Oregon City Oregon - Week 41- October 5 - October 11, 2020

The most exciting happening of the week is that Travis Mower (his last name is really Jansik) came and finished clearing out the brush in the West Sector.  Here's what some of it looks like now, but it really looks better in person because one can see the broad expanse of our newly reclaimed property.

I walked around the perimeter of the newly cleared area and marked it on my GAIA GPS app on my phone.  The area encompassed in the red circle is now West Sector.  It is about .25 miles.

On the northwest corner of our property there is a point where three property lines come together (check previous photo).  I took this photo showing a really tall pole on a fence post at that three-point property corner.  And, there's a bit of pink surveyors tape at the top of the wooden fence post.  I've got a lot of brush clearing yet to do before we ever see the fence at that property line.

Remember the big cedar tree trunk that's down by the bridge I built?  I finally finished clearing off the mat of ivy!  And I cleaned out a rotten branch that was under the log which was impeding the flow of water in the creek. I'm calling this log, "Cedar Bridge".

I manhandled the "pelt of ivy" up the bank and managed to get it tied to a rope attached to the ATV and pulled it to the burn pile where it will meet its eventual demise.  It's folded up on itself and doesn't seem to be as impressive as it actually was.

Just up creek from the Cedar Bridge I started cleaning out the salmon berry thicket from both sides of East Creek.  The picture doesn't look too impressive, but it was hard to do, and the job isn't finished.  Wait till next week for another picture.

Malcolm cut up about half of the logs that we'd pulled out of the woods.  I split it all and stacked it so we'll be ready for when the "unknown" occurs - -as if that hasn't happened already in 2020.  Fortunately we have all the wood we'll need for two seasons already stacked in the basement.

Home School is going well.  The fourth graders studied the "microscopic world", and for a field trip, we went to Ryan's clinic and used his fancy schmancy microscope.  We looked at blood cells, whatever was in the urine sample, cells of an onion skin, salt crystals, spores from a mushroom, and a strand of Logan's hair.  Why didn't I take any photos of the kids looking in the microscope!!!!!  No excuse.

Ruby studied MOTION this week - up and down, around and around, fast and slow, push and pull...We contrasted and compared a cheetah and a tortoise, and I - - -because I have learned about Venn Diagrams_ - - - made a Venn Diagram to illustrate the sames and differences!!

The second graders learned that "a FORCE is energy that makes things move or change".  To demonstrate that, the kids hammered nails into wood (push) and then, with great difficulty, used the hammer claw to pull  out the nails.  Also did screws by turning and pushing them into the wood.

 

You ca tell when we've finally decided that winter and rain are coming - when we rollback the shade cloth - so sad.

That was the week - teaching science and working in the woods