Week of 9/29/24

With the weather cooling down this week I did some work in the maple woods. Some taps had broken off and there were a lot of broken limbs down on the sap lines. It took me a couple of days with the chain saw to get that stuff all cleared off the lines, before the weather gets bad. We have to be ready to go next spring when we tap the trees.

I got another job done I have been wanting to get done for years. That was when Ted had built a new fence, and he had straightened it out, as the old fence had fallen on the line of the contour strips. so there was about 1/10 of an area that was a big pile of dirt with an old 3 bottom plow buried in it. I was always planning on leveling it out with the little John Deere bulldozer. However, it never is around when I get the time. So, I put the manure fork on the skid steer, which worked really well to dig into the hill of dirt and level it out. I was surprised about how mellow and loose the dirt was.

After getting that job done, I went about watering the new ginseng beds. I had planted these a few weeks ago but it hasn’t rained since then and the top soil is getting very dry. If ginseng seed dries out it dies. With this sunny and dry weather everything is really finishing off in a hurry. The soybeans are about all harvested in this area, with an average yield. The corn is drying down fast with some of the farmers down in the sand harvesting it and it is dry enough they can put it right in the bin without drying it first. That will save them some money with these low corn prices. Also, the price of corn has raised about 50 cents from a month ago, another big help.

The maple trees are putting on color now, but not very much to no bright red or orange leaves, but rather dull yellow and orange. Some of the walnut have already lost their leaves and nuts. I have picked up a dozen 5 gallon buckets of them and Ruth has also picked up a half dozen buckets full. I will use the nuts to both plant and to crack this winter on the cold and snowy days.

The book continues to sell well, and I will need to order another 50 to the order we got 2 weeks ago, as they are all gone but six.

- Helmuth Krause