me to keep, but I’m checking the checkmarks on the important stuff. In thirty days I’ve lost 25 pounds.
I’m reminded at the clinic, “We do not do this as a diet plan, but a lot of clients naturally lose weight with the diet change.”
Obviously, I had weight to lose but what really tickles me is my feet.
White bass, crappies, and the pond
I missed the white bass run, I didn’t make it out to fish for crappies, and the invite to hit that great early-spring pond fell through. I had openings that closed, the weather failed to cooperate when I needed it to cooperate, and other things came up at inopportune times.
Yeah, folks, it can even happen to people who supposedly make a living doing this stuff. I haven’t held a fishing rod in my hand since January.
I need to remedy that situation, and fast!
Stratification satisfaction
Back in January, I wrote about my milk-jug seeds and others headed to the refrigerator for stratification.
I’m about four weeks late for taking those seeds out of the fridge, but folks tell me not to worry. Fall planting of perennials is as good as spring, if they sprout I can just care for them in pots over the summer and put them in the ground in September—no worries.
Well, no worries, except a month of not finding the time to sew seeds puts me an entire growing season behind where I planned to be. Still, native plants are perennial and somewhat forgiving, hooray for that.
And yes! The seeds put in milk jugs in late January did come up and those seedlings are potted and maturing to be planted in the ground in a few weeks.
Traditionally, those jugs should be set out around the winter solstice, or at least before the first week of January. I was three weeks past the recommended latest time, but the cold of February, March, and early April likely helped.
I had a few new seedlings popping up just last week. Everything was last this year.
The only failure was a jug with butterfly weed seeds collected from my front yard, but I had suspicions about those puny pods, to begin with. Gophers exacted a tool on my milkweed last season and those few remaining plants were a bit spindly so the seeds likely were not viable to begin with.
I’m saving more jugs for next year.
Cleanup on Snake Creek
Remember Aisle No. 1, the solarization project at Snake Creek? Well, it’s not looking great just yet. It looks like a bare scar in the pasture right now.
I envisioned a “look at what’s happening here!” and got a “whoa, what happened here?'“
On the bright side, there is no Sericea lespedeza left on Aisle No. 1, but none appears to be growing outside the aisle either, at least not that I’ve identified yet. The native flower seed mix I dropped there did not fare as well as the seeds I started in the milk jugs at home a week later.
The seeds in the jugs were kept moist. It was pretty dry out there at the creek this spring. The experiment continues. I’ll keep an eye on it. I’m taking photos monthly and recording what’s growing. In the meantime, I’ve learned more about solarization strategies to prepare for fall plantings. Fall, not January.
The seeds spread in January remain, however, and could sprout next spring instead. It’s hard to know. We will see what happens.
The most satisfying chore at snake creek has been the removal of, or at least the collection of, nearly 90 tires that were in a pile at one end of the property. Small trees and grape vines grew up through them. They were stuffed with stinking detritus and stagnant water.
With the landowner’s new Kawasaki Mule in service, I reasoned that, once I used a chainsaw to clear the way, I had no excuse not to haul at least a few tires to the top of the hill every time I passed by.
As I got busy hunting for the wild boars that rip up the grounds, I had my utility sled connected to the Mule also. On a couple of loads, I managed to get six in the sled and 18 in the back of the Mule.
The tires are gone, and some roofing material and piles of old rusting baling wire are gone. There is no trace of that old eyesore and the tires will be hauled away for recycling. That one felt good, feels good every time I go down the path and make that curve where it used to be. Ninety tires! We all knew it was a pile, but none of us would have guessed there were that many.
The Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality has a program, contact your local tire shop or check with the DEQ about the disposal of old tires.
The old Coal Boar is gone, too, and chopped up in my freezer ready for the grinder—except for the tenderloins, backstraps, and hocks. His twin has refused to become a regular on the bait so far. Before the weather gets too hot, I may be in for another all-night to get rid of this one, too.
The projects at Snake Creek never end, but there is so much to learn from them. Time there is almost as good as time fishing, sweatier and more tick-infested, but almost as good.
Good stuff Kelly-- I have only been fishing once this year thanks to getting a new puppy-- female Boarder Collie-- that throws up when we take her on a longer car ride, i.e., when we go to Spring Creek. Will this pass? Any suggestions? On my one trip, I caught a 2.5 lb. largemouth on a large plastic worm, so there is hope for a good season. Take care.
Nice musings. Had the feel of coffee at a local cafe or what I call “road chatter”. Two vehicles pass, back up in the county road and catch up. Make sure you have a good, honest tire recycler. We keep trying to catch a guy who dumps tires for a tire shop over the state line.