Posts Tagged ‘trees’
Leaky Tree
I’m reporting from a remote location this morning, having stayed a night in the cities to attend an event honoring students and staff at the old alma mater. Instead of driving home, only to turn around in a few hours to drive back to work, I spent the night at Cyndie’s parents’ house in Edina.
It was a real treat to see some of the accomplishments of the present-day people at Eden Prairie public schools. That is where both Cyndie and I graduated from, as well as both of our children, and where Cyndie worked as high school principal for several years.
The number of young, new-to-me faces of staff being given special recognition by the Foundation for EP Schools last night was inspiring, yet caused me to become acutely aware my advanced age. The years of our involvement seem like a really long time ago now.
At the same time, a few of the music teachers present were the same people who taught our children, and they were excited to pass along greetings to their former students. So, I guess it wasn’t that long ago.
It’s all relative, isn’t it?
Cyndie sent me pictures and stories of the antics of Cayenne sneaking through one of our web fences, twice!, yesterday; the chickens came in the barn and totally ignored the cheep-cheeping chicks; and the chicks are another day happier and healthier.
She also captured this picture of an impressive dual-pronged sap-cicle on a branch of one of our young maple trees. I don’t know why this one is leaking at that spot, but there is no mistaking the fact that the sap is flowing strong.
Syruping season is here.
It may not feel like spring yet, but when the pure maple syrup starts getting boiled down around these parts, nice weather can’t be far off.
I’m feeling ready for some of both.
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Grand Transition
It is beginning to feel like the transition from winter to spring is swinging significantly toward the latter under our present weather system of warm, sunny afternoons. The snow cover is receding with increasingly visible change apparent each time I travel up the driveway when arriving home from the day-job.
What a difference we are enjoying in comparison to the east coast where it must seem like spring is nowhere in sight, with their region getting pummeled by the third nor’easter in two weeks.
We are less than a week away from the March equinox marking the start of astronomical spring. Thus brings on the half-year of days longer than the nights for those of us in the northern hemisphere.
Already, our three existing chickens have returned to their daily production of eggs. The increasing daylight hours are working their magic.
The trees are even beginning to develop buds.
As exciting as that is, it brings on one of my great fears. The warming climate is extending the growing season beyond what was usual for the many years of my youth. Over the last five years of living here, we have seen too many occasions when the early warmth has triggered early growth on the trees that was subsequently obliterated by a brief return of an overnight freeze.
That doesn’t usually kill the tree, but it wreaks havoc on growth for that year. It’s something that breaks my heart to see. So, as happy as I am to see the leaves sprouting, I don’t breathe easy until the nighttime temperatures are convincingly done dropping into the 30s(F).
Getting to that point is definitely a grand part of the transition from winter to spring.
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Tragic Breakup
The beautiful snowstorm of last Monday is mostly a memory. The 14-inches of accumulation that poured down on us in a matter of hours during the day has been drastically reduced by a few subsequent days of an above-freezing thaw.
Grass became exposed where I plowed or shoveled, pavement showed through on the driveway, and the deck got as clear as a summer day.
I was gazing out at that deck yesterday when I spotted a tragic result of all that snow.
One of the prominent pine trees near the house had lost its top, as the two main leaders split apart and toppled away from each other.
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Meanwhile, despite the areas of pavement that were dry, the slope beyond the shop garage remained an icy challenge that a FedEx delivery truck was unable to successfully cross.
Moments after delivering his package, Delilah’s barking alerted me to the driver trotting back up toward our house. He’d slid off the driveway into the snow bank and wondered if I could pull him out.
We tried several options, seeking the least complicated solutions first, but everything led his truck deeper into trouble until I got out the diesel tractor. Using the trick of wedging the loader bucket against the driveway and using the hydraulic force to “walk” the tractor backwards, we successfully got the truck out of the snow and back up on the icy driveway surface, which we had smartly covered with grit from our pile of lyme screenings.
That allowed the driver to roll forward off the riskiest segment of ice and out of the most hazardous section of the driveway.
We shared a laugh over how nice yesterday’s warm weather was and how far removed it was from the drama of Monday’s storm, yet the results of that storm were still having all this impact on our lives.
The ditched truck was a quick resolution, but the tragic breakup of our tree will linger as a long-term reminder of the harsh realities that come along with the beauty of these big snowfalls.
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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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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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Open Call
Dear Twin Cities friends and family, if you have been longing to get out in the fresh air of the countryside to put in a good day’s work helping take down a couple of dead trees, I have an opportunity for you!
On either Friday or Saturday this week, depending on the availability of a majority of hoped-for volunteers, I am plotting to finally bring down a crown of dead branches located at a particularly prominent front corner of our property.
It doesn’t appear be a complicated project, but it has potential to be a chore that many hands will greatly ease and likely expedite.
My plan involves using a chainsaw to cut down each of the 5 “trunks” sprouting from the common base of the first tree, and then grinding the multitude of small branches in our chipper. We will point the chute of the chipper into the bed of our pickup truck and haul the bounty to the storage nook by the labyrinth garden.
Any limbs larger than 5-inches diameter will be cut for firewood and hauled up to be stacked beside the wood shed.
When the first tree is out of the way, we will toss a rope into the second tree and repeat the routine with that skeleton.
The weather forecast six days out is looking promising to accommodate outdoor work.
Volunteers will be rewarded with food from Cyndie’s kitchen, your choice of take-home bags of wood chips or Wintervale soul-soil, and an invigorating workout in the great outdoors with bountiful good fellowship.
If you are ready, willing, and able for this one-day lumberjacking adventure, let me know as soon as you can.
Be all that you can be.
Just do it.
Advance and be recognized.
Snap! Crackle! Pop!
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Eradication Season
It’s that time of year again. The invasive Common Buckthorn becomes much more exposed in early November, when the leaves of the desirable trees have just dropped to the ground. The deep green buckthorn leaves hang around long enough to make them easy to find.
I have taken a crack at this every fall since we arrived here, and I still get surprised to discover some really tall trees in our woods that have obviously been missed.
Yesterday, Cyndie offered to do most of the strenuous work if I took Delilah and walked the woods with her, pointing out which green leaves to eradicate. It’s not a perfect science, because there is one other bush that holds leaves this late, and its leaves are just barely less green than the buckthorn.
The challenge is compounded by Cyndie’s insatiable urge to wield the pruner with reckless abandon.
As persistent as the buckthorn invader can be at taking over the understory of our oak and maple forests, I take satisfaction in the comparison between our property and the neighbor’s. I have seen no effort to clear their property, and the results just become more obvious every year.
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Those views above are from one spot on our trail. On the left, looking into the neighbor’s land, and on the right, ours.
I would say, our efforts are proving worthy.
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Rare Find
Very few people ever get a chance to see the rare skunk tree in its natural environment. I was taking a shortcut through our woods now that the leaves are down and snuck up behind this specimen before he was able to hide his stripe.
Actually, I think it may have been a Halloween costume. Ever wonder what the trees in the forest are up to when no one is around?
The woods did seem a little spookier than usual last night.
At least it didn’t smell like a skunk outside.
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Five Years
Happy Anniversary, Wintervale!
This week, five years ago, is when we made the big leap from the suburbs in Minnesota to the rolling countryside of west-central Wisconsin. We only moved about an hour east, but in many ways, we are a world away from our previous life.
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There is so much that I didn’t have a clue about in October of 2012 when we committed to this new adventure. Actually, that is one thing I was very certain about, …that I didn’t have any idea what would happen next.
In the five years since, we accomplished a remarkable number of things, most of them made up as we went along. There was no grand five-year plan, just a vague idea of what we thought we could do. It has really been more of a case of multiple one-year plans, each one blossoming into the next.
Honestly, we’ve had a remarkable number of successes that have fueled inspirations to take on whatever next possibility showed up in the light of each additional day.
The idea that we could even end up here in the first place was born even further back than five years ago, in September of 2010 when we traveled to Portugal to meet Ian Rowcliffe. Ian’s insights, wisdom, and initiative to nurture his Forest Garden Estate planted a seed in us that has blossomed into what Wintervale Ranch is today.
We also give a lot of credit to Tom and Sue Sherry, who helped design our layout and fencing, doing the work under their company, Best Built Fence, but becoming friends, as well. They deftly interpreted our dreams to devise a real world layout that suited us perfectly.
Honorable mention goes to nature, itself. The four seasons, the extremes of weather, and the march of time have done the most to shape this land since we arrived. From the onslaught of 18 inches of heavy, wet spring snow in the first days of May, 2013, to the flash-flooding rains of 2017, many changes are forced upon us whether we want them, or not.
The simple growth of trees becomes a striking reference of change through a span of five years.
I didn’t find an exact matching shot, but this recent picture of the mailbox with the Wintervale flag and signs caught a corner of one tree by the road that has tripled in size.
Can you spot it in the picture on the left above, to the right of the moving van backing up the driveway?
We’ve come a long way in five years, baby. Now, without a break, we are jumping into our sixth and everything is just going to keep on growing.
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Forest Find
While Cyndie and I were perusing our woods, collecting materials for the stick fence we are making, I came upon a very picturesque tree. Well, the remains of a tree.
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As much as we like to clean out downed branches in an effort to tidy up our woods, it’s nice to find occasional examples of nature’s course playing out without our, at times, overbearing intervention.
There is something very satisfying about seeing an old tree turning back into the dirt from which it grew.
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Relative Something 