Exterminators, Excavators & Wild Food

🪲🐛🐝 🌳🚜👨‍🦰 🏚️🥲🪚

This week at the cabin, I was able to meet with a few contractors and chop down some trees with my Dad. I walked around and foraged some of my favorite summer treats in the woods too. August is such a lovely time of year in New York. The weather is warm and the lake is cool.

An Exterminator

First of all, most of the happenings were caught on my solar security camera, which I just got replaced. It captured us actually working up there, which is a fun visual.

Since the carpenter bees have continued to make a home in some logs, I finally hired an exterminator. I signed up to be on their yearly plan, which means they will come and spray the logs and treat the bee holes twice a year.

If there are any other infestations during that time, they will come out and address it for free! For $800/year that seems like a screaming deal. There are definitely still some pests hanging out at the cabin so I’ll give them a run for their money.

Is this a “permaculture approach”? Heck no. I’ve tried everything else within my power and I have to hire a professional at this point. Interestingly, the guy told me that when I sprayed the carpenter bee holes myself, that likely just bothered the bees and they just dug a new hole right next door.

Also, if I plug the holes in the summer, when the larvae hatch in the fall, they just chewed their way out. This alone makes it worth hiring a professional. This was long overdue and I’m hoping it’ll finally be the end of it.

An Excavator

After the first driveway guy fell through, I contacted another company in the area. We met on Friday afternoon and walked around the property.

This company will send me a quote, which is definitely progress! He suggested it would be more cost effective to try and repair the current road. He also suggested cutting and building a more gentle road down to the cabin to create a small loop, instead of trying to dig a 500 foot driveway across the slope. That all makes sense to me.

He said the project could take two weeks and they wouldn’t be available until the end of next year. That’s good news because it will require some building of goodwill and communication with my neighbors while the road is being actively worked on for so long.

It depends on the price, but I’m excited about the possibility of this project to open access to the cabin for more of the year.

Little Projects

I only had a week here in New York and I was working remotely the whole time, so I didn’t anticipate taking on any huge projects. I just did small stuff before and after work, when I could.

My Dad and I chopped down some of the trees to start to open a view towards the lake from the cabin. The photo doesn’t look like much, but this was about an hour of work to clear 50 feet of the hill.

We also removed the large cast iron stove, which opens the cabin space a lot more. As I’ve said before, this stove is WAY too big for the space. I may add a smaller one back in, or just go with electric baseboard heat or a mini-split system.

Moving the stove was required to replace the flooring anyway, so this is another little win. We used the mower and a cart to bring the stove over to the shed to store it.

We hauled the stove in the mower. It’s gotta be 200 pounds!

Wild Food

This is what I really love about this place. Here’s a gallery of some of my favorite wild foods I saw (and ate!) this week. August is a special time when things are all ripe, but it’s still summer. I saw about 10 roadside apple trees, flush with apples. 

My favorite are the thimbleberries - a sweeter, more delicate raspberry that is too soft to commercially cultivate, but would make amazing jam.

There were tons of black walnuts and hickory nuts on the ground, even though it’s a bit early for those. I think they got knocked off during a storm.

The tower of wild grapes are not ripe quite yet. It’s seriously gotta be 25 feet high, climbing up this tree on my land.

Thimbleberry, Hickory Nut, Wild Grapes

That’s all for now, friends.

Thanks for tuning in, as always.