We worked on all our projects this weekend. I finished my staking, so I’m ready to plant, and Mike mowed one last place, and took the mower off for the winter.
I finally finished staking the new field – there are either 48 or 49 divisions – depending on how you count. I think I’ll divide the seeds into 50 piles, and have one extra to use if I run out somewhere. 50 is a lot to divide, but I think it will be nice to have smaller areas – rather than having the divisions as large as an acre. And I’ll be able to plant more of them each time, so psychologically it will feel good – like I’m making progress.

Here’s a better picture of the field with stakes.

I think we’ll call the new prairie Buffalo Ridge Prairie – because it has the highest point on our land, and we can almost see into the Buffalo River valley from the top. We can really see into it from the Narrows Prairie, but that already has a good name.

Mike mowed as much as he could on the second point in 3 Finger Valley. We’ve decided to call it Fallen Oak Point, because there is a huge old oak, which has fallen across the ridge, and he couldn’t mow past it. We could cut it and move it, but it’s such a nice old tree that we may just leave it. There are so many trees in the woods that all he could mow was a wide path – but at least we can get in there now. We’ll girdle the aspen in the spring, and then try widening the path gradually. There’s a very sandy area that I think we’ll have to clear by hand, but at least we’ll be able to make piles of the brush and carry it out with the bucket.

Here’s a picture of part of the mowed path.

No unusual birds this week, but there are dozens of goldfinches.

Mike bought wood to build a chest of drawers this week, and we delivered it to the shop – it will be a good snowy weather project.

We saw a white deer in the woods across from Dave Tork’s place – it was deep in the woods, but very easy to see among the brown trees and against the brown hill.