I Hate Green Briars!

[Devonviolet]

Yesterday, my DH and I stopped in, for a visit with Bay & her DH. They served up fresh, warm Blueberry Cobbler & (not too) Sweet Tea - just the way we like it.

After a nice long chat, we headed for our truck - to make the hour long drive home. But, first had to check out their progress on the briar cleanup.

WOW! They have made some amazing progress! You can actually walk under the trees & see all the way to the fenceline!

We got to go in with their younger Pyr, Trip, along with the Ewes & lambs. Trip has turned into a great guardian, and it was fun meeting the sheep, who were all very curious & a lot friendlier than they were when Bay first got them.

It was fun hearing them bleet, as the talked to us. Their voices are so deep, compared to our goats. It seems like the sheep voices are low and masculine & the goat voices are higher pitched & feminine. The irony of that is, that Bay's sheep are girls & our goats are boys.

I wish i had my camera with me. Bay's DH had put a LOT of effort, with the chain saw, cutting lower branches off a massive Texas Cedar tree. When we toured the newly cleared woods, the branches were still laying on the ground, surrounding the tree (which I'm guessing is 3 feet in diameter)! Some of the branches were 4 inches in diameter and maybe 15 feet long. The sheep reminded me of our goats, getting right into the midst of the cedar foliage, for a snack.
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while I was typing this, I got a popup, that someone had posted to the thread. I was going to post, but thought to see what was posted.

Wouldn't you know Bay was writing about our visit, yesterday, at the same time I was. Great minds think alike - right???

 

[Baymule]

So you can't go outside to play either, huh? Rain!

 

[Devonviolet]

No, its raining here too. the grass is getting long & we are needing to get it mowed before the weeds set blossoms & go to seed.

We also have a burn pile that needs torching!

 

[Baymule]

We were going to get on those cedar branches this morning, but it started raining. BJ was going to cut them up so we could load them in the truck and take to the burn pile, but it's raining. And it is windy, so no burning anyway.

 

[Mike CHS]

We had our 1st rain in several weeks and I guess this is a spring of EXTREMES.

We found out after the rain that all that pretty soil that we brought in for the garden sticks to your shoes like glue when it's wet At least I now have a few spots from the ton of rocks that I turned up when plowing for the new fruit trees.

 

[Baymule]

I went out in the drizzle to get some pictures, since @Devonviolet bragged on my husbands tree trimming. I was snapping pics and all of a sudden the drizzle went to a downpour. I ran to the house, but was soaked when I got there. Here's pics.

The cedar my husband just trimmed is in the far left of this picture. The alley you see here was cleared last spring so we could get to the property line to put up the fence. It is such a cool place in the summer searing heat!

I walked under the canopy to get this picture. Isn't this a beautiful tree? The branches touched the ground, the sheep have eaten all the green off and it's time to get it cleaned up.

More branches.

This is a very big tree. We love it. We try to truly care for our trees and take trimming them into careful consideration. My husband used to have a landscaping business and he knows how to trim, not butcher, a tree to take out dead branches and shape it up.

We pulled briars out of this tree and the trees surrounding it. We love our trees and have cut very few of them. We are going through this pasture, a little less than an acre, pulling out the green briars, dragging out the dead trees and branches on the ground, cutting dead standing trees and trimming the trees. In this one pasture we have Mayhaw, Hackberry, Hickory, Winged Elm, an Elm variety I haven't identified yet, native Persimmon, Cedars, Pine, Oak and at least one I haven't figured out what it is yet. Getting the briars out of there is letting sunlight get to the trees and opening up the canopy so sunlight can get to the ground. It is still a work in progress! And I still hate green briars!

 

[Baymule]

We had our 1st rain in several weeks and I guess this is a spring of EXTREMES.

We found out after the rain that all that pretty soil that we brought in for the garden sticks to your shoes like glue when it's wet At least I now have a few spots from the ton of rocks that I turned up when plowing for the new fruit trees.

I hate gooey dirt. The land we sold in Livingston, before we moved, was black clay. Hard a concrete when dry, and would split into ankle breaking cracks when really dry. When wet, it stuck to our boots and would suck them right off our feet. Forget about driving on it, once it took a bulldozer to get our truck out. You got the gooey dirt now, just gonna have to add a lot of compost to it. Over time, the gooey will go away. I wish I could send you some of Texas's rain! Some serious floods going on down here. We are high and dry, but southeast and central Texas is swimming. Ya'll pray for Texas and all the flooded people.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Ya'll pray for Texas and all the flooded people.

Amen, Sistah!

 

[Baymule]

As much as I hate green briars, they are tasty. I snap off the tips and eat them all the time. I have sautéed them in butter and garlic and they are delicious. If you decide to go green briar picking, it must have tendrils. Only the vines with tendrils are edible, or so I've been told.

 

[Mike CHS]

Some strange things are tasty that you would never think of. Milk thistle is one of those believe it or not.