Coffee

[baymule]

Crawdad mounds???

Yes, the pesky things burrow down and pile up mud that dries to the consistency of a rock. Hard on hay equipment and mowers. In hay fields, sometimes people poison them to save wear and tear on their equipment.

 

[baymule]

Coffee is ready! Slept good, up at 5:20. Day is dawning. Going to spread the 2x6x20 treated boards out across the trailer and paint them with Thompson water seal this morning. Chris Will probably pick it up tomorrow. Need to call post treatment plant and order 8’ treated posts with a 7 or 8 inch top. Mo’ money! Have to buy in a bundle, so cash outlay. But a 7” top is $16 and at Tractor supply it’s $26.

 

[flowerbug]

they're a common feature here too, sometimes i mow them down.

funny coincidence one just popped up in the low spot next to where i lifted the garlic. there's no mowing going on there for sure but it might be the same one that has been there before or perhaps a relative. they'll dig burrows down deep and not surface at all for months at a time. with our recent returns to getting more regular rains they come up and open up their burrows and that also probably gives them access to mates.

 

[SPedigrees]

Burrowing crayfish!!! On some other gardening forum (reddit I think) a guy posted a short video. (It had crossed my mind to paraphrase it for the "Garden Humor" thread here, but you sort of had to be there.) The title was something like. 'Set up cam to see what was making holes in my container garden - and it was a freakin' LOBSTER!' Sure enough it was a burrowing crayfish that surfaced, turned around, and retreated into its hole. None of us had ever heard of a crayfish that lived on land, so this was a learning experience for all. The OP stated that the nearest body of water was a small stream about 300 feet away. Of course this drew comments like "That's just cray-cray!"

 

[Branching Out]

I can one cup of coffee and decided I needed water. I had a good day yesterday. DS put the other AC in the kitchen and helped cool the house off. We did our shopping at several stores. I went to bed last night and at about 1:30 the rabbit started thumping. I have my window open because it is so hot. She has never thumped. The only rabbit was Lulu years ago, so this kind of worried me, so I got a flashlight and went outside and she was jumping around scared about something. I shinned the light around the yard and then thought, what the heck am I doing out here. A mountain lion had been spotted about 2 miles from me and a black bear taken out of the park which is just a few blocks from here. Something scared here. It could have bee a cat. My cat was in the house so I decided nothing to worry about because that sound would scare anything away. She kept it up off and on for about an hour and it took me until about 3:30 to get to sleep and then that crazy bird started its noise about 4:30. I went back to sleep and then my cat was meowing as loud as he could at 8 because I should have been up and fed him, so I am tired today. I went out and picked beans this morning. I saw a lot of squash and cherry tomatoes. I will go out tonight and bright stuff in and some cucumbers. We took a lot of stuff over to DD''s freezer so I would have more room. Then, DS and I bought wading pool for the girls and gave for early birthday present for Evelyn.

BTW, @Branching Out . when I did have Painted Mountain for a couple of years, I used @seedcorn 's suggestion to soak the grain overnight and then to use the food processor for grinding. I was able to make good guesses on proportions and made very tasty cornbread.

Interesting-- I never would have thought to soak the seeds overnight before grinding them in to corn flour. I must give that a go. Thank you for the tip!

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

Burrowing crayfish!!! On some other gardening forum (reddit I think) a guy posted a short video. (It had crossed my mind to paraphrase it for the "Garden Humor" thread here, but you sort of had to be there.) The title was something like. 'Set up cam to see what was making holes in my container garden - and it was a freakin' LOBSTER!' Sure enough it was a burrowing crayfish that surfaced, turned around, and retreated into its hole. None of us had ever heard of a crayfish that lived on land, so this was a learning experience for all. The OP stated that the nearest body of water was a small stream about 300 feet away. Of course this drew comments like "That's just cray-cray!"

When we were kids in Oklahoma there was a ditch that was dry unless it rained and when it rained we would put bacon on a string down the holes and catch crawdads, which is what we called them. I guess the same as crayfish? I have no idea where they went after the water dried up. We would catch tadpoles too in there. There might have been some kind of water that drained into that when it did rain, but I am not sure where it would have come from.

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

The bird left and I got a good night's sleep and up and out in the garden. I picked beans and brought in some squash and cucumbers. I pulled a couple of plants that were not that healthy looking and I put them in the compost bin. I blanched beans and I made 2 loaves of chocolate zucchini bread. One for a friend of DS's who he works with and is going to take some zucchini to his friend.

 

[flowerbug]

When we were kids in Oklahoma there was a ditch that was dry unless it rained and when it rained we would put bacon on a string down the holes and catch crawdads, which is what we called them. I guess the same as crayfish? I have no idea where they went after the water dried up. We would catch tadpoles too in there. There might have been some kind of water that drained into that when it did rain, but I am not sure where it would have come from.

they just burrow down deeper and plug up the hole at the top.

here they are in places where the water table is high enough plus some clay in the soil so it will hold the burrow open. we don't see them in the front yard where the drainfield is at for the septic system but that is also covered up mostly clay subsoil with a few feet of sand on top of it along with the dark topsoil over the sand.

where we see the crayfish is in low areas where i catch water to soak in (sometimes called a berm or a soak or a seep) or the one long drainage channel that i call The River Nile.

as a general rule i try to catch as much water as i possibly can and soak it in so i've set up layers of water features to do that during various amounts of rains. at some point though during the real heavy gully washers there will be some run off. but i try to have that happen only after three or more inches of rain comes down quickly.

if we get enough time between rains nothing runs off most of the property and that is what i want to happen as i see that as a loss of nutrients and organic materials if there are surface flows. plus with our well water being slightly alkaline and with both rust and calcium i really want to capture the rain water that does fall so it can help balance out the well water used during the dryer times.

 

[baymule]

Coffee is ready! Crawfish if you are eating them, %#$&@ CRAWDADS if you are mowing over their mounds. Mounds are hard on hay equipment.
Going to work a few sheep in the cool of the morning.

 

[SPedigrees]

When we were kids in Oklahoma ....... crawdads, which is what we called them. I guess the same as crayfish?

Same thing. Also known as crawfish. They have multiple aliases.