April 2016
We will try again to write about how I spend my day here at Sherwood's Forests. See how long we last this time.
Overview
Dry spring -- no pond day yet.
Duck Frogs.
Web page analytics
6 April
At last: We have some water coming through the culvert under the access road. Just a trickle, tiny compared to the real amount we should have had. The pond still has another foot of head space to the spillway. I'm not holding my breath until it flows over.
8 April
The ice is gone from the pond. And sure 'nuff, The duck frogs are sounding. We have two types of frogs, and I can never remember their "real" names. Laura and I call them duck frogs and door frogs for the sounds they make. (I think they are Boreal frogs and Chorus frogs. Don't know which is which.
10 April
I'm trying to make winter. I took the snowblower off the tractor. This year I even thought ahead enough to put it properly on a pallet so that it will be easier to hook up next fall.
Turned the water on today too. Haven't cleaned the filter yet, but we have water all the way to the pot yard.
Analytics.
I now have a week of analytics since I discovered my error on tracking codes. Comparing to the same week last year, I discovered some interesting bits:
Time per session is way up. 16 minutes compared to 2.5 minutes last last year. I credit this to the improvements I've made to readability: Shorter lines horizontally -- average 8-10 words. Bigger space vertically. And right justified margins, which gives a clean look. However there is another possible explanation: More people are catching on to "Right Click, open in new tab" so a page may sit there for a while before people actually read it. The average time per page (almost 3 minutes) supports this.
Bounce rate is down. Used to be about 65% now it's in the low 30's. I think this is in part due to partial attempts to make the site easier to read and use on mobile (30% of my traffic) and partly due to having better internal links.
Pages per session is way up. 228% of last year. Over double what they were last year. 6-plus pages compared to 3-minus. This ties in with bounce rate. Afterall everyone who didn't bounce read at least one other page. This one, to me is a real indicator of engagement.
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12 April
Tree Day, the day that the Jeffries truck arrives, has been moved from April 22 to April 29. Gives me one week less to work with the bare root stuff. I've called for helpers, with payment in trees, and have 8 people lined up to come and help. More than that, I think we will get in each other's way.
Correction to something I said in February: This year we do have our own trailer.
Last year I had a couple of platform dollies that I made up from plywood and castors. They really sped up unloading the trailer. Spent an hour adding some screws to make them sturdier, and regreasing the castors.
Laura and I cleaned out the sweetpea planters. Time to replace the trellises. So I cut new sticks, and got them stained.
Got the last of the plywood that I got from Chad sorted out. Close to a full lift of 3/4 plywood, mostly in half sheets and larger.
Put out 3 pocket gopher traps. Caught one by day's end.
13 April
Spent most of yesterday fixing up the sweet pea planters and moving them closer to the deck.
14 April
My back is telling me that I was moving 20 gallon pots full of dirt yesterday.
Today is book sorting. Finish shelving all the books downstairs in something sensible.
Evening: The books are -- sort of -- done. All the boxes are off the floor.
Didn't run today.
15 April
New guy came by to work for a couple hours to see if we get along. Wyatt Muth (Like the liquor ver mouth Or like the Mooth latht winter ate the rathberrieth. Grade 12. Strong, good worker. Asks some questions.
Cleared out some dead pots, taught Wyatt how to fix pipes. Walked some lines. He picks up fast.
City of Edmonton came through. We will be supplying several thousand bucks worth of trees to them.
Ran today. Felt sucked out all evening too.
16 April
Scion wood day. Picked up a few apple and pear scions.
17 April
New guy, Wyatt, started today. He's a high school student, grade 12, at Winfield, a town about 50 km away. My new way to hire: I don't bother with an interview. Young people have no resume. So I say, come and work with me for 2 hours. I'll pay you 20 bucks cash for your time and gas. If I like what I see, we'll try for a longer period.
We spent the time consolidating the north two blocks in Finlandia, and checking driplines.
20 April
Went out to look at the dogwood in my shelterbelt. Cut 5 buckets of twigs. Started 500 with Wyatt's help. Used rooting compound #3 -- 0.8%IBA
22 April
The coyote willow I cut was mostly 6-8 feet. So with it, we took a 3-4 foot tip and struck those directly in the dirt, and cut the remainder into small chunks and started in styroblocks. So there are 180 #2's and just over 1000 330 ml plugs.
Today we did the same treatment with a bundle of balsam poplar.
Didn't use the bandsaw: Node distance is too erratic.
All of these I've parked in the shade: They aren't going to photo-synthesize until they have a leaf, so I figure that they sit in the shade and the tops dry less while they are making up their mind about roots. Give them 3 weeks there. Really should work up something for bottom heat.
Hmm: Lay out two grids of dripline. Cover one grid with black plastic. in the sun. Put the blocks on the other. Small solar powered fountain pump circulating the water. Wonder if that would be accurate enough.
### 23 April
Well we managed just over 300 balsam poplar in 330 ml cells, and about 60 in #2 pots. My minion was out partying until 4 a.m. last night. Was kind of dragging his butt by the end of the day.
Didn't help that it was cool to chilly. I think it got up to 10 C, and the wind never stopped blowing. Wore my toque most of the day.
Started work on the narrow leaf willow.
24 April
Today is even cooler. I've huddled inside fixing the web page:
When I moved all the Almanac pages, the old links in Google's cache are no longer valid. So I'm getting more 404 errors. Put in a custom error document for the Almanac section to go to the top of the Almanac section. So anyone who linked to 2016-April-10 now will be at the top of 2016 instead of getting a 404 "Page not found" error.
For the rest of the site, an error now brings up a site map. Had to beat that one up to get it format nicely.
Wed. a.m. I'm in town doing a delivery (pine & spruce) and a pickup. (grapes) Should be back by lunch.
Friday starting at noon is Jeffries.
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Sherwood's Forests is located about 75 km southwest of Edmonton, Alberta. Please refer to the map on our Contact page for directions.