4/12/04
It’s been a quiet weekend – no big events or projects.  It’s been cold – it was supposed to rain all weekend, but other than a few scattered snowflakes, there’s been no precipitation at all.  It cleared up each night and then clouded up by about noon each day.

I cut and Tordoned some honeysuckle yesterday up on the edge of Indian Grass Prairie – a never-ending task; and caulked a crack between the main ceiling beam and the ceiling in the upstairs room – a nice job because I finished it, and feel like I really accomplished something.  (I needed to caulk it because it kept dropping little pieces of insulation down the stairs.)

Last night I decided it was time to see if I could call in some owls.  I got out the tape, and stood on the deck and played it to the valley.  I got 2 screech owls to call back – one from each side of the valley.  I think they both answered me, and then realized that they needed to call to each other because they kept calling back and forth for a long time.  While I was standing there, listening to the owls, I heard a rustle in the bushes, and when I shone the flashlight on it, it was an opossum coming to check out the seeds under the bird feeders.  A little later I heard another rustle, and it was another opossum – they both had a fine time eating birdseed.  They moved like our cats do when they want me to think they’re not really there – “this really isn’t me – you don’t have to pay attention” – low to the ground, and very stealthy – but they came in for the birdseed even with the flashlight on them.

Today we pulled out some fence posts – the ones guarding the Cat’s Paw Prairie, and the ones along the edge of the Knife Edge Prairie.  We took the tractor, wound a chain around the post, looped it to the bucket, raised the bucket, and the post came right out.  It’s great to have something work so easily the first time.  Now we have to set them up the guard the Narrows Prairie, and maybe put up a line of bluebird houses at the edge of the CRP field to mark our property line.  And we have to figure out where next year’s planting will be so Clif knows where he can plant.  He’s going to plant corn, so we’ll have to hold out the piece we’re going to plant this fall.  Maybe we can get him to spray it with Roundup for us.

There’s a big tree down across the Cabin Road – we’ll have to get the chain saw for that one.