November weeds and swingblade

   Sunday morning was cool and clear. I took my old swing blade to the northeast gate to clear a path to the Tree Loop. The entry to the Tree Loop has had the entire growing season of 2019 to heal some of the damage from the over zealous line crew right of way clearing. Annual weeds have grown waist high and thick enough to obscure the entrance trail. Native Symphoricarpos coralberry or buckbrush and exotic Ligustrum privet have grown in. The steep slope down to the Wash and the trail along it, is now stabilized by shrubs and annual weeds. Down along the Wash, invasive Sorghum Johnsongrass is thick and high and made a bed for two deer. They pressed down the vegetation where they lay but kept a sheltering wall of tall weeds. (Through the Woods there are numerous new small buck scrapes where male whitetail have scraped away the leaf litter and marked the soil to mark their territory).
The northeast section of the Tree Loop has also grown up in panic grass and other grasses. enough to obscure the way. I cleared a path through overgrown areas along the Pipeline Trail and to the top of the Levee Trail.
  I noticed fewer than 20% of the leaves of the bur oak and pecan had fallen. The oak leaves were still quite green and healthy. I wonder if this will change quickly now with our recent sharp cold temperatures down into the mid 20's F.
  I watched one squirrel out gathering winter food. It looks like the bur oak may have had a mast year for acorns(?) not entirely obvious.
  I walked down to the patch of invasive bittersweet and found two more largish older vines, both with green leaves up in the canopy. I pulled them up by the roots. Surprising how many of the vines there are. I keep thinking I have eradicated all the large ones, only to find more.
  At the beaver dam the crossing was dry, although Island Crossing was still fairly full.
  Around the Woods with cool mild fall temperatures and some good rains the new growth of winter green plants is beginning, grasses and annual forbs both.