Four days have passed and the Monarch community on our Bottlebrush Buckeye has quadrupled. There are up to one thousand Monarchs flitting about the bush. There was a powerful rain shower that washed over us this afternoon; it will be interesting to see how many remain tomorrow. Are they gathering on the bush over a period of days and recharging their batteries before continuing on their journey? Or do groups simply stop, feed for a few hours and continue on, in a continuous migrating stream that to my eye looks static?

Last year, in late September, I was working outside clearing brush along a lane to one of our pastures. It was a partly sunny warm September morning; then all of a sudden it began to sprinkle, and the sprinkle turned into a light rain for only a few minutes. Then the skies cleared. That alone was a pleasant experience, but I’ll never forget what happened next. From out of the skies, millions of Monarchs settled onto our farm. It was surreal. They weighed down the Oaks, Maples and Locusts along the lane. I wandered out to the farm proper and gazed down the hill towards our outdoor arena and saw thousands upon thousands of Monarchs flitting about in the air; rising and settling, rising and settling. I ran to the indoor to tell Nancy, and for a few minutes we just stared at the clouds of Monarchs dancing in the air. Then as quickly as they arrived, they were gone. I imagine they were drying their wings well enough to continue on their journey.

This was the Pergola on the North Side of our house. Last year, shortly after we moved into the house, I removed all of the wild grape, ivy and virginia creeper vines that had completely enshrouded the latticework. It took three days. Until recently, renovating the Pergola has been on my list of low priority projects. But with our Spring 2007 plans now including an in-ground pool where lawn is visible in the photo, the Pergola had become a higher priority.

At first glance, the Pergola is quite attractive. But if you look more closely, you’d notice that the far left front post is tilting severely to the right. In person you’d notice that it’s also tilting backward, as are the two left rear posts. This tilt was pushing the low side of the retaining wall (located just beneath the rear lattice wall) and creating a crack that, left unchecked, would worsen until the semi-circle wall was severely compromised. A semi-circle wall that is approximately 12’ tall when it reaches the house! On top of the structural defects, much of the latticework at 20 years of age was quite fragile, and the rails were no longer strong enough to support it. So, despite my desire to renovate the Pergola, I had to face the facts. The Pergola had to go. So, with Nancy’s parents Paul and Frances visiting for the week,  today at 2pm seemed as good a time as any.

It’s amazing what two people with a tractor and a Gator can do in only three hours. Only the eight rear 6×6 posts remain, and six lattice panels. The rest of the Pergola, along with two of the three star shaped flower beds built from 6×6 lumber stacked three high, is in a heap next to my machine shed. In just a few more hours, the rest of the Pergola will be gone, and the area will be cleaned up. I mourn the loss of the “idea” of the Pergola, although we truly never used it. I’ll miss looking out and seeing it as part of my landscape. But, as they say, sometimes you need to take one step backward in order to take two steps forward. And I’m beginning to envision many possibilities, including a beautiful semi-circular poolhouse porch with a shower, an outdoor kitchen and pleny of places to sit and smell the Dogwoods

In internet related news, Marketingtool.com is now exceeding 13,500 visitors on a typical business day. That’s a 10% increase for the second half of the year and represents a larger traffic increase than I had targeted for the end of the year. Good stuff.

NewHorse.com, published less than 6 months ago, is now serving over 2,200 visitors on a typical business day. Clearly this property is going to be quite popular as it stands, but the rapid growth had inspired me to further develop it’s features. I’ve got a few things in mind, thanks to the input from visitors to the site. I’d like to see NewHorse.com hit 5,000 daily visitors by the end of the year. NewHorse.com will never have the ROI of a Marketingtool.com but I believe it will eventually outperform Marketingtool.com on volume.

InspectionZone.com and BigDaySmallWorld.com are holding stable. InspectionZone.com is growing slowly, which seems to be in line with the slowing real estate market. BigDay is entering a highly competitive arena, so I have to be more competitive and patient with this particular project.

I hope to have time in October to roll out additional properties that will offer a useful resource to some underserved markets. With the acquisition of an additional dedicated server I now have more room for growth.

Nancy, the girls and I thoroughly enjoyed our 45 minute guided tour of Dixie Caverns in Salem, VA. Beforehand, we shopped their folksy antique and gift center, and picked up some nice finds. After leaving the caverns we stopped in at Macado’s for some lunch before heading back home. It was a nice day away from the farm.

Upon returning home at 2:00pm I brought in all ten horses. The National Weather Service claimed in no uncertain terms that severe thunderstorms were heading our way. Well, they were indeed heading our way but before reaching us they took an abrupt southern turn and hit Martinsville instead. We are getting light rain instead, and now I have ten stalls to clean in the morning. Our area NWS seems often befuddled by our mountainous topology, which I find curious because Vermont had similar topology and equally dynamic weather patterns but the NWS up there did a much better job of accurately predicting weather. Down here they seem to widen the warning areas and in turn create a good many false alarms.

Our massive Bottlebrush Buckeye is being doted on by hundreds of Monarch Butterflies. This Buckeye won’t quit. According to texts it blooms in June and July. Ours did in fact bloom in June and July. It also bloomed in August and September. If it keeps up it will be blooming in October too. The Monarchs don’t seem to mind that our Bottlebrush is not playing by the rules.

My 10 megapixel Nikon D200 astounds me each time I use it. One thing that I do not take for granted is the image resolution. Each photo taken is 3872×2592 pixels. To see the entire photo on a computer in the actual pixel resolution, you would need nine typical displays set up in a 3×3 grid! When I post photos taken with the D200, I shrink them down to 1024×683 pixels so the entire photo – when enlarged – can be seen by the viewer – on one display – without panning around. As a small example of the actual resolution of the photo above, here is a crop from the master file:

You can almost count the hairs on the back of the Monarch!

The camera is a real joy to use. I can’t seem to take enough photos with it. However, I must temper that zeal and keep only the most delightful photos. Because every photo jpeg consumes +/– 5 megabytes of space.

It’s hard to believe that just three years ago I was standing in my backyard in Vermont, taking this picture of the Champlain Valley and its Green Mountains. So much has changed since then. We packed alot of things in our last three trips around the sun.

Vermont is a wonderful state, so very rich in color and beauty nearly every month of the year. I have to be honest when I’m asked; when it comes to pastoral landscapes, I feel Vermont is just a little prettier than Virginia on the whole. But that beauty comes with a price. Winters crash the party much earlier in Vermont. Spring is fashionably late. When Spring finally arrives it is called by a different name in Vermont: Mud Season. So when it comes to enjoying the great outdoors… because we don’t ski, snowboard, snowmobile, snowshoe or ice fish, it’s no contest. Virginia wins my heart hands down.

While searching for a pair of coveralls for my wife, it didn’t take me long to discover that they’re nearly impossible to find. However, I lucked out and discovered Charm and Hammer. You can also find their products on Ebay as well. In a few minutes I was able to order a women’s coverall that was exclusive to Charm and Hammer. If you have a blog, why not spread the word and help support Charm and Hammer, a woman owned store in Apex, NC.

Next week I recommence fence construction. This 4 acre field is due to be divided into two 2 acre fields. I will be dividing such that both fields will retain some shade trees. The dead tree will have to come down. Which begs the question: why didn’t I cut the dead tree down before I built a perimeter fence 30’ away? Oh well. It’s just electric tape. Nice and stretchy.

The creek’s ecosystem appears to be benefitting from the absence of horses stomping down or otherwise disposing of wild flowers and grasses. I didn’t anticipate the beauty of the end of summer wildflowers. Good medicine!

During the Spring when I was renovating this Trellis I was leaning heavily towards cutting down our overgrown Scarlet Firethorns. After bearing witness once again to the fruit that inspired the name, I’m vowing to keep them.

I just have to figure out how to do it without killing the shrubs or giving myself an accidental vasectomy.

All that stands between me and the next trail is, oh, three hundred Poplars. They’re straight as an arrow rising 90’ on average. I wonder if the local lumber mill would cut them for me. Time to do some homework.