Bifrost

Neighbor Blake had his bobcat out at the back field to load bales.  He switched out the fork for a shovel implement and went cross field to dig out more dirt to widen Bifrost, the dam he and Brother Phil made last year across the low area I need to cross w/ the lawnmower to get to the back 80.  Last year we'd buried three plastic pipes to conduct water underneath the dam.  This spring when the snow melted, I observed that, at least one of the pipes was working well but the water had found a low spot at the other end of the dam and was going over that instead of through the pipes.  While the dam was wide enough for Svaldilfari to cross, when I took Jormungandr the tires spanned the width of the dam and it was a little tricky to cross.  I worried frequent crossings w/ the UTV would eventually break down the sides.  Phil and I went back to Menards this time and got three more pipes.  He used a bandsaw to cut them into thirds and married the ends to the existing buried pipes to extend them out.  Then Blake brought in more gravel/soil to widen the dam and Phil dug a little ditch so the errant stream of water over the end of the dam would instead find it's way to the pipes.  He dug up a lot of fist sized stones and used those to add some strength to the sides of the dam.  Bifrost is now comfortably wide enough for Jormungandr.  Next spring I'll check and see if there is still water coming over the end of the dam and if the buried pipes are conducting water under and away from the dam.

Phil had been bemoaning that he hadn't seen much wildlife this visit.  (I reminded him he did have two ticks.)  On the constitutional last night I saw a fox.  Haven't seen one in a few years since coyotes tend to chase them off (or worse).  While I like the sound of a pack of coyotes howling on a winter's night, I had been missing the high pitched yelp of a vixen.  The countryside is always changing but the changes can be subtle.   For the past years, the wild area in front of Sleipnir's windows has been tall Maximillian Sunflowers.  This year only one plant grew and the rest of the area is Canadian goldenrod.  A stretch of land at the border of the lawn is usually where I see bunches of catnip.  This year it's calico asters.   In nature nothing is perfect and everything is perfect.