2018 Life Logs, Day 163—Poison Ivy Forest
Date: Tuesday, June 12, 2018
Weather: Sunny; High 70, Low 57 F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Today was the day that Meghan Hannawalt’s goats came to rid this property of poison ivy . . . or at least give it a go. Last week when Meghan and I walked the property, it looked like a half-day job. Last evening, I decided to walk the property again in preparation of the arrival of the goats today. Whoa! Could it be possible that poison ivy could grow that much in one week? All of a sudden, the poison ivy in the wooded part of my back yard looked puny next to the forest of poison ivy in the wooded area between the house and the river. The original plan was to fence the goats in the backyard wooded area to clear that area and pull out the poison ivy on the path to the river and bring it to the goats to snack on. But when I had Meghan walk with me down to the water when she arrived this afternoon, she was even more surprised than I was.
She said to me, “Judy, you have an entire orchard of poison ivy.”
The poison ivy in one area was 3-4 feet high and it had climbed the trees and hung down over our heads. There was one poison ivy ‘bush’ that looked like a small tree.
Meghan agreed that if I wanted to clear that area, she would have to fence the goats in that area and not worry about the poison ivy in the backyard woods. So that is what she did, but there was so much poison ivy that the goats couldn’t possibly eat it all in one afternoon. For four hours, the four goats munched and Meghan worked without stopping to pull up as much poison ivy as possible. We ended up with piles of it that Meghan will have to come back to pick up. And I decided to hire Meghan and her goat crew for one more afternoon to do the backyard woods this Thursday. They do a spectacular job and it is such a great, environmentally friendly way of getting rid of nasty poison ivy. At the end of the school day, I went to pick up the Goldpebbles so they could meet the goats.
After the introductions, the boys headed down to the dock. The wind was fierce today and it had blown all the seaweed in the river right up into our little cove.
They thought that was great. Thick as it was, the boys still wanted to go kayaking for the first time this season. I relented and sent Sam out first to see if it was even possible to paddle through the seaweed to get out of the cove. It wasn’t easy, but he was successful.
Jonah followed with success,
and when Heather arrived, she went out with Ollie. Heather had biked the ten+ miles from Woods Hole, but luckily she had the strong wind on her back so she still had the energy to go out with Ollie.
We ended the evening with a taco dinner. Heather and Jed do Taco Tuesday most weeks, so since they were here, I kept the Taco Tuesday theme.
On a different topic . . . finally, between the chiropractor and the physical therapist, progress has been made with the pain in my lower back and hips. I went to the physical therapist this morning and he was very pleased with the progress and will now get back to working on my knee. That is why I was referred to him in the first place. But then when I threw my back out, we had to change the focus. I’m hoping that I can end these appointments by the end of next week as Friday of next week is the last day of school. That means that Camp Oma 2018 begins on the following Monday. And that means that there is just no time for PT appointments. Let the summer fun begin.
