Posts Tagged ‘landscaping’
Feeling Summer
I like the simple designation of meteorological seasons by month, over the astrological solstice and equinox markers. My brain senses the longest day should mark the middle of summer and the shortest day, the middle of winter. By meteorological reference, summer happens in June, July, and August.
It sure felt like summer on the second day of June this year. Last night, as we tried to cool the house by opening windows to the evening air, the enticing sounds of heavy, distant rumbling thunder rolled slowly closer and closer. Eventually, we enjoyed an almost gentle thunderstorm that this morning has left barely a trace of its visit.
Except for the amazing response of growing things. Our landscape is under siege.
Just beyond our deck, the previous prominent low spruce is getting swallowed by ferns from behind and volunteer cedar trees from the front. The clematis on our trellis is being crowded out by a volunteer maple that decided to make itself at home there.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
I don’t understand why the scotch pine to the left of the trellis is so anemic. Everything around it is growing fast and furious. It is possibly being hindered by the same affliction taking down so many of our long needle pines.
The ornamental reeds in our little garden pond are spreading themselves well beyond the edges, giving the impression they will soon fill the space if left unhampered.
Meanwhile, the climbing vines are voraciously trying to blanket all of our trees, the unwanted grasses taking over our pastures, and poison ivy is thriving like you wouldn’t believe.
What’s a gardener to do? I tend to prefer a hands-off approach to the nature-scape, but we are finding the land inundated with invasives and trouble-makers that require decisive action. Desirables like maple trees are sprouting in places where they don’t belong, and though prized, will become problems if neglected.
I must overcome my reluctance and sharpen my skills of seek and destroy, or at least aggressively prune, prune, prune.
In the same way we wish broccoli tasted like chocolate, Cyndie and I are wishing the desired plants would simply crowd out weeds to the point all we needed to do would be a little cutting of the grass and lounging in the garden.
All you folks wanting to suggest we get some goats… it is increasingly weighing on my mind. Maybe I will try renting some for a trial run.
There just aren’t enough hours in a day for us to manage the explosion of growth summer brings.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Working Through
Some chores don’t wait for nice weather, so we ventured out into the constant drizzle on Sunday to open space in our compost area, despite the inconvenience. Cyndie had moved the horses indoors out of the wet on Saturday night, which resulted in soiled wood shavings in their stalls at a time when we didn’t have space in the compost area.
Luckily, there is a spot next to the barn where we’ve been using composted manure and old hay to fill in a drop in the landscape. The area had been a too convenient runway for water drainage that was problematic. Bringing it back to level with the surrounding area will spread and slow water flowing from above.
Out came the Grizzly, after putting air in the leaky front tire, and the metal grate trailer for an increasingly muddier series of loads from the compost area. Very similar to working on moving innumerable bales of hay, as time goes by, the loads seemed to get heavier and heavier and I started to move slower and slower. Cyndie pushed back against my increasing moments of pause, with a goal of getting the job done as quickly as possible so she could get in out of the cold and wet.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
When she proclaimed we were down to just two loads remaining, I corrected her with the estimation of four loads. After I tried to take out a small load to assure my estimation would win, she suggested we could toss some of the last bits into the woods around the compost area, leading to an outcome of three loads completing the task. It was declared a tie.
We were wet, it was muddy, but we had worked through the nasty weather to accomplish a necessary chore. We now have open space for composting again.
And not a moment too soon.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Maples Everywhere
Maybe we shouldn’t be trying so hard to get a maple tree to grow in the center of our labyrinth. In areas where we have put no effort to entice new maple trees, they are popping up like weeds! If we wait long enough, I’m sure the labyrinth will be filled with new volunteer maple saplings.
New maple trees are flourishing beneath the large poplar tree next to the shop.
Maples are sprouting among the ferns by the basement window.
They are rising from the perennial ground cover growing by the back fire pit.
Lastly, the new trail I opened up behind the woodshed looks like a nursery for maple trees.
If there is any justice in this world, the maples we have to remove due to their poor choice of root will be offset by one successful transplant taking hold where we want it to grow most.
Happily, this spring all signs are good that it has survived the winter with enough energy to sprout leaves. The next question enshrouding our hopefulness is, will the leaves survive the full length of summer?
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Almost Ready
This is our fifth spring of reworking our Rowcliffe Forest Garden Labyrinth after the abuses that winter throws at it. It’s got me questioning our decision to make it as large as we did. Aesthetically, it is just the way I envisioned, so that’s very rewarding. The downside however, is that maintenance ends up being a VERY large chore.
Here’s something I don’t get: The freeze/thaw cycles tend to push rocks up in the farmer’s cultivated fields, where they are totally unwanted. The rocks we positioned to define the circling labyrinth path are all moving down and getting swallowed by the earth around them.
I spent time re-balancing the double-stacked rocks at the U-turns last night. There were areas of the paths where I could barely find the rocks because they had settled so deep in the soft turf. My long-term goal was to keep adding rocks every year, to form little rock wall barriers defining the trail.
At this point, it is more like starting from scratch every spring, trying to define the pathway from almost nothing.
I’m probably exaggerating a little bit, because after a reasonable effort last night, we’ve gotten close to feeling completely ready for tomorrow’s big event.
World Labyrinth Day is Saturday and we have opened up our 11-circuit Chartes style labyrinth to host visitors in the “Walk as One at 1:00” event. There is going to be a global wave of peace flowing tomorrow afternoon.
If you don’t make it out to Wintervale to join us, pause wherever you are during the one o’clock hour and send some peace out in the world.
Then take a moment to absorb the wave flowing along.
Namaste.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Most Satisfying
Every time I use our wood chipper, I grow more enamored with the machine and what it does for us. For me, it has become the most satisfying repeated task of property management that we undertake.
It is relatively easy to set up, makes good use of our otherwise under-utilized diesel tractor, and it makes quick work of the chipping. I love the way it transforms an unsightly nuisance of constantly accumulating dead (or recently pruned) branches into a precious resource of wood chips. We will never have enough.
We use the chips around plants in the gardens and landscaping, as well as a covering for our many trails. That is, we hope to cover the trails. Right now, we have a lot more trails in need than we have wood chips to cover.
If we could find a way to create a few more hours in a day, we certainly have no shortage of branches to chip…
And it would be a most satisfying additional few hours, indeed.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Shaping Up
It has snowed and then melted again, so the ground here is well saturated, but not frozen. It was time to tend to the raised circle in the paddock before the earth becomes hard as rock. It’s been a year since I last shaped it and the definition was fading to the point it wasn’t really performing as a raised perch above the wet.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Try as I might, I am not able to pack it firm enough to support the weight of the horses, but if I keep reshaping the circle as they stomp around on it, eventually it will become what I envision. It worked in another spot that we created when the excavator was here digging out our drainage swale.
That flat mound is visible in the corner of fence in the picture above on the left. Since it was made from slabs of turf scraped from the swale, there was a lot of grass in it that seems to have added a lot of stability. The circle I am creating in the middle has a lot of layers of hay which the horses’ hooves punch through with ease. It becomes a pock-marked uneven surface.
On the plus side, residue from the hay includes plenty of grass seed that wants to grow and will help firm up the surface over time. If I keep tending to it, I’ll get what I’m after. In the end, it’ll seem like it’s always been that way.
Good thing I’m a patient person.
Dezirea supervised my progress while Legacy grazed from the slow-feeder behind her. I get the feeling the horses recognize what I’m trying to create, and they approve.
When I came out from taking a lunch break halfway through the project, I found Cayenne standing beside the circle on the ground I had just raked flat.
It was as if she wanted to be close to what I was doing, but didn’t want to mess it up by stomping on it too soon. I appreciated her discretion, but in no time, the results of my reshaping will be hard to perceive amid the multitude of hoof prints.
Watching the horses all day long, you get the impression that they don’t really move very much. They don’t appear to cover much ground in a day. However, if you survey the ground over time, it becomes evident that there isn’t a spot where they haven’t been at one time or another.
In the long run, they are definitely shaping the ground of their confines.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Goal Achieved
I was wearing a short-sleeve tee-shirt and mowing grass in the warm afternoon sunshine on November 1st. Whaaaaat?
It’s for real. Of course, I also then went inside and watched some baseball on television afterward. It’s like a summer with no end. Something tells me it might make winter’s inevitable arrival come on with an abrupt switch when it finally hits.
So, my main motivation to get out on the lawn tractor was to test out my latest landscaping efforts and see how navigable the path around the southern fence lines is.
It worked! Not flawlessly, but it did work. I have wanted to accomplish this goal for a long time, so this was very satisfying.
There are two spots in particular where I needed to get off the tractor to lift it over a too-steep hazard where there are runoff trenches across the path. If I want to be able to drive across these, I’m going to need to modify them to create much more gradual sloping edges.
That can be done, but it’s not imperative that it happen right away. I’m kinda hoping our grass will stop growing and the snow season will arrive soon enough that I won’t need to be driving around there again until next spring.
After I completed a return trip along that fence line, I turned the corner and was headed toward the labyrinth garden. There, I discovered two deer casually grazing the variety of growing treats within. They looked up at me with mild curiosity, surveying my approach. It surprised me a bit that they didn’t act alarmed or run off.
So I just kept rolling toward them, pulling out my phone to see if I could capture them in a picture to share with Cyndie.
They’re there, but the natural concealment of their coloring is very noticeable, because they are mostly not!
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Shaping Terrain
Despite the sprinkling rain that pestered most of the day yesterday, I decided to try moving some dirt and turf from the drainage ditch along our southern property line to the adjacent sloped path.
When the new fence was installed and the drainage ditch improved, there wasn’t much width remaining beside a little bend in the fence. It was an impediment to being able to use the tractor to mow that section of path around the outside of the hay-field fence.
Originally, I envisioned using the loader on the tractor to dig out the sediment that has been accumulating in the ditch, but it hasn’t been dry enough to do that for months.
Since I was already working along that fence line this weekend, I decided to see what I could accomplish using a shovel to dig it out by hand. It was a little messy, and a bit tedious, but it was probably a better method for then using the material removed to improve the path.
Using blocks of dirt and turf that I could barely lift with the shovel, I built up the low side until it was wide enough to fit at least the lawn tractor, for now. Might be dicey fitting the diesel around that bend.
The strip around the fence only received infrequent attention and would grow tall and thick, so I had been mowing navigable portions with the brush cutter. Now that I will be able to drive the lawn tractor around, it will be convenient enough that I can keep it cut short all the time.
Well, as short at the rest of the lawn, which all grows so fast that short is a relative term.
With that little narrow bend of path fixed, there was only one other barrier remaining to allow driving the full circumference of our horse-fenced fields. Back in the corner by the woods there is an old ravine that was created by years of water runoff. Previous owners had dumped a lot of old broken up concrete in it to slow the erosion.
We have created a better defined intentional swale a short distance above that directing the bulk of energized flow into the main drainage ditch. It crossed my mind to fill in the ravine, but some water still wants to follow the ease of that natural route and I’d rather not fight it.
Simple solution: a bridge. For now, nothing fancy. I used a few left over fence posts and then broke down and actually purchased additional lumber to make it wide enough to drive across.
I placed them across the washout yesterday in the rain, leaving the task of cutting a notch in the dirt on each side to level them for today.
Then I will be driving to the airport to pick up George and Anneliese. I’ve come to the end of my solo weekend on the ranch. They are going to return the favor of airport transport after midnight tonight when Cyndie arrives home from Guatemala, so I can get some sleep before the start of my work week.
I’m looking forward to having everyone home again.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Entryway 2.1
Back in the first week of August, I posted about the bush at the front door of our house dying an unexplained death. A few days after I published the picture, I arrived home from work to find the dead branches all gone.
Cyndie had cut it back to the main trunk, saving that for me in case I wanted to balance some rocks on it.
That was all the invitation I needed.
I didn’t actually believe this would last as long as it has. When I pass by with the lawn tractor while mowing, I fully expect the stone to topple over from the vibration, but it has survived multiple mowings thus far without falling. There have been a few rainy and windy days, too, but it continues to stand.
I never expect balanced rocks to last, but when they endure for long periods of time, I grow increasingly attached to them. It becomes hard to try something fresh after they come down, because I get more interested in trying to get back what we had before.
That’s probably a good metaphorical life-lesson for me right there.
I’ll ponder that as I gaze a while longer at the mesmerizing balanced stone.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Much Accomplished
The day started slowly, but gained momentum and became a productive and fruitful one at Wildwood Lodge Club. Cyndie’s family was well represented among the 6 current clans that hold membership in the association. Best of all, not only did the looming possibility of a rainout not happen, there was even some sunshine to bask in while we worked (and played).
The primary effort started with the beach and “boats.” There are canoes, kayaks of a variety of sizes, small sail boats, and standup paddle boards that tend to get parked on the beach. More time was probably spent washing the cobwebs off the chairs that line the beach.
The lake seems high enough again this year to have reduced our sandy strip to a minimum for all the things we put there. First impressions that the water would be uncomfortably cold were altered quickly and led to kids choosing to jump in, which soon led to requests to go tubing behind the speed boat.
Summer might as well be in full swing.
We pulled goals out of storage, which led to me needing to take on Cyndie’s nephews in a little 1-against-2 mini soccer match on my way to helping pull weeds under the playground set. I discovered loose screws that needed wrenching to get that apparatus up to code.
I helped brainstorm a location for a new grill station outside the lodge kitchen, and unloaded pavers when Cyndie’s brother arrived from town with a heavy load. While at the lodge, I stepped up to help dispatch the rejected weeds and rocky dirt that accumulated from a massive clean out of the landscaping by the front steps.
That involved loading them onto a cart and transporting them to a perfect low spot in the woods by the driveway. Extra leftover hostas were moved up to our “cabin,” where Cyndie’s mom has designs to make good use of them.
Our getaway to the lake was feeling an awful lot like a typical day at home tending to 20 acres, with a bonus of the added glorious lake view.
I think my body will be happy to get back to the day-job on Tuesday for some well-earned rest.
In the mean time, my mind is thoroughly enjoying the mental vacation and energizing pleasures of family and friends —people and place— that Wildwood is all about.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Relative Something 