80AcresOnline

The dry-woods swale is slowly drying up:

The pale area is where water stood for several weeks.

Up on Cactus Flat, the flameleaf sumacs–stunted because they’re growing out of a solid rock–are at their fall best:

After I went through the dry woods and came out into the west grass, I was surrounded by hundreds (thousands?) of American snout butterflies–and this one landed on a stem of KRB long enough to be photographed:

Between Deer Ford and Gravel Ford,  I spotted this female Variegated Meadowhawk perched high on a bare twig:

This species is the most numerous dragonfly right now, though I’m also seeing some Common Green Darners.   The males of this species are flashy red with “silver” markings (actually white, but so placed that they look silver.)

Gravel Ford reveals the bank of poorly consolidated gravel sediment–it’s our worst erosion problem right now.  Water comes off the West Grass and also overflows the creekbank upstream, pouring down this way–despite the four gabions we’ve built, we’re still losing soil off the gravel, and the native plants with it.

On a happier note, the possumhaw in the yard has finally decided to put out some good berries this year:

We also have “wild” possumhaws in the creek woods, but this one we planted before we bought the 80 acres.