Sunday, September 7, 2014

More Chopping!



This was the sad state of the shop and old single-car garage this morning.  See the vines? 
Keith asked me to pull them down, please. 

They were also growing up the side of the larger of the two storage buildings. 

Folks, we have not lived there now for almost six months, and the place was slowly going back to 
nature.  You couldn't even open the shop doors at this point. 

Do I need to tell you that wasps were flying in and out of the foliage, and I 
probably saw 50 fly INTO the shop through the door. 
This area, on the left, is where Chris was stung so badly a month ago. 

So...
I proceeded slowly. 

I used the wasp spray, too... spraying where I was going to work.  
I started with the vines... and chopped them at the roots.  I pulled a few down, but 
you will see in a minute what is left. 


Now you can see the front of the shop.  One of our last tasks will be to rebuild the 
door on the left, it has rotted out. 



All that stuff had to be dragged across the yard. 


Do you see where the roof is wet along the edge?  I would spray, step back 20 steps (to the chair you can't see, sitting in the shade of the old walnut) and wait for the wasps to die down. 
I cut a ton of saplings out of here.  
The green on the right is intertwined with an old fence that 
has rolled on itself, and lots of bristly greenbrier.  I'm going to 
spray it. 

I was able to loosen some of the vines you can barely see on the wall... but 
I left the rest for another day.  Too many wasps! 


This is the old walnut tree... see how few walnuts are on it this year? 


Here's the west side of the house... I showed you the east yesterday.  Brandon will finish off the north end this weekend, then we'll go to town on painting, the deck railings and windows.  We'll put up new trim, too. 

We're going to have to get a dumpster to haul off the C and D. 


I haven't been able to show you this for about 3 years now.  A young farmer west of Tongie plants 40 acres to sunflowers.  The last two years, he has planted soybeans on this acreage, but this year, he put it back into sunflowers.  He sells the seed.   People come from miles around to take pictures of it, and Chris and I stopped for a few minutes on our way to Garnett this morning to take a few. 


The People.  Coming from miles around.  Seriously. 

See down the road?  A guy down there is renting his front pasture for parking for 2.00, but 
we were so early, we were shocked to find people there already. 
We found a roadside spot. 


Someone was flying a drone over the fields... how cool!  I'm sure they got great pictures. 


People actually wade into the fields to take pictures... some bring ladders... some bring very expensive equipment. 

Kids can get lost in there, and I'm not kidding.  Chris had never seen these fields blooming, and he was very surprised. 


On and on and on... wow! 

Tired tonight... from two days of hard work. 

More tomorrow! 


10 comments:

  1. omg...the sunflowers are gorgeous! how does he harvest the seeds? the bees around there must be very happy!

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  2. The sunflower man should charge admission like they do in corn mazes and pumpkin patches. You know some one has to be doing damage. I would be honored to pay a farmer to enjoy their hard work. They are beautiful.

    Every crop we had this year is strange. Walnuts, pecans, fruit...all not as good as usual. My garden quickly went to seed and produced little. Mother Nature may know something we don't.

    Your work is really looking good., It's amazing how quickly something gets covered without animals eating and constant work. Do be careful. Wasps almost seem meaner this year...I know, sounds like I'm crazy.

    I have battled here trying to catch up before the hot hit. I stayed inside then and now after a rain I'm already behind.

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  3. How beautiful those sunflowers are. I didn't plant any this year, so seeing these pictures with fields and fields of them made my day.

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  4. I am amazed that you have such a jungle there, since I thought it was a dry year for you. You must be tired! That is a lot of work! Chris is a godsend. I would also drive for mile to see that field. A perfect time for photos!

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  5. More good progress!

    We went to a Sunflower farm several years ago
    called Grinter Sunflower. Is that this place?

    M : )

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  6. I would absolutely love to see a field of sunflowers like that one...it's just simply beautiful!! It never ceases to amaze me how people will just walk into a farmer's field without permission...what are they thinking?!
    On another note...you have been working sooooo hard ! With all the work you've been doing, I'll bet you sleep good at night! I hope you're not over doing it! :)

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  7. Thank you for sharing the sunflowers with us. They are so beautiful! Every one of them.
    It truly is amazing how a place can go back to nature- if people are not there tending to it,, and animals not there to much away.
    Gosh - Brandon is doing a great job with the house-- it does not even look like the same house as before.
    Be careful.
    love
    tweedles

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  8. I suppose one of the benefits of living in a dry climate is that I don't have to deal with vines and saplings. I can't believe how quickly nature reclaims your land! Those sunflowers are spectacular.

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  9. You ought to be exhausted. That's a lot of chopping, pulling and hot work.

    I trimmed the biggest fig tree on Saturday and was soaking wet. I also hand sprayed 20 gallons of spray (1 gallon at a time) (on saturday and sunday) around the fence rows, and edges of the hay field. It's the only way to keep the saplings from coming up in the fences.

    After all the rain we've had in the past few weeks, there were so many sweet gums/popcorn trees and other scrubby trees that had sprouted.

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  10. You've done tons of work around the old place. It will all get done, and then you can rest :)

    Love, the sunflowers!!! How awesome it would be to see all those sunflowers in one place. I'd pay two bucks too!

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