So a zone describes an area of a property by how much attention or what kind of activities go on there. Zone 0 is the dwelling. Zone 1 is where multiple-times-daily activities go on. Arriving, leaving, getting the mail, getting herbs for the next meal, walking the dog, stuff like that. Zone 5 is completely unmanaged, where you hardly ever go at all and don't mess with anything. The other zones are a spectrum between these.
My Zone 1 where I walk the dogs is my uncle's Zone 4, where he just bush hogs 3 times per year and takes the occasional 4-wheeler ride.
I marked the back yard between Dad's house and the Man Cave, as well as my uncle's yard between his house and the barn, as Zone 2 because it's for hanging out and doing projects like making boat paddles or playing with a rocket stove. They don't do these things every day or even every week.
A microclimate is an area where the climate is just a bit different from the surrounding areas. Usually they refer to small places, like the side of a building that is sheltered from the north wind but catches the full sun. Or the curved edge of a forest that blocks the sizzling western sun. Or the corner of a pasture that stays boggy all the time. Think about sun, wind, and moisture, and also how these are different with the seasons.
It's harder to identify microclimates in the dead of winter. Usually the differences in climate encourage differences in vegetation. There currently isn't much vegetation. Just red deadnettle all over the place.
Google Slides' polyline tool is the most infuriating thing.
Google Slides' tendency to jump the screen all around when trying to click in it while zoomed in is also crazy making.
I can download the slides and work on them in PowerPoint and then put them back. Waaaaaaaay better. Going to do that for every assignment from now on. Libraries sometimes have PowerPoint on their public computers, so that's an option for others as well.
I may have split the hairs too fine on the microclimates. I put three different kinds of pasture land and two different kinds of shaded land. Also the edge of the pond hasn't been allowed to grow the things edges of ponds should grow, so it's not that different from pasture land itself, but I still put it as a distinct microclimate.
Past few days the temps didn't get above freezing. That's kind of a relief. It's supposed to be winter. I've paused my daily morning walks with dogs, especially the day with freezing rain.
Oo freezing rain just now.
Temps will be back in the 70s end of next week.
For school I have a lot of reading and videos to catch up on. Also quite a lot of self assigned homework in addition to the official homework. Map corrections mostly. I completed my tree inventory but not my junk inventory. I may have captured enough drone imagery of the junk as to not have to waste a perfectly good walk on it.
To-do list for my presentation:
Site introduction
Add the long drone views
Base map
Fix the ditch in Mares Pasture
Move the south sinkhole toward the west
Fix the addition to the shed
Do the “current features” map
All the trees on the site and the major neighboring trees that affect the site
Current location of tiny house
Campers, boats, farm equipment
Sigh. Map the junk.
Do an “imminent plans” map with new locations for
Tiny house
Outdoor kitchen/porch/shower/outhouse
Bunkhouse
Gravel driveway and loop
Do a “deer” map
Where they have been lured
Where they aren’t wanted
Where the stands are
List the existent tree and plant species inventoried so far
I'm already getting ideas about strategic use of shade and enhancing privacy. The main problem with the south fence is that it's all tall trees. This puts a lot of shade high in the air where it can affect a lot of the property. Meanwhile, everyone can see right past the trunks and watch us walking around and going about our lives.
I'd like a lot fewer trees on the fence line. And I'd like more vegetation at less than ten feet tall. I'm thinking trellises with blackberries, grapes, passion vine, hops, that sort of thing. To be fair, a lot of that cover would go away in the winter, but some is better than none. I'd have to be sure that whatever goes there is harmless to horses.
Meanwhile, I'd like more, shorter trees elsewhere. Good pruning can keep them manageable sizes, keep the branches accessible. And also help prevent gigantic branches dropping on us from fifty feet during an ice storm.
Most of the trees are towering oaks and pecans, some of them diseased and crumbling. I'd like to have figs, persimmons, pawpaws, native plums, mulberries and all sorts. Not just your usual apple, pear, peach that folks often go for, though a few of those might be nice too.
In permaculture, sector refers to the energies that impact a site. A sector compass is a way of representing from what directions these energies are occurring.
So as you see here, water affects the whole site. It's quite flat and absorbent, and we do get rain.
Crop dusting most severely from the west but also from the east and south.
The reach of the summer sun is much wider than the reach of the winter sun, as it's more overhead, while the winter sun is more from the south.
We get highway noise and pollution from the east and train noise and pollution from the west.
We get wildlife from the woods to the north and across the field to the west. Now that I think about it, we probably get it from Mares Pasture to the south too.
Public view has to do with lack of privacy. Our entire south side is wide open from the highway as it curves around us. I'm getting some ideas about this.
I thought it interesting to distinguish the usual prevalent winds from the south-southwest from the storm winds of south-southeast and east.
Crop dusting doesn't just affect us from the adjacent field to the west. It's from the nearby fields to the east and south too.
Shade is both a challenge and a solution. The difference is in getting strategic with it.
There are so many opportunities to tie this project in with what I want to do in town re: Permaculture Club and the wood chip business. Synergize for multiplying effects.
Of natural disasters, wildfire is the least of our worries. If you don't count the natural disasters that just don't occur here, like avalanche.
There's a lot to do with trees and resilience to natural disaster. I didn't realize that deep rooting and wind resistant trees can make such a difference.
I don't think most of the mosquitoes are coming from the pond. The patterns of the duckweed tell me that the winds stir it around a lot. We should still treat it for mosquitoes anyway though.
No, I think this swamp in the neighbor's woods makes a much more pleasant place for them to reproduce in the shelter of all these trees and vines. I'll need to ask his permission to treat that area too. Once I know how.
University of North Carolina uses BTI to organically treat mosquitoes. It's a bacterium that gets into their guts and renders them sterile. Only works in mosquitoes and fungus gnats.
I know about Mosquito Dunks (donut-shaped BTI cookies that work for a month) and Mosquito Bits (granules that work for a week) but this kind of large and hard-to-access situation may need some other method.
As mentioned before, acorns are amazingly scarce on the ground this year. The pecans are awful too. They look wonderful lying around, but most have this black stuff good on, or some white and black stuff. A few didn't have it but instead are all withered instead.
Last year I snacked on pecans out of the yard all the time. Haven't found a single good one this time around.
This could be stink bug damage but they don't usually ruin the entire kernel, just black spots on otherwise healthy looking meat. Could be a scab disease.
It rained for three days. It'll rain again tomorrow. The ground is fully saturated so more rain will mean flooding that has nothing to do with rivers or hills, although other places will get those floods too.
I still need to get out with the map on clipboard and inventory the trees and the junk piles and the campers etc. for a “current conditions” map for school. Also a map of imminent plans, like where the tiny house and outdoor kitchen are going.
