What's wrong with modern societies and people?

Earth is fundamental. Earth provides everything. Anything else is only an illusion. Even so, we always try to transform it to create our own illusion. Thus we believe we possess earth. This is the biggest illusion of all.

                                                                                                         - Bon Turik, 2014

Tiny curiosities

Meanwhile I was cutting off the weed I found couple of interesting things on my land. First of all a mysterious hole. Actually three of them. Not too far away from each other. Approximately 1-1,5 meter (3-5 feet) from one to the next. If I had to guess I'd say the maker and the owner of that underground passages was a European souslik. Don't confuse it with shashlyk.

This is souslik...rather a buncha

...and this is shashlyk

Ok. It doesn't mean you can't make shashlyk from souslik and a little veggies, but that would be a pricey one, because souslik is a protected animal in Hungary. It likes grass, seeds and insects. That's why I'd say the previous tenant of this hole was a souslik, because my land is an old, neglected orchard with plenty of insects. Furthermore the ex-owner planted corn in this section of the land which probably attracted these little creatures. Here is the pic for further judgement:

For size reference, there is my Benchmade Griptilian 551 folder

Anyway souslik is the most skilled animal: it can fly with wheat-filled cheek pouches, meanwhile balancing on an owl on its back. ;)
An other curiosity in the orchard are these holes in the trees:

These holes mean good and bad at once. They are bad, because that means my trees are sick. There are worms inside them. The good thing is these holes indicate a woodpecker lives nearby and taking care of my trees. Therefore it is called the woodpecker to 'the doc of trees' in folklore. Hopefully Doc can save them by spring.

I found a very interesting little shrub at the northern corner of my land, what so called Oregon Grape (Mahonia aquifolium). Yes, it's native to western North America. Someone brought it from there long time ago to Hungary. Many people know so, that the berries are not edible 'cause they are slightly poisonous. Well, the toxic is located mainly in the leaves and root of the plant. However, the berries high in Vitamin C. You just have to wait till they gonna be ripe. Native Americans made jam out of it and ate to prevent scurvy. But, this is only one thing you might know about it. Mahonia is not just a nice decoration of your garden. It is also a herbal. Its alkaloids calm skin, reduce irritation and dandruff. If you make tea, tincture or a cream of its woody parts, you can use it against or in case of diarrhea, arthritis, eczema, fever, digestive disorders or kidney and liver diseases.

Mahonia aquifolium

This is not over. :) I have another exciting plant at the other end of my property. That is the English lavender (Lavandula angustifolia). Lots of you folk might know that a bunch of dried flowers ousts moths of the wardrobe. But, did you know?
It is also effective to keep aphids away from neighboring plants in the garden.
It is one of the ingredients of the sauce for gyros.
You can find it in Provance herb mix as well.
Fits to seasoning roasted mutton and fish.
You can, too, make tea of flowers and use it as a sedative.
It is in use against stomach and intestinal problems.

This plantation is about two feet wide

So, think twice before you cut anything on your land next time and pay attention to little signs of Nature. It might be helpful for you.

Cutting weeds

I had to wait for two weeks before I could start this job, because the weather conditions weren't ideal for the process. We've bought an Al-Ko bush & weed cutter for 39.990 HUF (~180$) to clean my property. This machine can work properly only when the vegetation you want to cut is dry. No pissing rain, heavy dew, etc. Otherwise the stems of the plants will bend around the axle of the blade and chocking the machine. The good thing is I've got a bushcutter blade and a weedcutter string also with the machine. First I needed the bushcutter. The land looked like a mini-jungle. Tumbleweeds (Salsola kali L.),  Ragweeds (Ambrosia artemisiifolia), Common milkweeds (Asclepias syriaca), Sandburs (Cenchrus incertus), Chamomile (Matricaria Chamomilla), Vetch (Vicia sativa), White goosefeet (Chenopodium album) and many more were thriving on my land. Some people think weeds are bad thing. Believe it or not, you see it wrong. First of all they are brilliant indicators of the soil conditions. For example Hungarian Chamomile likes alkaline soil. There are plenty of chamomile at the back of my land. Thus the soil must be salty over there. At the front there are lots of vetch on my land. Vetch belongs Legumes. It likes loose, sandy soil, but on other hand very good nitrogen fixing plant. Secondary lots of them are herbals. Some of them are edible. For example, the taste of white goosefoot is similar to spinach. It is high in Calcium, protein and iron. They are families in Hungary whose would have starved to death in WWII. if white goosefoot weren't common in their areas. Last but not least every weed is protecting your soil from erosion whilst the land is not in use. The only thing you have to do is cut or unroot the vegetation a season before you want to use your land and leave the crop of plants dying for green manure. Than you will get all the minerals and nutrients back for spring. Unfortunately there are so many bloody idiot in bureaucracy whose haven't a damn clue what is the purpose of weed in Nature and how Mother Earth operates. Therefore you have to keep your land neat. You are not allowed to let weeds grown on your property. Otherwise you should expecting a nice fee (up to 70.000$). So, I went to my property and started cutting the bush on that one acre...
Well, with a foot wide blade it is a hard job to cut down such a huge field. The major thing is you should keep the blade close to the ground and parallel. Furthermore you should avoid bumping into any hard objects. Such as peebles, rocks, any pieces of metal, laths, etc. But, in that deep vegetation you have no idea what the next inch brings you. I was walking around methodically on the property before I started to run the engine, but I couldn't see too much. Thus the bushcutting mission ended up bumping into mounds, laths, old fence wire, little rocks, concrete slabs, stubs, etc. Every time I bumped into something the machine slapped back on my shoulder and wrist. At the end of the day I couldn't feel the right side of my upperbody, where the machine was hanging all day, and my waist ached like never before. No surprise, just the machine itself weighs 7,8 kg (17 pounds). Can you imagine that someone hits you with 17 pounds everytime you move wrong...for six and a half hours? Only one third of the land was done. F*** me. Six and a half hours sound a lot, but there are sections where you can't do it fast, you have to refill the petrol, have a lunch, get the blood back to your palm. So, don't bitching on me. Try it first. Even I couldn't hear properly when I went for dinner. Just a monotone noise was in my head. Like someone replaced my brain with a deep-toned coffee grinder. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. That's a damn hard job...and dirty like hell. Oh, if you do it you must wear protection. Bushcutter is not a joke. Especially when it hits a glass bottle or a piece of concrete. Protect your hands and face with certified protective boots, gloves and a mesh mask. Wear thick clothes you do not feel sorry for.

Meanwhile I was cutting weeds I saw loadsa sand lizards. Hope I did cut neither of them. Not just because they are strictly protected animals, but I love them. Plus they eat tons of everything which moves. Competitiors to Chinese. :) Ok. Not everything. They eat mostly insects, larvae and moths. So, this is good if you want to get rid of insects on a natural way in your garden. They are also good indicator, that the microclimate moister at your land but also gets loadsa sunshine and probably there are plenty of natural cover for these little sunbath-loving creators. They have many enemies, such as crows, hawks, magpies, jays, grouse, storks, chicken, ducks, martens and snakes.

Ok, here is how it looked like when I started cutting the vegetation. You can notice that weed reaches my mom's hip on the picture below. She is 169 cm (5' 6")! Click on the pics.

We had to wallow in a meter (3 feet) high weed whilst we were doing the fence.

It took me three sundays to look like this

...and this

...and this.

You can see on the last photo that 1/4th of the land hasn't got to finish. The weather was always rainy or when the day was sunny I had to work. Finally we got to the point when all the weeds scattered their seeds and turned to brown. So, there was no reason to cut them anymore. I will dig that part at spring...

Oh, and that is what's left from the bushcutter blade:

Compare edges to the original at the top of this posts

Erecting a fence

I've mentioned that my land was a kinda shared property before. The neighbour on my right bought this land to his wife formerly. That's why there was no fence on the right side of the land for about 100 meters long. Now, that they are separated his ex-wife has sold her property to us. So, we have had to build a fence on that side.

My mom seen some ads for fence wire and other stuff we needed to the project. She's got some pretty good deals for chain link fence and fence wire. My stepdad brought nails, lashing wire and all the tools we needed. I've been checking out the internet for cheap concrete poles and local building codes. Fortunatelly, we found enough poles in the prolific weed. Some of them are 4x4 treated locust, which is awesome. Some of them are only a rusty U-profile, made of steel. I don't mind that my poles are not identical. They have cost me nothing. :) I just found 'em. Anyway, this fence is good for the present. We bought three rolls of chain link fence. Each roll contains about 25 meters of fence, which is 1,2 meter high. I called my stepdad for help and show me how to erect a traditional chain link fence with timber. We choosen this type of fence, because this is the cheapest in Hungary. If someone is not familiar with the method of erecting a chain link fence, here is the step by step in nutshell:

1. Clean the construction site at least two meters wide and 3 meters high around the line where you willing to erect the fence to make sure nothing obstructs your work.
2. Level the ground evenly all the way long.
3. Measure the distance of your project. This is the distance between two of your end poles or two corners of your land.
4. This will show you how many meters of fence you need.
5. Divide this number by the meters every roll of chain link fence contains. In my case the distance was 72 meters. My roll of fence was a 25 meters. So I needed three of it.
6. Multiply the distance by the number of lines of wire you want to use to tightening your fence to it. I used only two lines, one on the bottom and one on the top, because my fence is not that high. So 72x2=144 meters of wire I needed.
7. Divide the distance by three. This number gives you how many posts you need for the project. Minus one, if you have a partial fence already.
8. Divide distance by three, because there shall be no more than 3 meters between each poles. I cheated a little bit: I divided it by four. So, I got a number of 18. Minus my corner post. It's 17. There were four U profiles erected already in the line. I needed now only 13 posts.
9. Get a hank of PP packing string. Tie it to the two ends of your porject tensely. Now you have a decent line to start marking and digging.
10. Half the whole distance. Mark it. Best to hammer a small lath at that point.
11. This is going to be the place of your first strutted strainer post.
12. Dig a hole to this strainer post first. Hole must be 80-100 cm deep in sand. Otherwise the line of your poles will look like oxpiss in sidewind after a while.
13. Half the distance your corner post and your strutted strainer post again, mark it.
14. Repeat the process till you are only 10-12 meters away from your corner post. This is the place of your last strainer post.
15. Now mark the place of your regular posts between these strainers.
16. Start digging and praying for rain if you have a dry blown sand to dig into.
17. Lift your post with bent knees and straight waist. Put them into their holes. Don't forget to cut off their top in angle and treat it with some kind of paint, varnish, etc. to protecting them.
18. Get a spirit level. Place it to the side of the post and push some of the dirt back to the hole till your post is able to stand alone, without leaning against the side of the hole.
19. Check the pole is in level in both directions. Use a rammer to compact ground around the post. If the soil is too loose, make it wet.
20. When you make a strutted strainer post you have to cut the end of your two struts into 45 degress. Leave their lenght to reach the half of the hight of your strainer. Add a foot to this lenght you can bury.
21. Get a brick, a rock, a piece of pole or anything solid which can provide some kind of pedestal to your struts. Dig a hole and place it in 45 degrees first. Then put the strut in place.
22. When you finished with all your posts get an end cutting pliers, a hammer, the wire and loadsa stainless steel fence staple.
23. When you choosing the staples or U nails go for the hardened ones, because your treated hardwood posts are going to bend your nails and you'll end up nothing but mess.
24. You can strain your wire without a turnbuckle or a straining bolt. No worries. You need help. Meanwhile you pull the straining wire with the end cutting pliers someone has to staple the wire to the post. Just after you taken the wire around the post at least once and hammered the corners flat. Then you have to staple the opposite side too.
25. Finally the chain link wire itself. There are a couple of methods to put everything together. If your corner post is a timber you can staple every chain to it and then strech the roll alongside your straining wire. If you have a piece of thicker wire you can wave it into the chain link fence, as I did it, than attach it to your corner post. If you want some neater looking finish or just happened you have a piece of metal bar you can also use it as a stretcher bar.
26. Get your roll of fence to the site. Open it up. Roll it out beside your posts. Wave your stretcher wire or bar in it. Stand it up. Affix to your corner post.
27. Get a long metal bar. Wave it into the other end of your chain link fence and start stretching your fence manually. Beware overstretching. If your chain link fence moves away from your straining wires more than 5 cm (2 inches) stop stretching. Pitch your bar.
28. Staple your fence to the timber posts at least at three places. If you have concrete or metal posts you can use lashing wire for this process. Just like to tie your next roll of fence to this one.
29. Keep going with your chain link fence till your last post. Tie it up on the same manner as you started.
30. Final step to hook your fence to your straining wire. A damn job. Your thumb and side of your index finger will be f*** up by the end of the day. But you've got a neat chain link fence with timber from scratch. :)

Sorry for the lack of pics. Absolutely lost in work. Here are some photos taken later on.

When the poles are almost in place. The two blue strings are PP packing string

Strutted strainer post with pedestal timber

You can strain your wire simply pulling against the timber and staple it down

You can't use this method on concrete otherwise you will chip your poles

Straining wire stapled in place. Everything is done by hand and you see how tense the wire is?

Straining wire tighten up by hand. Even we did a little overstretching.

Instead of a stretcher bar there is a wire vertically too.

The certain of 72 meters. Oh, don't forget to treat every cut you made during the project. Otherwise weather conditions will ruin your timber very quick.

One of the U profiles as fence post

After three months