Thursday chores at the Bolt Hole

I guess the brief rain we got at the Bolt Hole lasts evening was a cold front moving through. The temperature this morning when I got out of bed was around 55 degrees and it has managed to rise to only 65 at 4 PM this afternoon. It's sunny though and that sun is warm when your out and about chasing after the brush hog like I was.

I spent three and a half hours clearing much of the area west of the Park that I showed in yesterday's photos. Did I mention that when Mark cleared this area using a pair of brush loppers two to four feet of snow was on the ground? Even when he went slightly below the surface to cut the woody shrubs he still left stubs that were from 10 to 18 inches in length. And although the brush hog is supposed to cut saplings up to 1 1/2 inches in diameter when they are clustered together in groups of 8 to 10 it makes for some slow going.

I did manage to avoid cutting many of the blueberries and even found a few more patches that I had to work around. When I took a break and walked back to check the cameras I put out yesterday, I flushed five ruffed grouse from one of those blueberry patches. Looks like if I want any of the ripe berries I'm going to have to beat the birds off with a stick.

After I went to bed last evening, I heard a deer snort over where one of the cameras was and thought I would have some pictures from that this morning. There was just one on the camera of the south end of a north bound deer. The other camera had two dozen photos of Mama bear and her twins just lounging around. They didn't appear to have eaten any of the bait I put out. The whole family mist just like to be in pictures.

After lunch I went back outside with a pair of loppers to widen some of the ATV trails. Yesterday I got pretty wet from over hanging branches as I drove around to see if there were any blow downs that needed to be cut with the chainsaw. While I was out there, I also cut some of the woody shrubs and stubs around the apple trees that I had left with the brush hog. (Just didn't want to get too close to the apples and accidentally cut them down with the power machine.) I may go back out to do some more once the Mets game is over.