Day by day we see more color in the leaves, and more of the plants die off. The water pepper, a constant around the property and favorite food of the rabbits is on the way out, or already gone. One of the consequences of this is that we are going to have to start actually feeding the turkeys instead of just supplementing their diet of foraging with scratch, mostly to keep them coming back. As the fall comes I suspect we'll have an easier time finding the turkeys since they'll be wanting food actively.
As we come into fall, better known to the Southern East Coast as Hurricane Season, weather is getting more extreme. Yesterday we got over 3" of rain over the course of half the day, and a lot of larger plants aren't looking so happy as you can see with the poor sunchokes. I should probably make sure to place the flowers where I want more of them, which is definitely not where they are. I'd actually be curious about the propagation by seed method for sunchokes. More research when I have time for it. Of course, one of the big things that happens with downpours is driveway damage. Even with the rain given the work the Lady of the House and I did last year the driveway isn't in completely awful shape.
I'm not saying it's in good shape. It's hard to tell from photos of the driveway, but any of the rough looking places are actually deep enough to bottom your car out if you go into them. Fortunately I've gotten really good at bridging driveway gaps and getting up. Even more fortunately, we have 2 dump truck loads of crush gravel coming in on Friday, and a rented bobcat coming in on Saturday. One of my co-workers who is experienced using bobcats is coming up to help out. I didn't know that if you're renting a bobcat or similar equipment you have to get a temporary hoister's license. It'is not a difficult process, but it's incredibly dull. I also feel like it doesn't really prepare one for actually using the equipment. It's why I am very grateful to have someone who knows what they're doing helping.
Our first and biggest objective is filling in the trenches thoroughly, and rebuilding the water bars to slow the downward flow of water. Second is that if we can we want to crown the driveway. That that means is instead of the flat surface you see here, there is going to be a ridge near the center of the driveway to divert the water off to the sides more than straight down the driveway. This should reduce the rutting problem that develops as driving in the same path wears down the level of the tire tracks, attracting water. Third is going to be clearing out the drainage ditches more thoroughly than I really want to do with shovel and rake. I figure if I clear down the ditches thoroughly, and put in excess gravel to reduce growth in the ditches it can only be a good thing. Once we get the driveway thoroughly done, if I can I'm going to rent a steamroller and really pack the result down even more than just running the bobcat over it. If I can I'm going to be getting progress photos to show our learning.
Our learning from the past is to rent a bobcat instead of doing it by hand.
Again, I'd like to give a thanks to our patrons, and all of our readers. See you next week!
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