Beautiful Weekend!

The temperatures reached into the 60s both Saturday and Sunday with bright sunny skies both days. A couple more degrees and I would have been opening the doors to let in the fresh air. The low Saturday morning was around 13 degrees but it only fell to 32 degrees over night. Virtually no wind either day and what there was came out of the south.

I spent most of Saturday outside trying to burn a locust stump that was left over from the construction of this log home. I burned poplar, birch, maple and oak branches and saplings up to 4 inches in diameter for nearly seven hours trying to get the massive stump to burn. The stump is leaning at a 45 degree angle and the fire I built was directly beneath the four feet of tree trunk. All I managed to do was burn off the bark and blacken the trunk. I might have gotten as far as one inch into the two-and-one-half feet thick trunk...on the side directly above the flames but that's about it. Damn locust is as good as steel. In fact, I might as well have been trying to burn a steel I-beam using a cigarette lighter.

Perhaps that durability is one of the reasons why there's a house down the hill that has a fence made of the upturned stumps. They will not rot either. Oh, one locust may get heart rot and become hollow enough for black ants to move in, but the surrounding wood Will. Not. Rot.

The only thing I managed to really burn (beside the branches) was the top of my head. It did get warm and, fool that I am, I took my knitted cap off without replacing it with a ball cap. I didn't get too sunburned but enough to know I should remember my hat next time.

There were lots of geese and a few swans flying north most of the afternoon. There must have been eight or nine skeins of geese, all in V-formation heading as close to due north as you would get following a compass. Each group varied between 50 and 150 birds, but most were right around 75. There was a constant chatter from the geese. Of course, when you fly in a V-formation, there can be only one leader...everybody else becomes a backseat driver and complains about the view ahead, which is occupies in part by half a goose's ass. The swans made much less noise and what they did have to say was slightly higher pitched.

Today (Sunday) was a day of rest. Not because of the sunburn, just because I ached a bit from hauling wood, using the bow saw to cut it up and watching over the fire all day.

We should be seeing a changing of the guard as far as the birds are concerned. The waterfowl have already begun passing through as I've noted earlier and Red-winged Blackbirds and Robins have arrived to stake out territories. Goldfinches are beginning to resemble their name again. The Pine Siskins are still here, however, and they need to get a move on! Lots of pairs of Red-tailed Hawks around and about but I've yet to see my first Turkey Vulture of the year.