Bloodletting and ladybugs

I spent the past two days line walking. Many miles were covered and my feet and muscles are feeling the burn. I made the mistake of not wearing carhartt pants yesterday and my knees are now covered with 20+ red thorn pricks. Nevermind my hands that repeatedly and accidentally groped thorny branches.

Here's some typical vistas along the line near my neck of the woods. It's been nice having a commute that's a maximum of 15 minutes. But alas, the more ground covered, the commute will grow.

The next outing will be the most difficult. There's major river crossings (too deep for kneet boots), many miles between parking/access roads. Nevermind the potential for vast and flooded wetlands. I've already been to areas that I'm sure rarely see humans.

By this afternoon, we seemed to be covered in ladybugs. When I got home, there was a zillion ladybugs on my deck. It's an infestation of cute bugs. Sure beats ticks and mosquitoes anyday.

Every rose has its thorn

Now it probably seems like my work is just finding cute animals and fun stuff. But nearly every outing brings me face to face with thickets of thorns. You have green brier, cat brier, multiflora rose, Japanese barberry, blackberry, wineberry, and raspberry. Plus your thorny trees such as black locust, honeylocust, hawthorn, osage orange, etc. When I say thickets, I mean THICKETS. I have my trusty garden clippers, but that will only take you so far. Every once in awhile, you'll find a deer path that dead ends. I've had my fair share of sliding on my belly to get through a thicket. During the height of the field season, my legs are dotted with red marks from these thorns. I've had a thorn under my thumb nail. I gave out a real nice scream for that. If you are the second person to walk through a thicket, you might get whacked by a thorny branch. Last week I got to remove a dead thorny branch from my eyebrow.

These poor chumps are in Vermont removing some thickets of multiflora rose. Boy do I have some spots for them to help out.

Japanese barberry, which the deer don't eat, multiplies like crazy and has thorns like needles. These thorns seems to survive in my pants even after a wash.