Lazy Day

I took it easy yesterday. I bought a plastic strainer so that I can search for minerals and fossils in local creeks. Just a simple plastic colander. Yesterday was the first time I've tried using this method to look for stuff, and I didn't spend a lot of time messing around with it. But I did find a nice piece of white quartz. If I can find enough decent stones I may drag out my father-in-law's old tumbler and lapidary stuff and polish them up.

Spent a little time there on Gar Creek. The most interesting things I saw were animal tracks. Some were quite fresh. In fact, I think the deer had just passed by before I got there. I saw some fox tracks, but they were so faint that I couldn't get good images of them with the camera.

Since the creek was near my wife's family church I drove over to clean up the grave site where her father and brother are buried. There wasn't much to do beyond pulling up some stray tufts of grass and brushing off the headstone.

Then I headed back where I checked on the backyard hemlocks and am very pleased to see that there has been no new sign of the wooly adelgid infestation. The insecticide I treated them with last year seems to have completely killed off the hwa. I used both a spray application and soil drench. I think I killed off the little scumbags for good. From what I understand, the hemlocks shouldn't need another treatment for a few years. I'll keep my eyes peeled to make sure.

Gar Creek. Didn't find much. I'll try again another day.

I think the deer had just passed by. (Water was slowly filling the tracks when I found them.)

Raccoon tracks. I also spotted some little gray fox tracks but they were too faint to photograph effectively.

One last look at Gar Creek before I walked back to the truck.

 

Cleaned off the Henderson family plot.

Checked on the back yard hemlocks. So far, they seem to be completely free of hemlock wooly adelgid.