Weather nice for this weekend.

The weather is supposed to get into the 50s this weekend. That should be nice: another weekend of trekking around the forest before it will (likely; finally) get to be late-November cold.

It's surprising how many of the invasive trees and shrubs are still holding on to green leaves. I think that I will try to chop some more of them back now that they stand out all the more... They should turn into nice firewood.

Also, the old wooden retaining wall immediately to the east of the cabin is finally in terminal-failure condition. However, unless I build something soon, I'll likely have to wait until the spring to get onto it (and hope that not too much erosion happens in the meantime). Maybe I can build up something with the bricks? Hrm....

Bricks used for Dana Building

Landscape Architecture professor S. Jones came out this morning to take a bunch of brick pavers for use in the redesigned Dana garden. He may take some more later. However, most of two pallets have been taken. Their re-use is a good thing. I wish that I could find more uses for them.

Engineers in the forest

Another semester, and another bunch of engineers came to the forest for initiation. Small fire and some chanting under the full moon. Happily, they were able to burn off some of the brush that I cleared last week.

Mice in the cabin again

Argh. It must be fall. Not because the leaves are mostly off the trees. Not because the weather is (finally) getting cold enough to put frost on the window. But because there are mice once again in the cabin. I've put the traps back out, but I have to find something better than peanut butter to put on the snap-traps: the buggers just nibble it out softly enough that it doesn't actually trigger the trap.

I continue to use the live traps, though.

Board walk completed, but...

The structure of the boardwalk itself is completed. It's actually quite a nice structure, and will make walking around the forest a lot nicer: the views of the lake are quite good.

The only construction portion of the project is the creation of the gravel path on the north side of the boardwalk, connecting it to the path.

Boardwalk planking done -- low railing to be installed

The boardwalk planking is effectively finished, and they are starting in on doing the low rail that will run the length of both sides. (The rail isn't going a hand rail, but something more like a low guard rail about 4" high that runs along the length of the boardwalk; a rail very similar to that on the dock.) I asked about the depth of the screw anchors used in the boardwalk area, keeping the idea of the amount of muck found in that area in mind. The guys told me that most of the anchors had to drill through 20 feet of unconsolidated muck after punching through the root mat and before reaching hard ground. That's a lot of distance between root and ground!

I saw an end-of-the-season monarch butterfly. The wave of warm weather brought out a last hurrah of insects.