Posts Tagged ‘forest labyrinth’
Wilting Trillium
While Cyndie and her mom were in town, shopping for a new gas range for the kitchen, I went out for a walk around the property and came to the spot where Cyndie and I created a labyrinth in a wooded space off the driveway. The pathway was barely discernible. Knowing the general route, I made my way to the center and found it to be reasonably intact.
I removed some of the growth that had sprouted there and rebalanced a couple of rocks before taking the picture. Now, if only the rest of the pathway looked so well defined.
To my great joy and some dismay, there is a strong presence of trillium growing without any concern for the path. The flowers have mostly wilted by this time, but that doesn’t make it much easier to switch my mindset from adoring them to plucking the sprouts from the earth.
We have been tending to the pathway multiple times each year, but not being around in the early spring has allowed the forest to make great gains in reclaiming its territory. We’d like to accomplish a better-established walking trail in the least invasive way, so a little extra tending each spring is to be expected.
A feature that I really like with this little labyrinth among the trees is that the borders that define the pathway are much wider than the walking lanes, which is the opposite of our labyrinth at home. There, the border is a narrow line of rocks creating wider walkways. It had to be that way at home since we were fitting an 11-circuit pattern into a defined available space.
Since our pattern up here at the lake is only 3 circles around the center, we had plenty of room to make the natural alleys between paths much wider. Thankfully, that is allowing the ferns, ramp onions, and trillium in the area to thrive.
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Forest Labyrinth
With few hints revealing the intended course of our forest labyrinth at Wildwood, Cyndie and I navigated our way around the circles and found the stones in the center undisturbed.
If we want this to remain usable throughout the winter, we’re going to need to place more rocks to define the route for others to see.
I really like that we were able to lay this out so the path winds around mature trees and travels across flat rocks that fill a shallow ravine. There was just enough snow cover to make it easily walkable, but it was tricky to know when we were on the intended pathway.
I liked the way the snow had shaped up around these stones. When I looked at the image on my computer, it struck me how much that top one looked like a baked potato. Didn’t notice that when looking directly at them.
We drove home in the afternoon and found a similar amount of light snow covering our property as there was up north. The horses all looked well and the barn appeared orderly after several days of a volunteer doing the feedings for us.
I’m happy to report, no evidence of mice was found in drawers or bedding in the house at home.
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Lake Trees
Because we can, we are up at the lake in the middle of the week to witness some tree trimming and/or removal by professionals planned for today. We came up yesterday afternoon with Cyndie’s mom and brought Delilah with us so we only needed to find someone to feed the horses while we are away.
The water level of the lake is much lower than usual, clearly reflecting how dry we have it at home 125 miles to the south. It’s no less gorgeous, thank goodness.
We quickly found evidence that some trees have already been removed around the Wildwood property.
This hollow beast was close to the area Cyndie and I created a small labyrinth in the woods on the edge of the driveway. Whatever machine they used during the job tracked over a portion of the rustic path we had tried to create. It is likely they never noticed because the ground is blanketed with leaves and the circuitous route was entirely hidden.
We had barely placed enough rocks to define the pathway and some of those appear to have rolled out of position so reclaiming the original circles of travel out from under the cover of leaves was an exercise in approximation.
Close enough for now.
I just hope there are no more trees in that section of woods they need to deal with. Cyndie said they took down some trees which they were able to cut from the ground and today we expect them to show up with a bucket truck. There is one tree in particular over our driveway between several cabins that needs to go.
I’m looking forward to watching the process as if it were a spectator sporting event. It will be easier to enjoy this show than when I watch crews work on our property at home because up here, I won’t be responsible for cleaning up everything they cut down.
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Long Grass
Five days away from home this time of year resulted in some really long grass waiting for us upon our return. Before I could start with mowing, we needed to plant some trillium that I had dug up in the woods of our lake place before we left.
After pulling out wildflowers and native growth from the pathway of our little labyrinth in the woods at the lake, I switched to digging batches of trillium for transplanting to home. We decided to plant them next to two existing groups of trillium that are looking very healthy after previous transplantations.
After that, it was time to mow. The job was made more complicated by the tall height of the grass and basically required an additional half pass for each full width of cut. Despite the extra work, I was able to complete the job by dinner time and made it look like someone lives here again.
The horses had been separated into groups of two while we were gone, making the job of feeding them a little simpler for our sitter. It was her first time staying in our house alone and caring for all the animals and she did a fabulous job during our extended weekend of over five days! We are very grateful to have found her.
While I mowed, Cyndie opened up all the gates so the four horses could romp together and wander anywhere they wanted to go. I enjoyed watching them move around together whenever I looked up from the ground in front of me. They moved around a lot and looked like they enjoyed the return to shared wide-open access to all the fields.
Everywhere they walked there was long grass surrounding them. In fact, the back pasture is in need of mowing because there is some thistle sprouting that we plan to eradicate by cutting. The really tall grass of the pasture will not be a problem for the diesel tractor pulling the big brush mower behind it.
At the same time, the grass along the fence lines also needs to be cut using the power trimmer.
It is definitely the long grass time of year.
Happy June 1st!
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Started Wet
The big workday of the weekend appeared to be a washout when we woke up yesterday but the winter’s accumulation of leaves on the beach was surprisingly manageable soon after the precipitation stopped. I spent the morning trying to reclaim our mini-labyrinth in the woods from the thick growth of ground covering wild plants.
That work actually started with a need to cut up a big limb that had fallen across several lanes of the pathway. Then my focus shifted to the ferns, trillium, ramps (a wild leek), and tree sprouts that needed to be removed. I made it about halfway before I needed to join the worker bees who showed up to tend to the beach.
By this morning, all that was left to do down at the lake was a little prescribed burn between the beach and boat docks. Having waited to start yesterday’s work until the rain was done, it was almost time for dinner when we finished raking out the sand.
Today is just the opposite in terms of weather as the morning has been dry thus far but there is a mass of precipitation heading our way. I keep getting warnings on my phone about lightning in the vicinity of Wintervale. That weather will reach Hayward a couple hours later.
We are going to wait for the rain to pass before heading out to finish pulling wild growth from the path of our forest labyrinth. The moisture will make the job easier in terms of the pulling plants but decidedly messier in terms of the footing.
There might be a card game with family relations materializing to fill the indoor portion of our day.
It feels a lot like a holiday weekend at the lake. Oh, did I forget to mention the fabulous meals we have been indulging in, both breakfasts and dinners? Yeah, that kind of family time at the lake.
Experience dictates, wet starts don’t automatically spoil the rest of a day’s activities..
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Relative Something 