Stunted Growth
For all the glorious trees we get to enjoy in our woods, there are plenty that are far from thriving. It can be frustrating to watch a tree year after year and not see healthy growth. I try to console myself with the fact that they haven’t completely died yet, but the way they linger for years without new signs of vigor just ends up being a long, slow slide toward eventually disappearing.
There are a couple of pines in our north loop field that serve as examples of what I am talking about.
In both cases, look at the fullness of the trees behind them. These scrawny trees are missing something the other trees are getting. I don’t know whether all the pines in this area were intentionally planted years ago, but I suspect most of them were, and I believe many of them were put in the ground with the roots poorly arranged. We’ve lost quite a few that looked like the trees were strangled by their own roots.
This field is also heavily trafficked by deer. They can be pretty ruthless on small trees. The little tree in the image above has a big portion of its middle munched. I’ve decided to gamble on letting the deer have some trees and hoping there will be enough other sprouts that grow past the most vulnerable stage and become future contributors to an overhead canopy I envision happening in our north loop field someday.
I don’t expect to have any ash trees being a part of that future.
If you’ve never seen the damage caused by the emerald ash borer beetle, we’ve got plenty of evidence for exhibit A.
There are probably as many ailing trees in our woods as there are healthy ones. A forest certainly isn’t a static system. Birth and death are happening constantly, so I never try to think of it as needing to exist in one specific way. I feel good about trying to help the more desirable trees flourish and being conscientious about controlling any takeover by invasives.
I’m choosing not to fight to avoid losing some types of trees and hoping that whichever trees successfully adapt to the warming climate and increasingly destructive storms will make for an inviting forest to visit for many years after I’m gone.
If we keep seeing occurrences of stunted growth like the pines in the north loop, that future forest I’m envisioning will just take a longer time to happen.
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Humble Pie
It’s fair to say that we have passed the peak of fall colors at Wintervale, but we are still a ways away from bare trees with brown as the primary hue across the landscape.
This tree just outside the barn has covered the ground below with leaves, but it looks like the majority are still clinging to its branches.
It serves to demonstrate just how incredible the number of leaves there are on a tree. Multiply that uncountable quantity by hundreds of trees, and you get a sense of why there are many inches deep of leaves on our pathways.
This time of year, it becomes a challenge to walk in the woods without twisting an ankle on a hidden root or hole in the ground that fools a planted foot without warning.
I enjoyed a fresh, humbling dose of embarrassment yesterday morning after pointing out to Cyndie that the clip was missing from the remote control for Asher’s e-collar. She wasn’t aware. As I headed out the door with Asher for morning chores, I suggested she check the pockets of her pants for it.
Maybe 15 minutes later, as I was walking beside the back pasture fence, I kept hearing a faint “click” that almost sounded like the electric fence was on. I knew that it wasn’t, so my mind considered other possibilities.
I reached down and found the control was tapping against the loose clip in my pants pocket. [rolls eyes/slaps forehead]
When I got back to the house after feeding the horses, before I could say anything, Cyndie reported that she had checked the pockets of all her pants and couldn’t find the clip.
“Yeah, about that…”
Luckily, she found the whole thing laughable and not an annoyance, which I would have deserved. Will I ever learn to check myself first before automatically assuming she is to be blamed for things? Hmmm. Not sure I have a great track record of such self-awareness when it comes to issues between us.
Then more servings of humble pie it shall be.
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Sawing Ironwood
A tree in our woods has been leaning over one of our footpaths for more than a week. Each morning, Cyndie and I check with each other for opinions on whether or not it is leaning a little more. It had a good number of long, thin branches tangling with surrounding trees and many tall, skinny trees that got bent over as the leaner came down, so I was in no hurry to do anything about it.
Recent winds brought it close enough down that it had become too hard to ignore.
Our kids visited on Sunday, and during halftime of the Vikings game, Julian and I went out to soak up some of that hot sunshine. I took him down to see the fallen tree and spontaneously decided to see if I could pull free the bent-over trees it had caught on its slow descent toward the ground. When that resulted in success, we then took a shot at helping the leaner to come down the rest of the way.
It was a dramatic enough change that I knew Cyndie would be shocked, so I told Julian we weren’t going to say anything about what we had accomplished and wait to see what kind of reaction we’d get.
While we were back in the house, up in the loft watching the second half of the football game, I received the following image via text from Cyndie on the floor below us:
I reacted with utter surprise and asked when that could have happened. She and Elysa knew it was recent since they had been out on the trails earlier and it wasn’t down. Then Julian and I let them know what we had done.
Yesterday, I used a handsaw to trim off all the small branches. Even though I soon discovered it was really dense wood, I ended up cutting everything necessary to clear it off the trail without resorting to the chainsaw.
I had my suspicions about what kind of tree it was, but I asked Cyndie to take a picture of the bark with her plant ID app to see what came up. American Hophornbeam, also called Ironwood because of how hard it is. Ironwood trees are scattered throughout our woods, but they can be hard to notice. It seems like they hide in plain sight by looking unremarkable.
For 25 years, we lived on Ironwood Court, but I never had a clue about ironwood trees until we moved here.
Most often, it seems that I end up figuring out that I’m dealing with ironwood when I start cutting into it. For a guy who really likes trees, I can sometimes be surprisingly oblivious when it comes to identifying them.
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Too Hot
The heat over the weekend was a bit much for our October sensibilities. On Saturday, Asher came down with us to the labyrinth while we did some mowing and weed pulling. It looked like the hot weather had melted Asher into the rocks.
He conked out so deeply that it looked like his spirit had left his body. I don’t know how he sleeps on those rocks like they aren’t even there.
I set up the mower to mulch, which worked pretty well for dealing with all the leaves. Of course, it only looks good for a couple of hours before more leaves show up to cover it all over again, but it looked great for a brief moment.
Eventually, the heat got to Asher, and he moved to the only spot of shade he could find that was big enough to cover him.
His black coloring makes him almost invisible in the shadow of the center boulders. It’s great when we find out he was lying there the whole time that we were worrying he’d run off somewhere.
I don’t know how hard it must be for animals to cope with growing their winter coats when the warming climate is delivering heat like we’ve experienced this weekend. Asher seemed happier to be lying on the cool tile in the house than walking around outside in the intense sun yesterday.
Our forecast is showing another 80-degree day today before high temperatures moderate the rest of the week with highs in the 60s. I am so ready for it to stop being too hot.
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No Explanation
Cyndie and I did another couple of rounds spreading compost on the hay field yesterday.
After the second load had been dumped, I steered the Grizzly ATV from the hay field into the large paddock, stopping at the far gate. Hopping off, I unchained the gate and let it swing wide open while the horses were standing under the overhang of the barn, completely ignoring me. I then drove the ATV through the gate, making sure to pull far enough ahead so I could close the gate behind the trailer.
Hustling to pull the gate closed before any of the horses took notice, I spent an extra minute fiddling with the chain to get it untwisted and hooked around the post just right. When I turned around toward the Grizzly again, I was shocked to find there was no trailer there.
Imagine what that felt like. D’oh!
The trailer had come unlatched back in the hay field without me noticing, and I proceeded like nothing was amiss.
I had been so focused on dealing with the gate that I didn’t realize the trailer was missing. I had even purposely pulled ahead far enough after passing through the gate so it could close behind the trailer, without ever looking to see the trailer was no longer there.
Sheepishly, I undid the perfectly latched chain again and backed the ATV through the gate once more to return to the hay field and fetch the trailer. Geesh.
I’m sure glad there are no post-workday press conferences, because it would be really embarrassing trying to come up with a reasonable explanation for that strange bout of cluelessness.
Maybe I could blame the heat. The temperature reached 86°(F) for the high yesterday afternoon. Clearly, I wasn’t my usual sharp self.
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Asher Grazes
He’s a funny guy. When he runs, he leaps like a deer. He likes to eat everything the horses eat. He lies down and stares just like the cows in the field next door. He wants to ride in the car just like people do.
I wonder if I could teach him to drive the zero-turn mower…
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Grazing Serenely
Today, I offer you a chance to spend a couple of minutes with Mia. She let me hang out with her for a while yesterday, and it proved to be a great representation of how special it is to be in this location with these amazing horses while the rest of the world is busy rattling away out of our sight.
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Bales Delivery
We were told to expect delivery of a load of hay bales by 7:30 a.m. That meant getting ourselves going a little earlier than usual. Asher didn’t mind one bit and happily darted into the semi-dark woods to see if any straggling raccoons hadn’t made it back to their daytime hiding spots up in our trees.
Wisps of fog rolled around the lowest points of the terrain, giving the predawn atmosphere a mystical feel. We had enlisted the help of my sister’s grandson, Drew (making him my grand-nephew, but that doesn’t roll off the tongue), a student at nearby UWRF, to help toss bales. He had to drive through patches of that same fog to get here, with the added challenge of the sun showing up right at eye level.
The next to arrive was Tom, one of the founders of This Old Horse, followed soon after by Paul, the farmer bringing hay all the way from up north near Hayward.
Many hands made for light work, and in no time we had a little over 150 bales stacked on pallets in the hay shed.
When the work was done, Light came over to thank Tom for making sure the horses always have all their needs taken care of. We now feel the satisfaction of knowing there is a good reserve of hay in the shed for whatever the coming months throw our way in terms of weather.
I don’t recall if I’ve written about it yet, but it sounds like everything is proceeding on schedule with a plan for our friend and nearby resident, Michelle, to adopt Mia before the end of this month. Tom talked with Cyndie about the possibility of bringing another horse to replace Mia and keep our herd number at four. It doesn’t sound like he had a specific horse in mind yet, but they are giving it thought.
We are thrilled for both Mia and Michelle. They developed an instant bond on the first day they encountered each other here. We anticipate some initial objections from the horses upon her removal. Horses can be uncomfortable with the change of having their herd separated. We’ll strive to assure them there is no need to be concerned.
With the job of stacking hay behind us, Cyndie and I took a relaxing walk with Asher through the woods and then came back to the horses to hang out. I brought a book and sat outside the fence while Cyndie enjoyed an extended interaction with Mia.
We scored another glorious fall day with temperatures in the 70s (F). I’m not complaining, but I can’t help shaking a feeling that this nice weather is a symptom of the much bigger problem caused by short-sighted human behaviors. I sense that climate scientists know this feeling well.
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Warming Weirdness
It seems like the changing of seasons is no longer bearing any resemblance to previous years. The hours of daylight are shortening, and the leaves are falling to the ground, but the temperatures aren’t dropping like they used to, and the grass keeps growing like it’s the middle of summer. It’s confusing my senses.
The branches of our spruce trees are catching leaves instead of snowflakes. The forecast for yesterday suggested temperatures in the 60s (F). It reached 77 (F) in the middle of the afternoon.
I finally got my new The North Face tent set up outside where I could stake it down and stretch the rainfly taut.
It’s been sitting in the basement where I erected it as soon as it arrived, but I kept forgetting about it because of how infrequently I venture downstairs. Other than the infestation of Asian beetles and box elder bugs swarming, it was a perfect day to put the tent up in the yard.
This Stormbreak 2 tent is a little bigger than my old Rock 22, but it seems much larger to me. The shoulder room inside is greater because of two added small poles that square up the top. That wasn’t a feature in my old tent.
Another upgrade from my previous tent is the smooth-gliding zippers on the doors and rainfly openings. A vast improvement.
I’ll just need to remember to reserve a wider space than in the past when setting up among groups of other tenters.
After setting all the stakes and snugging the adjustable straps on the rainfly corners, I satisfied myself with the storm-worthiness I’ve come to expect from The North Face. As long as I factor in any possibility of flash flooding, I’m comfortable riding out typical stormy weather in this tent. However, because it’s hard to compare past weather to future intensity, I’m more open to warnings that each new storm could be worse than anything we’ve seen before.
Gone are the days when I stayed in my tent while severe weather sirens were blaring overhead. Yeah, I did that. I’m not proud that I did, but my intuition that it wasn’t going to be dangerous in our precise location turned out to be accurate that night.
The unpredictability of storm intensities these days has introduced a new level of difficulty for me in sensing weather danger. I will need to keep that in mind when deciding whether to stay in the tent or not during heavy weather.
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Bangs Up
Yesterday afternoon, Cyndie found the horses in the right mood to have their manes combed out right after they finished their servings of feed. That doesn’t happen all that often, so she stayed engaged with them and ultimately spent time with each mare.
Swings’ bangs usually cover her eyes because of the way they fall forward and grow so long. When I looked up, I found that Cyndie had combed the bangs up and back and hooked them behind Swings’ ear.
I hardly recognized her! It made me laugh out loud, though I was quick to assure Swings that it was a great look for her. She didn’t appear convinced.
A swift shake of her head poofed the mane bangs loose again, but they didn’t immediately lay back down over her eyes.
The different look takes years off her appearance. Swings carries herself impressively well for a 31-year-old horse.
It was a treat to watch all the horses be so soothed by Cyndie’s attention to their manes, and particularly with the repeated stroking of their bangs. It’s a mystery to me why they would suddenly show such obvious appreciation for this kind of care when their norm is to object to our requests to groom them.
It occurs to me as I write this that my sense of the passage of time might need to be extended for them. They may be gradually growing more accepting of our grooming attention, but at a pace much slower than seemed logical from my perspective. Years instead of weeks or months.
We’ve waited this long; I’m okay with letting them choose how much longer it will take for them to feel ready to regularly accept more hands-on attention from us.
This week, back-combing their bangs. Maybe next week, brushing out all their tails?
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