Tom Bexley

With cheatgrass and houndstongue I'd worry more about stopping another crop of seed than making the whole yard look pretty this fall. Anything with mature seed heads gets dealt with first and handled carefully so you're not spreading them everywhere while pulling. Then reclaim the areas you actually care about most, around the fruit trees and berries, and work outward a little at a time. Take some pictures now too. Once everything dies back it can be surprisingly hard to remember exactly where the worst patches were when spring comes around.

One thing to watch is how late they get seeded. Winter-kill is convenient, but if the oats only get a couple inches tall before cold shuts them down you miss a lot of the root mass and residue you're planting them for in the first place. The reseeding comments are interesting too. If easy spring planting is the goal, terminating before mature seed develops seems worth keeping in mind even if winter normally kills the plants. Have you decided whether you're sowing oats alone or mixing in something like peas or another legume?

Borates can be useful on accessible unfinished wood, but please be careful about treating them as the whole termite solution. They protect the wood that actually absorbs the treatment. They don't remove a subterranean colony in the soil or fix the conditions that let termites reach the structure. For a house I'd put the boring stuff first(no pun intended lol) : keep wood and soil separated, correct leaks and chronically damp wood, keep siding and framing out of soil contact, and make the foundation area inspectable so mud tubes don't stay hidden. Then borate treatment can be another layer where the wood is accessible and stays reasonably dry. That distinction matters because somebody can treat a few exposed boards, see no insects there, and still have termites entering somewhere else.

One combination I keep seeing that sounds really good is maple syrup with Dijon mustard. A little of each on roasted carrots, squash or sweet potatoes seems like it would give you sweet without turning the whole thing into dessert.
I may have to experiment with that one. Maple syrup is too expensive to waste on a bad experiment though 😄

I think some shrinkage is probably just unavoidable with 80/20 because you're cooking out fat and water. What I'd try is forming them noticeably wider than the bun to begin with and a little thinner than you ultimately want.
The center divot sounds like a good trick for keeping them from turning into little meatballs, but if the problem is mostly diameter, starting oversized may be the simplest answer. I'd probably make one comically wide test burger and see where it ends up after cooking.

Congrats on pulling it off. An old house, a big tree, knotweed and a Michigan basement sounds like you managed to buy yourself a whole hobby along with the house
If it were mine I'd probably make a boring priority list before getting sucked into the fun projects: anything involving water first, then roof, then anything that could fall on the house, then the rest. Old houses seem to have a way of making the cosmetic stuff look urgent while the unexciting stuff is what actually saves money later.

Borrowing tools from neighbors seems like one that's fading too. There used to be less expectation that every house needed its own copy of every tool.
You knew who had the post hole digger, who had the trailer, who had the good ladder, and sooner or later they borrowed something from you. Probably saved everybody money and gave people a reason to actually know each other.

The mushroom powder comment caught my attention. I've seen it mentioned a few times as a way to add some depth without making the dish taste obviously like mushrooms. Another one I keep seeing is a little unsweetened cocoa in chili. Not enough to make it taste like chocolate, just enough to darken the flavor a bit. Has anyone here tried that?

If you want to know whether the ants are involved I wouldn't worry too much about the number of nests in the yard. Watch the actual tree. Look at the trunk and main branches for 5 or 10 minutes when its warm and the ants are active. If they're tending aphids you will usually see workers moving up and down the same route and spending time right around the aphid colonies. I'd also look underneath the curled leaves. The ants can be pretty easy to miss from a few feet away, especially on a small tree.
The thing is, if there are tons of ants in the yard but no traffic going up the plum, I wouldn't blame them for the aphid problem without some more evidence.

The insect question would make me a little more cautious about leaving the bales exposed. I don't know that straw itself would be especially attractive to carpenter ants, but gaps between bales are another story. Ants don't always need to excavate something to use it, sometimes an existing void is good enough. And if there is wood framing nearby that stays damp you've given them an even better place. I'd probably be more concerned with keeping the wall dry and eliminating easy entry points than trying to make the straw itself insect proof. A good plaster coat with the bottom and openings detailed well seems like cheap insurance.

Fire ants are a different animal of course, but I wouldnt assume “ants haven't bothered my bales yet” means insects never will.