A Shedding We Will Go!

Weekend two of shed construction. We completed the roof rafters Friday afternoon and Saturday we screwed on the fascia board roof sheathing. Wrestling oriented strand plywood boards up onto the shed rafters was a bit challenging with two people and a breeze. Fortunately, the wind didn't get really stiff until after we finished screwing the boards down.

Kenny, my brother, camped Thursday through Sunday on Die Weide. He has camped for years and has all the supplies for a nice camp site. I'm envious! You can see his tent under the picnic pecan. Before the month of March is over with I intend to camp out at Die Weide too.

Did you see the pickup next to the shed? There's a story behind that too. Pressure Treated 4x6 posts warp at a sneeze and Kenny noticed a warped lean on the shed, so he backed his truck against the offending post and ratcheted a 2x6 board to the warped post to straighten it out until we get the sheathing on.

Construction Supervisor

I ordered the metal roofing supplies to be picked up this week. Along with the gutters, I hope we will have the shed ready to collect rain next week.

Water Harvest Shed - Construction Begins

Fact - One inch of rain falling on one square foot of roof can gather 0.623 gallons of water. However, with evaporation, flush systems, and gutter overflow losses, using 0.5 gallons per inch per square foot is a more realistic estimate. For a shed roof of 12x22 ft dimensions every one inch rainfall event can collect 132 gallons of water. Die Gruene Weide is in an area that has an annual average rainfall of 34 inches, for a potential of almost 4500 gallons of "free" water. Free after the cost of the shed and gutters and tank, that is. Considering the water company wants us to fork over almost $5 grand to put in a water meter, and still have monthly payments for the water consumed, the ~$2 grand for the shed and tank and free water thereafter will be a bargain.

To start with I purchased a food-grade 330 gallon tank that will be sufficient for the first four trees of our modest orchard plans. Next year, the water tank I intend to install within our budget and water use model is a 1500 gallon tank, which should be enough to water at least 18 trees.

Tank, in hand (or on land) it became imperative to start shed building. Especially since Inge was skeptical that we could fill the tank. I wagered that by the beginning of summer, the tank would be at least half full. In order for the tank to be half full, I needed to start the shed! For this blog, I'll let the pictures tell the story - which occurred over two days.

Lunch Fit for Construction Work!

Another Round of New Critters

We spent both Saturday and Sunday out at Die Weide to start building the water harvesting shed. However, this blog is about critters. Saturday we went to the NW corner in the "deep woods" to gather the SD card from critter cam. And deep woods was full of new critters. On this batch of candid cams we caught a squirrel (which I'm not bothering to post) and an opossum and an armadillo. Interestingly I've seen lots of signs of digging around back there and assumed it was wild boar, which is possible. But seeing the armadillo reminded me that they have a reputation of being diggers too. But after you take a look at the critter cam photos below, hang around - I've got another new furry friend photo to show you below the critter cam photos.

Primo Possum

Armadillo Crossing

Approaching Armadillo

The following critter comes with its own story - Where we needed to place the shed happened to be where we had tossed brambles and vines from copse clearing efforts. So we had to move the bramble pile to a new location. After we moved the pile I mowed the area and started unloading lumber. A few minutes after we got started, Inge looked down and saw this critter (cute!)

Field Mouse on Die Weide

Close up Field Mouse on Die Weide

Brush 'n' Brambles - New Critters from crittercam!

Today we set out with a bit of angst because the weather forecast was for rain today, though the latest indicated that the rain would occur later in the day. However, unlike last time, the closer we got to DieWeide, the nicer it got. In the end, for January, it was very pleasant upper 60's with some clouds to keep it from getting too warm.

First things first, we headed out to the pond and retrieved and replaced the trail cam memory card and took the camera with us for a relocation. We traipsed deeper into the woods (well, actually hacked our way) to a small hill that had multiple trails crossing and lots of signs of critter traffic.

Back at the picnic pecan, we had lunch and I dozed while Penny played with her brother Pistol. Here Penny is pestering Pistol - something she is always doing.

Back in the woods we returned to clearing brush and brambles along the north fence line. Along the way we came across a "Posted" sign on our property - an opportune moment to pose for a photo!

We had a great day out at Die Weide today. We stayed from 10 a.m. until after 4 p.m. and we cleared a lot more fence than usual due to the good temperatures. We eventually hit a heavy patch of brambles while tired and decided that it was a good place to stop fence clearing. Then we headed into the woods and started working our way west, just to see if we could find the north-west corner of the property. We hacked and slashed through a lot more brambles, eventually reaching the west fence, where a house sits adjacent to our property. There was an annoying yappy dog over there, but we kept on until we reached the corner. Then we hacked and worked our way south along the west fence, the whole 1018+ feet, clearing vines and exploring. We crossed two creeks that entered the property with running water, a lone-standing stagnant pond, and a place that could be easily dammed up to make another small pond. The stagnant pond had no visible incoming creek and I think it may be a spring fed pond. Another less pleasant find on the hike was a spike antler deer skull.

After we returned home, Inge loaded the trail cam photos which we perused and found, in the 254 pictures, dozens of night-time racoon pictures, of which this one of him or her climing a tree was the best and clearest.

After several photos of does with the trail cam, including this session, we finally got our first buck photos. The one below was a night photo, and it appears the infrared lights or the camera mechanism caught his attention because it was obvious he was staring at the camera. There was also a daytime photo of possibly the same buck, but he was far off in the photo and not clear enough to publish.

Our last, and clearest trail cam photo, is of a coyote! He came around during the day and the trail camera takes great day photos. He has great colors. Most of our neighbors shoot coyotes because they attack their livestock. I don't know whether I would. Rabbits, yes, because I enjoy eating rabbit.

Doe 'n' Dog 'n' Pond 'n' Puddles

In a fit of fool-hardiness, we headed out to Die Weide today to deliver the 330 gallon water tank I purchased yesterday. The fool-hardiness was to set out with a forecast of rain all day. When we left Cedar Park though, it was only drizzling so we figured it shouldn't be a problem dropping off the tank and switching out memory sticks on the trail cam. However, the closer we got to Die Weide, the harder it rained. I ran the truck's wipers at full speed from Thrall on. Once we made it that far though, we were committed. The easement road was certainly muddy, but the truck handled it with no problem. We dropped off the tank and leashed Penny to head back to the pond. We chose to leash her because we didn't want to have to retrieve her from the neighbors, where she always dashes off to when we arrive.

After skirting puddles and pasture runoff streams, we arrived at the newly cleared path to the pond, to find yet another runoff. Penny splashed through one puddle after another dragging me along to get really wet boots and then the path opened up on the "Wet Weather Creek." Which is a Texas way of saying a dry creek except when it rains - and today, it was definitely raining as you can see here:

Wet Weather Creek - in wet weather!

And a few paces to the left of this is the infamous natural pond (don't hold your breath!):

Natural Pond on Wet Weather Creek

After a quick swap of SD cards on the trail cam (which showed only 35 pictures for a week), and a check that the batteries would be good for a few more days, we headed back, thoroughly soaked. Here's me and Penny on the pond trail. Normally my jacket is light brown, but it's soaked to almost a Penny brown.

After we got home we loaded up the cam's SD card and found three sets of doe pictures and one set of dog pictures - I was hoping to see a boar picture because we've seen boar sign on the property. Anyway, here's the Doe 'n' Dog from the title:

Slightly zoomed in on dog

Working before the Cold Snap

Inge and I headed out to Die Weide with two goals in mind - grill up a steak on the fire pit, and brush bust a path to the tiny natural pond on one of the three creeks that enter the property. Since the forecast is for a seriously long cold snap to arrive tomorrow, we figured to get our work in today as it might be awhile before we get back out there.
First, the food.
Arriving at 11 a.m. we set out to gather firewood. One of the several dead mesquites (apparently poisoned some time in the past) provided a bounty of firewood, which we lit up on the first go around.  The pictures tell the rest of the story, except the eating and enjoying.

Steaks Sizzle Over Fire Pit

Flippin' Steaks

Fire Pit Repast

 After we enjoyed our lunch, we sat around the fire, enjoying the warmth of the embers as there was a bit of a cool breeze.

Pond Trail Blazing Work
It only took a few minutes of relaxing before we were antsy to get to work. Every time I've found the pond, it's been by stumbling upon it. I came across it two weeks ago, and even though we've not had rain since October,  I found it with a few puddles with lots of tiny frogs. I knew the general area for today's job, but it's well buried in the woods and brambles. So we set out to find the pond and blaze a nice path from it out to the front pasture. We started out at the salt block and headed west into the woods, hacking brambles with our hedge shears. Eventually, we worked our way in to find the creek and then the pond. We were very surprised to find the pond had a very good amount of water in it, though not full. There was more than an inch of rain a week ago and that's all it took to turn a few stagnant puddles back into a pond. The creek takes several bends there and the orientation of the pond points in a way that throws me off directionally from how we arrive there. But today I scoped it out, got my bearings, and we began blazing a wide path - good enough for a small cart or vehicle to pass through so we can bring material to augment the pond's natural dam.

Trail Camera
Inge got me a Primos Truth Cam 60 trail camera for Christmas which we also brought with us today. I set it up to overlook a path that runs by the pond. The camera was set up the morning of New Year's Eve, and picked up afternoon New Year's day. During that brief time it took 85 pictures and I was really excited to see what we took. As soon as we got home I loaded it on Inge's computer where we found 79 pictures of waving grasses that set off the motion detector, and six pictures of this doe:

It's going to be a week or more before we get back to the pond so I can't wait to see what we take. To limit the waving grass pictures, I decreased the sensitivity of the motion detector.

Fencing Mission Accomplished - with bonus Firepit

Over the two week Christmas break, we set a goal to build a sturdy ranch fence so we can begin to graze cattle to regain our agricultural tax exemption and knock back the wild grass. Our land falls in the "Blackland Prarie" ecological zone and the natural cycle was for Bison or fire to periodically knock the savanna grasses back. We will use cattle periodically to replicate this natural cycle.

Our Finished fence with proud owner and the picnic pecan framed by the new secured gate. The Firepit from the previous post was just a bonus on top of accomplishing the fence mission.