Not Chickens
It appears our great survivors, the three chickens, are not interested in what winter has to offer. Since Monday night when the weather made that snap decision to swing from balmy to frigid, covering the land with an ice-crust topped with a layer of wind-whipped snow, our chickens have not left the confines of their coop.
Cyndie opens the small door for them, but they don’t venture out.
These little footsteps Cyndie photographed in a framing that looks very “John-like,” are not from our once-brave venturers.
These cute prints are those of a turkey. The wild turkeys haven’t let a little snow and frozen ground stop them from strolling around the property.
Have you ever wondered where wild turkeys are laying their eggs? Maybe we should invite the wild birds to stop by our coop to convince the chickens that winter isn’t so bad, and while they are there, they can lay an egg for us.
Cyndie also captured the shot below of a loner on its way off our property, into the underbrush of the neighbor’s woods.
They certainly don’t have that same friendly demeanor as our domesticated chickens. The excited wobbling sprint toward us that our chickens do when they find us outside is really something to behold.
I’m hoping we don’t have to wait for spring before they come out of the coop and run around again.
The weekend forecast is hinting of a possible above-freezing high temperature on Sunday, so maybe that will inspire a chicken outing.
I’m home today and on my own for the weekend, because Cyndie is traveling out-of-town for a conference. The chickens won’t have momma home to look after them. I expect it will be no shock to them that I do things differently than Cyndie.
I’ve witnessed the horses adjusting their behavior to our different styles of processing the steps to feed and clean up after them. I think the chickens probably respond similarly.
I suppose the same thing is happening with Delilah, but my perception of the change in her is a little different. It seems less like she is reacting differently to me and more like she is moping at the door for hours on end in desperate anticipation that momma might be returning soon.
Hopefully, I won’t be bothering the dog with all my ‘bachelor-weekend’ wild behavior. I’m gonna drink milk out of the bottle and leave my stuff on whichever surface it lands. I may walk in the house with my boots on and leave drawers open in the bathroom.
By Sunday night, it’ll be back to the disciplined life of being a well-fed married man and the chickens can get back to their pleasure of in-coop full-service hospitality.
Huzzah!
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Hello Snow
Well, that was fast. Monday was awkwardly warm for December, but we knew what was coming. After dark, it started to rain, so we headed down to the barn to bring the horses inside for the night.
We’d hardly shut out the lights for the night when the pinging on the bedroom window reflected an obvious transition from raindrops to ice crystals. By morning, the landscape had flipped to an unmistakable winter scene.
What’s not to love?
Cyndie captured some views on her walk with Delilah yesterday morning.
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A Chance
Have you noticed the lone lopsided tree left standing to the right of the ones we took down over the weekend? A number of people have suggested it would make sense to cut that one down, too.
There are plenty of reasons it would be a logical choice, but who am I to let logic get in the way of my emotions?
One key reason I am letting it stand is that it isn’t dead. Not yet, anyway. It has carved out its meager existence and endured despite the shadow of the larger tree. Now that it is no longer crowded out, I’d like to see how it will respond.
I want to give it a chance to take advantage of the unobstructed afternoon sunlight and the uncontested space to spread out in every direction. It is very birch-like, but I haven’t specifically identified it. Black birch, maybe.
What does it cost me to wait a year or two to find out if it shows signs of renewed vigor? Just some ongoing questioning of my decision-making process, but that’s something I can tolerate.
Cyndie and I were surveying the space left after the trees were removed and discussed whether it would make sense to transfer some of the multitudes of volunteer maple seedlings that sprout all around our place each spring.
It’s an odd little corner of our property. The primary drainage ditch that nicely defines the southern border for most of the span of our open fields takes a little turn inward and orphans a fair-sized triangle of grass up to the road. The neighbor to the south is more than happy to tend to it, and he cuts that grass when cutting his adjacent strip along a cornfield there.
Honestly, I have reasons to believe he would consider it madness to plant new trees in that spot. He once offered to come cut down trees behind our house to create a larger space of lawn for us. Our opinions of what is more valuable are in stark contrast.
If we plant new trees, we will start by placing them along, or close to, the drainage ditch. I’m happy to work slowly and give him time to adjust to our changes.
The chickens show no sign of needing time to adjust. They showed up instantly when we drove to one of our trails to distribute a load of wood chips. I think they wanted to help spread them around.
In reality, what they were really doing was, scratching away the chips to get down to the dirt below, which was comical. They could do that anywhere. In fact, it would be easier to do it where we hadn’t just laid down a new cover of wood chips. Instead, they looked as though the new chips were a real bonus.
I’ll give them the benefit of doubt. Maybe there were bugs in the chips that dropped to the dirt below as soon as the chips got tossed on the trail.
There is a chance there is a logical method to their madness.
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Mission Complete
We completed our weekend goal to take that tree down, cut the trunks into logs, and shred the branches into chips. When all the tools and machines were returned to storage yesterday afternoon, I realized how valuable it was to have Mary and Tim’s help on Friday. We couldn’t have finished on Sunday without the progress they facilitated Friday.
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Now I have a LOT of wood to split and stack in the shed. I should probably do that before I take on the wood sculpting project I’m envisioning on the stump.
Regarding that idea, my latest inclination is now leaning toward using the remaining stump as a base and sculpting something remotely to be mounted on top. I have plenty of time to think about it, since I’ll be splitting the new piles of wood for a looong time.
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Rewarding Effort
The big lumberjack project enters its third day today and the weather appears to be holding just long enough that we can reach a satisfying level of completion. The area around where we brought down this tree is on a corner of our property that probably gets the least amount of attention, and now that we are poking around the vicinity, the potential for more clean up is becoming apparent.
There was a fair-sized pile of branches already on the ground beneath the bonus box elder limb that came down, swallowed by growth that obscured its presence. We could probably be chipping for longer than I intended, but I will be happy to simply process the new piles created since cutting the trees down on Friday.
While a farmer harvested corn across the road, I spent yesterday sawing limbs to pieces and pulling branches into piles to be chipped. Cyndie brought Delilah down for a visit and helped with the clean up until she ran out of time before an outing in the cities to see the Nutcracker ballet.
The quick onset of dusk forced me to stop with the logging operation and move on to horse chores. That has left a few more runs of hauling logs up to the wood shed and then some serious chipping for today. There are at least three piles of branches that I’d love to have processed, after which the project will feel pleasingly accomplished.
Already, the progress thus far is rewarding. Last night, in the bright moonlight on Delilah’s last walk before bed, I took her the long way around our hay-field just so I could walk past the spot to look at it another time.
Rewarding, indeed.
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Crucial Assistance
We couldn’t have gotten as far as we did yesterday without the generous support of my sister, Mary and her eminently capable husband, Tim. They showed up ready for action and made all the difference with the sawing and chipping.
Before they arrived, I succeeded in knocking down 4 of the 5 smaller trees, but the next step would have been a bit much for me, on my own.
For all the preparation I did, there was one important thing I neglected. The blade on my chainsaw wasn’t very sharp. Compounding that oversight, the spare blade back in my shop was labeled: “needs sharpening.”
Luckily, Tim brought his saw. Combining my ladder, his reach, and a few occasions with the pole saw, some of the many limbs of the 60-foot tree were felled without breaking the fence, although it did bend a couple times.
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We agreed on the time to stop working on individual limbs and take a crack at bringing the whole thing down, but there was still a lot of wood standing.
We tossed a rope up –using the technique of a weighted line I learned from my brother, Elliott– and I played anchor while Tim did the sawing. It was laughable to think my puny size was going to control what that tree would do. I felt it shift when it pinched Tim’s saw, but there it stood.
At this point, Tim talked me into moving the truck and tractor, just in case. We tried muscling that rope a few times, and then Tim called for the tractor. I backed up to put enough pressure that he could get the saw out and then stretched that rope to its limit. With classic cracking, the top of that old dead tree came over at a little bit of an angle.
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We got two-for-one, as it grabbed a wayward branch of the scrubby box elder tree next to it and snapped that as well.
The four of us worked diligently to process the results, but only put an initial dent in the ground work remaining.
Today’s chores will be much less dramatic. I’ll start by sharpening my saw blade. There will be a lot of logging cleanup action, but nothing as daunting as felling that big tree yesterday. Volunteers still welcome.
We couldn’t have done it without you, Mary & Tim. Thank you for coming over to play!
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Prepping Machines
It seems like it should be simple to just cut down a couple of trees and grind the branches into chips, but there are a lot of little steps to setting up and actually executing the tasks.
After work yesterday, I set about prepping some of the equipment, in hopes of priming this morning’s start on this weekend’s logging project. The chipper attachment was stored a couple levels deep in the shop garage. I needed to do some rearranging before I could get access to it.
The back-blade was still on the big tractor, so the first order of business was to find somewhere out-of-the-way to park that.
Except, that wasn’t actually the first order of business. I decided to move the Grizzly out, to make room for fueling up the New Holland, and in so doing, ended up driving the ATV down to the barn to hook up its trailer.
After that, I was finally ready to back Big Blue out of the garage and get rid of the back-blade.
Once that was done, I hooked up the chipper to the 3-point hitch and parked the rig in the barn.
Next, I started collecting equipment I would want to haul to the work site in the ATV trailer.
Chainsaw. Check.
Chain oil, mixed gas, wedge, face shield, leg protectors, ropes, come-along, chains, pole saw, log holder, hand saw, ax, spare ear muffs/hearing protection, ladder, rake, branch pruner… and if I can find it, a kitchen sink.
Still, there will end up being a need for some item that I forgot to bring. Honestly, one goal of bringing so much down there is so that we won’t need it. I’m not above using a little reverse psychology with the universe.
My hope is to have tedious setup tasks taken care of in advance to get full benefit of volunteer help for cutting limbs of felled sections of trees, feeding branches into the chipper, and cutting trunks into logs. If we are really productive, there will be the added chores of driving loads of woodchips away and dumping them, or hauling logs up to the woodshed.
Most importantly, I’m looking forward to the opportunity for hearty fellowship in the great outdoors and an outcome of safe and healthy success for all bodies involved, particularly the discs of my lower back.
I don’t want to get too greedy, but some time for good-natured banter around a fire with people’s favorite beverage after a day’s physical workout would be a fine outcome, too.
I’m just sayin’.
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Low View
If you are thinking about visiting Wintervale this weekend to get a taste of forest management and tree removal, don’t for a minute wonder whether you will get to spend some time with our horses or chickens. They are essential ambassadors of the healthy loving energy available here every day.
When I was sitting with the horses in the paddock last weekend, eye-level with the chickens, I captured some images from the atypical vantage point.
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If the horses decide not to wander across the hay-field to see what we are up to by the road, I’ll make sure breaks from the lumberjack work will include a stop at the barn.
The chickens won’t wait. I’ll be surprised if they haven’t offered a greeting before visitors have time to walk away from their vehicles upon arrival. Our three survivors have mastered the ability to show up in a blink, or silently disappear like ghosts when our heads are turned.
I expect that has contributed to their free-ranging longevity.
On Tuesday, as I made the final turn onto our road coming home from work, I spotted a stray dog that looked very guilty and appeared to be chewing on something at the edge of a recently harvested corn field. I was very glad to hear from Cyndie that our three were home, and safe.
Speaking of potential threats to chickens, Cyndie says she and Delilah came upon a bobcat recently while on their morning walk. It gave them a moment of a stare, and then bounded off into the woods. This was before Cyndie had opened the coop for the day, so the chickens weren’t immediately at risk.
Honestly, I don’t know how they’ve lasted as long as they have since that fateful evening of June 16th when something took six hens before they had settled into the coop for the night.
These three really are survivors.
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An Idea
I have been trying to picture what I might be able to do with the remaining trunk after cutting off all the dead branches on the large tree at the corner of our property by the road.
Here is a mockup of what one idea I have been pondering might look like…
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It would be a subtle, perpetual message to passing neighbors and travelers, and can serve as a compliment to our banner flag with the word LOVE across it when we put that out at the end of the driveway for events.
My main question for myself is whether, or not, I could even achieve this sculpting despite my lack of experience. I would certainly need to deal with an aversion to working in such a conspicuous space.
No hiding this project from curious passersby.
How bad do I want it?
The answer to that will determine whether this project is ultimately attempted, or just remains a computer image of an idea I once had.
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