Spring Chores Plus Turkeys and Yotes

I always stock some forage fish (fathead minnows and golden shiners) in the spring.  And I usually add a couple of grass carp and some bluegills.  Occasionally a couple bass.  To do this, I stop at Jones Fish Jones Fish Hatchery

They have quite the facility and selection.

They bag the fish up and insert oxygen in the bag for the transport.  I can put a couple bags in a cooler and then I haul them down to the pond in the Ranger.  Check out our white crabapple tree.

I float the bags for a little while and gradually add some pond water so that the transition isn't too abrupt.

I also planned to spray some fields this weekend.  I have been experimenting using Imox (or Octavio) on my clover fields.  It's expensive and I'm not sure it's worth it.  To use it, they recommend using a product called Nitro-surf with it.  I ordered both from Keystone Pest Keystone Pest.  I've been getting my Butyrac from them for years. Anyway, The box came, I drove it out to the farm, opened it, and found this instead of Nitro-surf.

I went back to the website and looked to be sure - this is what Nitro-Surf looks like.

So there I was at the farm.  Had the right weather. I wanted to try to get it sprayed earlier this year.  I'd read that timing was important.  So I drove into Rural King in Waverly where I knew I could get some surfactant and nitrogen fertilizer to try to make my own Nitro-surf.  And this was the result.

I did make a tank mix of Imox, nitrogen fertilizer, surfactant and clethodim.   If my clover fields all die, we'll know why.  I measured by eyeball.

It was a little windy for spraying but I did it anyway.  I also hit a couple of fallow (weedy) plots with Roundup (generic).

Work in process.

I found myself having to hold my sprayer on/off switch to keep the spray going which left me driving one armed.  This is why - I need a new switch.

I also got in a decent walk.

Things are starting to green up out there.

It's amazing how many random old dump sites there are in the woods.

The redbuds are starting to look near peak.

I think it could be another week.

These red crabapples are getting there too.

The old orchard is showing it's age. A cherry and an apple are on their last legs.

The coyotes were everywhere this week.

A successful hunter.

Do you think it was one of these?

Turkey season opens next weekend.

They've been gobbling and strutting for weeks already.

And the deer are starting to see some benefit from the green up.

Neighborhood dogs.

Don't think that I'll plant the big pumpkin patch this year.  The Africa trip will get in the way of tending it.

Total Solar Eclipse 2024

Joan and I drove down to Nashville for the 2017 eclipse.  This time, our home in Mason, OH was just on the edge of totality. So our daughter Amy and our grandkids Lucy and Charlie flew out from Virginia for the event.  We got extremely lucky as the skies were forecast to be 40% to 60% cloudy but it turned out to be almost completely clear skies.

We made a plan to drive up to Heuston Woods State Park.  It is on the Indiana/Ohio state line and was well withing the path of totality (3 minutes and 2 seconds of totality).  We planned to make a day of it and went early to get a good spot.

We drove all the way around the lake and evaluated spots in picnic groves, near the Nature Center, at the Marina, and at the Beach.  Eventually we decided to park at the archery range which is right next to the dam.  We were so early that we procured a picnic table and we had rest rooms nearby.

The day started chilly but it got hot in the sun.  The high was 77F.

The crowds eventually found us.  We kind of wish we had brought a tent/awning.

We had studied up and were inspired by this YouTube.  Smarter Every Day - Eclipse  I had downloaded the suggested app for timing the eclipse.  We performed some of the exercises suggested.

This colander showed the partial eclipse shadows as projected thru each of the holes. 

It was sweltering hot as the contact was made but we started putting long sleeves back on as we approached totality.

Getting close to totality wearing our eclipse glasses.

And, then when it happened, we took them off.  It was dark but there was a bright horizon all around us - 360 degrees.

And this is what we saw.

Amy used a filter on her phone and got these progress photos leading up to totality.

And this was receding.

In the time before the eclipse, we did some hiking and nature walks.  Turkey vulture.

And lots of spring wildflowers in the understory of the woods.

There were trilliums that hadn't opened yet too.

We knew about the traffic problems after the Nashville eclipse so we planned a rural escape route from this one.  It worked out pretty well and it was a perfect day observing nature.