Mustang Saga

Reflection of an alder.

The Deep Creek Project. I've decided to finally start using the labels option on my blog and my first one will be for this project. So if you want to follow the progress over time, you can hopefully do that somehow. There should be a place to click certain labels on the sidebar so you can see what you're interested in. Eventually I'll go back and do that for the older entries as well, so you can see all about Tonka, or my cats, or whatever.

PCEI is doing the work. Palouse Clearwater Environmental Institute, that is. It's partially funded by some other groups. If you want more info on that you can check out their site.

The basics - they're sloping and stabilizing the banks along our section of creek to control erosion, planting trees to provide shade, and well, that's about it... It's supposed to help water quality, especially important because our creek joins the Palouse river just about a mile or less downstream. Oh, and they also created a few small wetland areas. Two are at the end of drainage ditches. This'll help filter any contaminants out before the water flows into the creek.

So, what can a girl do with 7 buckets, a 50 gallon barrel, and a truck? Break her back! No, just kidding, I only watered some trees. The ones we first planted needed some attention.
Unfortunately I forgot I can't dip a 5 gallon bucket into the barrel. Doesn't fit. So I had to fill buckets by dipping in a couple small coffee cans. Fun... I think I'm really going to beg John to get a 275 gallon water tank I can attach a hose to.

After I was done I played around in the creek to get some pictures for you. Here are some deer prints, a coyote print, and maybe some racoon prints? Or who knows, maybe the beaver. I'm not an expert tracker.

Eww, somebody lost their ear! Just kidding, it's a shell. We have clams down there too, but I didn't see any shells. I think my neice gathered them all up.

Here's a beautiful bit of architecture. I suspect this is where my son's really, really bad sting came from. It swelled up like a baseball and the whole area was a big purple bruise for weeks. It's a pretty nest though. I don't know if we should try to get rid of it or not...

This is one of the "wetlands" or "swales." Not sure which to call it. It'll catch water that flows down through our front pasture. Actually the horses only have contact with about 100 feet of the ditch, so the water shouldn't be too gross.

A stalker's view of my house, taken by John from the other side of the creek.

Here's Scout wondering what I'm doing way out there. He's a cutie.
Here's what I was doing, besides taking pictures. Had to pick up my temporary fencing and the trough that was out there. I think next time I water trees I'll use the trough to carry my water. Easier to dip buckets into. Good old Thor, I love that truck:

Now I'm going to go take a bunch of ibuprophen, get a dose of coffee, and get into my painting clothes. We've made almost zero progress in the last week.