Bittersweet battle and potential new invasive.

  Returned to the Woods this chilly Sunday morning to remove a couple of Amur honeysuckle on the Dune Trail and to clean up some more of the remaining bittersweet stems. Both projects were more extensive than I anticipated. I had spotted two invasive Amur honeysuckle Lonicera maackii, one filled with bright red berries. Cutting and treating the stumps was straightforward, but then I noticed more of the Amur honeysuckle in lower folilage. I had cut four or five there last year, and almost all had started to regrow. I cut and treated them again and then found another large Amur honeysuckle I had not noticed before, again loaded with berries. I cut and treated it and resolved to check this area again next year.
  I hopped across the water at beaver dam and walked north to the patch of bittersweet. It appears things are improving. It is harder to find the bittersweet leaves now.. but then I crawled under a couple of old dead half-fallen junipers and there were dozens of sprouts. Many of these were from stems and roots I had broken off last year and they had grown back. Many of them. Not easy to get to in the tangle of vines and tough branches under the juniper. I dug and pulled to get up as much of the roots as possible.. but I am not sure if it is better to leave those in place so that, when treating, the treatment is carried through the root. Worked a few hours on this and was pretty tired, but thought I had done well. Then looked up in the tall pecan leaning over the dead juniper. There, and in an adjacent live juniper, there were large bittersweet vines ascending to the canopy. I dug, pulled, cut and treated as best I could. These were the two largest bittersweet vines alive in the patch this summer. I know I will need to return to his spot - maybe in a couple of weeks and certainly next year.
  In the afternoon I decided to go with the warm 72 F weather while it was here and do some re-marking of trails with blue tree paint. Got much of this done. Found one white-tail deer in the SW section and one armadillo in the central east near the big old pecans and near the wash.. both in the morning.
  The water on the Main SW trail was receding well.. probably because it had been dry for so long. But strong cold front is due to arrive tonight with more rain on Tuesday. Sure enough, at 4:20 there was a sudden shift in the light southerly breeze. It became a cooler northwest wind and began a rain of falling leaves. Busy full day. I headed out back across the beaver dam and saw a half dozen roseate skimmer dragonflies Orthemis ferruginea, beautiful red libelluid skimmers. Active patrolling territories. Hope they and their next generation stick around to keep the mosquitoes down.
  Spotted one more invasive I'm afraid.. Berberis.. one on the Tree Loop (near Pipeline Trl jct) and one elsewhere. I need to confirm identity and then go after it.