Posts Tagged ‘labyrinth’
Creepy Crawlies
I was mowing the labyrinth yesterday when I had a series of episodes that made my skin crawl. Well, crawl more than usual for a day when I was sticky with sweat from summer’s heat and humidity, working outside with chainsaws and trimmers. There is always some dirt or plant matter pasted to the exposed skin of my arms. In the area I was working, there was also an ongoing battle with a multitude of insects that were taking great interest in my flesh.
Down in the corner of the grazing pasture, on the edge of the woods, I was cutting up the tree I dropped to the ground on Friday, soaked with sweat and covered with debris. It gets hard to know when it is a bug on my skin, or something else. The gloves I wore had loose cuffs, and more than once I pulled them off because I wasn’t sure if what just landed inside was alive or not.
I gained a new appreciation for the horse’s ability to twitch their muscles hard enough to dispatch flies. With both of my hands occupied on the chainsaw or trimmer, I was easy prey for the biting flies and mosquitoes. After a while, it becomes impossible to tell whether I am feeling something on me in a moment, or if it is simply residual sensation after whatever landed has flown away.
It was also a bit unnerving picking up freshly cut logs when I had seen millions of ants had been living inside the tree. Add to that, I am pretty sure that feeding the wood chipper and trimming the trail the day before put me in contact with poison ivy again. My skin was in a state of constant irritation.
It culminated in creepiness late in the process of using the trimmer in the labyrinth. It had been a long day, I was tired, and I really wanted to be done. I had already been forced to stop earlier to reload the supply of plastic line in the trimmer head, so the only remaining delay would be a need for another refueling.
In my push to finish, I didn’t stop to use my toe to convince the little frog to move out of the way, I just cut up behind him, assuming the noise and motion would naturally drive him off like usually happens. For some ghastly reason, he turned and jumped into the lethal spinning line.
That stopped me. I shut off the engine and decided I would fill the gas tank anyway, setting my over-ear hearing protection with face shield on the ground. I topped off the fuel tank while swatting at things bugging my ears and trying to shake the heebie-geebies that frog had just caused.
When I resumed trimming, I continued to have the feeling like there was a bug flying around my right ear, and wanted to let go of the trimmer to wave it away, but I realized I had on my ear protection, so I figured I was feeling residual phantom sensations. Or was it just left-over creepy feelings from watching that frog?
I had to check, stopping to pull off the head-gear. A bug flew out. Really. What are the odds of that? It’s not as far-fetched as what happened next. I tried again to resume my task, and in moments, my left ear felt weird. I figured I was just being paranoid at this point, but was also feeling jumpier by the minute, so I paused the trimmer again and whipped off the ear muffs. GAH! I did the squiggle-jump-flinch as a spider crawled out.
I gotta say, it felt extra-specially-good to finally step out of the shower last night, scrubbed as squeaky clean as physically possible.
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Renewed Hope
I have been purposefully mute about anything to do with the second tree we transplanted to the center of our labyrinth because I thought we had failed again and it hadn’t survived. It looked so good at first, but then suddenly the leaves all shriveled. Since it was early in summer, I figured the tree was doomed. How can a tree survive the long summer with no leaves? I didn’t want to waste any more time writing about it, talking about it, or thinking about it.
I dragged my feet when Cyndie suggested we just buy a tree to plant there. That’s not what I wanted, but I didn’t really offer an alternative. I figured, if I didn’t think about it for while, maybe the problem would go away.
It is possible that it did.
Yesterday when I was down mowing the labyrinth path, I glanced up at the branches when I got close to the center and there before my very eyes were some brand new leaves! Lots of them, actually. What a thrill! It may not be (forgive me for this) out of the woods yet, but for the time being, all is not lost. There is hope once again that it might survive.
And with that hope, we are feeling a wonderful boost of precious joy.
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Man Power
Well, man and machine power, anyway. I cranked up the power trimmer yesterday to knock down the grass and weeds growing along our fence line. The tall growth is starting to put a load on our electric fence. I swear, things are growing inches per day around here lately.
Cutting with that Stihl trimmer is way too much like vacuuming for me, and if you recall my story about vacuuming, I find it to be a frustrating process. Everywhere I turn there is more that could be cut. How do you know where to stop? I am so obsessive about being thorough that it takes me forever to complete each section I’m working on.
I was most of the way down the driveway when Cyndie arrived home with a pizza. I told her I wanted to finish the fence around the front of our property and then I would come up for dinner. As she drove off toward the house, I restarted the trimmer and it promptly ran out of nylon line. I can take a hint. I went up for dinner, and to load new line for the trimmer.
The focus shifted at that point, and the labyrinth became the priority. Even though I had used the trimmer to cut the labyrinth path the previous time, things are growing so fast that it was already too thick again for the reel mower. Cyndie took a shot of the new peace-pole while I was working. She got that from her mom for her birthday.
I stopped cutting long enough to take a picture that shows the result of my effort. The area on the left is what it looked like before I cut it.
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Take Two
What do you do when you step outside in the morning to discover you have 2.25 inches of water in your rain gauge from overnight storms? We decided it was a good day to transplant some trees.
A few days ago, I noticed a lot of maple trees were growing in the middle area of woods where my foot path to the barn cuts through. They looked to be in surprisingly good condition, considering they are well beneath the canopy of mature trees above, leaving them in shade all day long.
Yesterday, when Cyndie and I stepped out into the soaking wet conditions once again, I suggested it would be a good day to plant trees, pointing out the candidates I had found. She was all in, and soon we were selecting tree after tree, as each consecutive find seemed better than the rest.
If you have been following along, you probably saw my recent exclamation that the tree we transplanted to the middle of our labyrinth was alive. Turns out it was just barely alive, and not doing well enough for our purposes. We had dug that tree out of the ground last fall with a shovel, and the only new growth that appeared this spring was on a couple of sprouts along the lower trunk. There were no leaves budding from any of the branches above.
Photo taken by Cyndie
For our second attempt, I wanted to try pulling the roots of a tree from the ground, digging it up by hand. It is a method we had wonderful success with at our previous home. By saturating the dirt with water, which wasn’t hard at all yesterday since the ground was already saturated, it becomes possible to work the roots free by hand, but it takes a fair amount of patience.
Delilah couldn’t figure out what the heck I was doing, crouched next to that tree for so long, with my hand in that mud puddle. Luckily, she was tied on a leash and unable to get her paws in there to help. She resorted to digging 4 or 5 holes of her own, probably to show me how it’s done.
In time, the tree gets very tippy, and eventually, it pulls all the way out with minimal effort. Prior to that, my hand received quite a workout, trying to remove the thick clay soil that encased the roots, large and small.
Spending that much time getting intimate with the root structure of a tree this size made me aware of something that should serve as a valuable metaphor for the path our lives take. In similar fashion to the way moving water will meander and create rivers with an amazing number of 180° turns, tree roots will often make a U-turn and grow in the opposite direction from which they started.
From above, the sight of a root growing away from the trunk gives the impression it would logically continue in that direction. My probing hand found that wasn’t the case. It becomes apparent that a 180° change in direction is common, and provides strength and stability toward holding the tree upright despite forces that might otherwise bring it down.
How often do people assume the best path for our lives is straight ahead? A reversal of direction seems like a negative thing. I think reversing course, whether forced by circumstance or freely chosen, will more likely contribute to making us stronger and more stable in the long run.
The new transplant is in the ground at the center of our labyrinth, leaves already showing hints of the trauma. Today we are starting over with a second take, watching for signs indicating it is satisfied with its new location and the bright sunshine. No less than we were with the first tree, we are filled with hope that this one will survive.
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Amazing Growth
The growth of tree leaves, grasses, and weeds has been happening at an incredible rate the last few days. We have been experiencing some warm, sunny days after several weeks with plenty of rain, and that seems to be the ticket for massive growth.
During periods of rapid growth like this, it is even more important that we limit the time our horses have to freely graze on the fresh green grass. Yesterday, when I opened the gate leading to the small square of grass we fenced off, Legacy was hesitant about going for it, which caught me by surprise. Usually he is overly anxious to get on that grass. I wondered if he might actually be self-managing his diet. As an older horse, he is more susceptible to ailments caused by eating too much sugary grass.
Cayenne was interested enough to move in from another angle and pass through the gate. The other two chestnuts found themselves stuck behind Legacy, and showed no signs of stepping past his authority.
I began to wonder about Legacy when I spotted him alternating taking weight off his back feet, and decided to ask Cyndie to come out to see what she thought. None of the horses changed position while I was gone to get Cyndie, but when she arrived, Legacy walked right toward her.
After a brief visit, he turned and walked through the open gate. The others followed. I monitored their time and kept it brief, but by the end of the day, none of them showed any hint of a problem, thank goodness.
The rest of my day was spent using the gas-powered trimmer, interspersed with runs to the local auto repair site with our vehicles and my leaky ATV tires.
I cut all of the growth down in the round pen, making it available for immediate use —barring any new rain. Then I knocked down some weeds growing in the grazing area, to keep them from going to seed. I just kept following weeds and eventually made my way back to the labyrinth. Oh. My. God. The growth there is insane. It is so long and thick that I couldn’t have forced the reel mower through it. I resigned myself to clearing the entire length of path using the power trimmer. It took forever.
I finally ran out of gas, as in, with the can totally emptied, with just a short distance left to go to reach the center. We were on the way to town anyway, to pick up cars and repaired ATV tires, so I refilled the gas container and finally finished the chore before we headed in for the night.
With all the amazing growth happening down there, it is now glaringly obvious that the only new leaves popping from the transplanted tree are going to be the ones down on the trunk. No sign of life in any of the branches above. We have decided to try another time with a tree from a slightly different location.
Maybe it was an unconscious way to solidify the decision, but I accidentally tore through the protective paper around the trunk and ripped open the bark on that tree with the trimmer as I was trying to knock back the jungle of growth happening along the path.
I finished the day with a little good luck, though. While killing time waiting for Cyndie to pick me up to shuttle a car back from the repair shop, I successfully hunted down the hitch clip that I had dropped a few days ago. It’s a good thing, too, because if I had waited any longer, it would have been completely lost in the jungle of fast growing grass happening here lately.
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Got Rocks?
Our neighbors are slowly getting familiar with our peculiarities, and don’t seem all that fazed by our interest in collecting rocks. It is an easy request for them to fill, because farmers are always trying to get rid of rocks. I got a call yesterday afternoon from the man who lives just south of us, and he said the guys who rent his field have a truckload of rocks for us. They just needed to know where we wanted them.
The options on where they could deliver on our property are pretty limited by the wetness, so he had to stay on the driveway. I had him dump them on the edge of the new loop that runs around the hay shed.
There were two skid loader tractors maneuvering in the fields next door all morning, collecting rocks. One had a mesh drum that rotated, which could dig out large rocks that were still half-buried. When it got the rock up out of the ground, it would spin to drop the dirt and hold the rock.
The man who delivered the rocks said some of these have been underground for a long time. He had broken up the hard ground last fall and these rocks pushed up as a result. It will take a couple of good rainstorms (just what we need [end sarcasm]) to wash them off and allow us to see what we’ve really got here.
There is a good chance a lot of them will end up being used under the opening where that culvert is visible, in the background of this image. The others will need to be given a ride in the bucket of our tractor, back toward the area of the labyrinth.
It is a great feeling to value material that other folks are constantly trying to get rid of.
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Shitty Education
In the time since our horses arrived late last September, we have been stockpiling manure in one primary location. Based on information Cyndie gathered, we roughed out a spot that we guessed would be large enough. That was about as far as we went in terms of a plan of action for manure management.
In my naiveté, I thought we could start piling at the back of the clearing we designated, and just keep dumping new loads toward the front. If it timed out right, we could access the pile from the back to remove old composted manure for use as tree food and fertilizer for Cyndie’s plants. I planned to scoop the front of the pile with the loader on our tractor, to stir and aerate the material, moving the composting manure back and making new space for fresh loads to be dumped in front again.
The more informed method involves an area divided into 3 separate sections. This allows the first pile to become fully composted and ready for use, the middle one to be in process of breaking down, and the last one for dumping fresh manure.
My system didn’t work the way I imagined because our method of dumping full-wheelbarrows ended up filling the designated space all the way to the front in a very short amount of time. Instead of dumping somewhere beyond our designated space, I chose to go up. I created a ramp and we just kept adding fresh manure on top of the previous batches already beginning to break down.
That has led to a pile with layers in varying stages of decomposition. It is obvious our pile shrinks over time, depending on how much new manure is being added, but the two key elements to accelerating the breakdown are the optimal amount of air and moisture, and our pile hasn’t been getting the correct amount of either. Our location is not covered, so I figured we would suffer from too much wetness, but the process of decomposition uses up moisture and will cause dry spots that interrupt decomposition if not stirred.
Yesterday afternoon, after I got home from the day-job, I cut deep into the back of our manure pile for the first time. I wanted to move some material from the pile that was already composting, down to the new location I created by the labyrinth. The impetus for that was our desire to give our newly transplanted tree at the center of the labyrinth a dose of horse manure fertilizer.
Even though the tree is showing signs of new buds along its trunk, there is no indication that the buds at the ends of the branches have any life in them whatsoever. It is really testing my patience.
So, I was able to cut into the main manure pile and get educated about what is going on down below, and I got enough cinder blocks stacked to create the start of a satellite pile where I will be better able to control the rate of composting.
Best of all, it will be conveniently located near the garden of plants that help define the form of our labyrinth path.
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Long Day
The horses received a good amount of attention yesterday. We were able to get into the paddocks with the ATV and do some raking. What a difference a day makes. Compare this image with the one in my previous post: —————>
There are still some spots that are too muddy to drive through. I figured that out by forging ahead into one of the worst sections and almost not making it through. After that I became more selective about which areas got raked.
I started hauling out a portion of the big pile of manure and hay that was created when we used the diesel New Holland tractor to do some clean up in late winter. A few pitch forks into that pile and I hit snow! That slowed my progress a bit. It sure will be nice when that corner is finally cleared again.
While I was tending to that, Cyndie was hard at work cleaning the automatic waterer. Delilah was hanging around offering her version of “help.” When I checked on progress, Cyndie said it was going fine, except that Delilah had made off with the rubber stopper that plugs the drain. We did our best to search the muddy hoof prints in the vicinity, hoping she dropped it nearby, but the black plug was not easy to see. There was plenty of pleading with the dog, begging her to use her nose to lead us to it, but she didn’t seem very willing to zoom in on that one task.
It made for a harrowing temporary interruption to desired progress, but in time Cyndie and Delilah came up with it and that chore was completed.
The horses received some brushing, and were given a little extra time for grazing the fresh grass surrounding the round pen. I hope they don’t think their shenanigans with the water trough and hose won them all this good attention yesterday. I don’t like rewarding bad behavior.
I am pretty confident that the blame for that stunt with the hose is not deserved by all four horses. Legacy is the prime suspect whenever it comes to grabbing things with the mouth. He is incorrigible.
After we finished with activities in the paddocks, we headed down to the labyrinth. The grass is growing incredibly fast down there, and it needs to be mowed about twice a week to keep it in check. While Cyndie pulled weeds and tended to the plants, I pushed the mower all the way to the center, and back out again, stopping to take a picture when I reached the boulders.
To make it truly a full day of chores, after I had showered and eaten dinner, I realized I had forgotten to get the pond waterfall back in operation, and headed out to tackle that. It was something I had been meaning to take care of for weeks and just wasn’t getting it done. I didn’t want it to linger one more day.
Luckily, the filter installation went well enough that I finished before sunset, however, at that point in our very long and exhausting day, I ended up using about a week’s-worth of cursing to get things flowing without a leak.
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Almost Frozen
Spring has yet to deliver a truly warm day. Just the opposite, in fact, as we are getting some very cold mornings the last two days, pert-near down to freezing again. I sure hope the plants that are down in the labyrinth won’t be harmed.
I have mowed the labyrinth one time since the snow disappeared. The growth between the paths is already tall enough to cover some of the rocks, giving it a very green look.
The next area that is in desperate need of mowing is the hill below the house, which I think of as our back yard. It has turned into a patchwork of spots that include grass growing fast and tall, contrasted with areas of little-to-no growth at all. In between, there are sections that have little wildflowers growing beside scattered weeds that look like they mean business. It doesn’t look much like a lawn at all right now, and will be well served by a first close-cut of the season.
Won’t happen today. I’m off to Rich’s for a day of biking, followed by a barbecue. There is so much work to be done on the ranch right now that the only way to get myself to do some cycling in preparation for the Tour of Minnesota ride in the middle of June is by making a commitment to join friends in some location far away from home.
Today’s ride is expected to enjoy some sun and nicer weather, which is a welcome change from two weeks ago, when the gathering was initially scheduled to occur. I’ll take it. It will give the paddocks another day of drying while I’m away, helping decrease the amount of mud to be dealt with when I get back in there to do some much-needed cleanup.
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It’s Alive!
We have tried to be patient about finding clear evidence that the maple tree we transplanted last fall has survived the shock. It is tall enough that we can’t do a close inspection of the tips of the branches, where we are hoping to see this spring’s new leaf buds appear, but I have been watching for signs of growth.
When other trees around us first started showing tinges of new green sprouts, I hiked down to check on our patient. The results were decidedly inconclusive. A week later, I looked again, and was frustrated over not being able to discern any progress. At that point, I decided I should use the many trees still located in the area where this little guy had come from, as reference for when they start sprouting buds.
My anxiety was calmed when I found they all looked just the same as the one we transplanted. Compared to most of the other trees on our lot, these appear to be late bloomers.
Last weekend, I spotted the first obvious signs of life. It wasn’t at the ends of the branches, it was half way down the trunk. Last evening I hiked down to take a picture and found the sprout had clearly burst out.
I think we are going to be able to make this one work. We will provide a lot of tender loving care and attention to make things as easy for it as we possibly can.
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Relative Something 