Summer is in full swing and I’m excited to share about July on the land and my plans for August!
July Report
Thank you to everyone who showed up for the work party and the landwarming! It was so lovely to see you and spend time with you. Thank you for the food, work on the trails, and removing invasive blackberry! Thanks for the string trimmer gift! And thank you to those who helped make it possible for me to buy this land.
On July 20, friends took a pickaxe to some very hard soil and fully installed the new fire pit, cleared a more accessible path to the toilet, and pulled a bunch of blackberry. I mowed the grass and did some weeding.
On July 26, we enjoyed a pleasantly warm day for trail clearing, socializing, and sharing food and drinks. A very back corner of the land was dubbed “Cedar Cathedral” or “Forest Church” due to its beautiful shadowy lighting and peaceful feel. We cleared a nice path to it.
A very dedicated crew also cleared the entire side trail from the driveway up to the central clearing! And Douglas also enjoyed living his best dog life out on the land.
My partner and I ended up being the only ones camping overnight, but after the bustle of the whole day, that was fine with us. We went to bed early! But throughout the night, we could hear distant dogs barking at coyotes. I suspect that these are livestock guardian dogs, as there are a few small farms nearby, though not adjacent to Cosmic Acres. I’m not sure if coyotes are a nightly presence or occasional.
A beautiful, sunny, and quiet morning greeted us. We somehow forgot to bring the coffee, but fortunately there’s a convenience store 5 miles away. I got the last jar of instant coffee, and we stayed caffeinated for packing up and a little more trail work. We enjoyed the view of this Western swallowtail butterfly too.
August Outlook and Events
In August the land has a lot of fruit to offer us. The trailing blackberries are ending their season, while the evergreen huckleberries, salal berries, and Himalayan/Armenian/colonizer blackberries begin theirs. Probably due to the urban heat island effect, the berry season seems “delayed” out on the land. So while I’m regularly eating Himalayan blackberries growing in Seattle, nothing is ripe yet on Cosmic Acres.
In August we’ll be harvesting the non-native blackberries and then clearing them, trying to reduce the seed bank for next year. And we’ll be harvesting evergreen huckleberries, of which there is an amazing abundance on Cosmic Acres, more than I’ve ever seen anywhere else.