Posts Tagged ‘trees’
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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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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Fighting Frustration
I know that I can just give in and stop trying to make progress when barriers repeatedly frustrate my attempts to advance toward a goal, but I seem to have an ingrained attachment to that angst of repeatedly banging my head against the problems that arise. Eventually, I will go back to grazing, but for now…
Yesterday was a day to give up and go back to bed, but I forged ahead regardless, and bashed headlong into the fruitless exercise of trying to get something done anyway. It probably wasn’t as bad as I’m making it seem, but the final straw was trying to write this post live online when our internet connection was doing an endless dance loop of resetting, creating a repeating pattern of pages hanging mid-load, and slamming the brakes on any attempts to actually achieve something productive.
Talk about frustrating! We were trying to research costs for materials for our next phase of pasture fencing, to compare with the quote we have received from our fence contractor. We also got stopped in the middle of trying to do online research for information on improving the surface of our paddocks.
The reason we were indoors doing research is because it is raining outside again. Speaking of frustration, the rain gauge revealed 2 more inches fell overnight Sunday to Monday morning. The wetness around here is crazy-making!
Since I couldn’t work on anything else, I walked right down to the wettest area of our planned grazing pasture —probably out of spite— where two dead trees had toppled over in the storm that destroyed my woodshed (I think the woodshed failure is frustrating me more than I am admitting to myself), and I started cutting them up and creating a new brush pile. Man, will it feel good to ignite that bonfire. Too bad it will have to wait for months because the pile is currently located on an area of standing water.
I let my focus wander to the drainage ditch that forms the southern border of our property, where the water of the last few storms is still flowing along in an irritatingly pleasant manner. Standing in water up to my ankles, I began the work of cutting out the 1-to-2 inch volunteer trees that were allowed to grow unchecked to clutter the ditch, making a perfect snow-stop that creates dams and backs up flow during the spring melt.
The plan is to clear the ditch, and the junk trees that have been sprouting in the area just above it, because above is where we will run the southern leg of our new grazing pasture fence.
While I was down there working, our delightful dog, Delilah, was happily exploring to and fro, prancing in the running water, and generally being a sweet companion… until she wasn’t. She disappeared on me while I was engrossed in aggravating the tendonitis in both elbows, working our ratcheting pruner to cut down the forest of unwelcome growth.
After Delilah’s performance on Sunday —moments after I had received a subtle comment from our neighbor about her frequent visits to his place— where she ran away from me to interrupt that very family’s Mother’s Day picnic on their front lawn, she has me so frustrated that I have decreed that she must be on-leash now when outside and not being directly watched.
It’s all got me plenty frustrated, I tell you, but the regression to need to leash Delilah again is at the top of the heap.
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Will They?
One of our current spring dramas is whether our pine trees will recover from the stress they have endured from our dry fall that was followed by the most extreme winter we’ve had in 35 years. I’ve not consulted with an arborist yet, but our trees are definitely browning from the bottom up and the inside out. This doesn’t match the descriptions I find of how winter injury or pine wilt symptoms appear. Whatever it is that is causing the problem, it’s not affecting every single pine, but it is widespread throughout our property and not confined to one spot. We are hoping for the best, but I’m inclined to believe the prognosis is not good. The die-back on many of them is over half the tree.
That isn’t our only drama this spring. We are also anxious to learn whether the maple tree we transplanted to the labyrinth last fall survived the obvious shock it endured from its being uprooted and relocated. If we witness signs of life from that tree in the days ahead, my spirit will soar and we will have much cause for celebration.
There is also concern for the number of plants Cyndie worked so hard to get established in the rest of the labyrinth. This winter was hard on everything, so even if the plants survived the onslaught of snow and long periods of extreme cold, they will now face risks from animals that are trying to eat anything and everything available to recover from their own season-long deprivation. I don’t intend to erect a 10-foot-high fence around the garden to keep deer away, but I fear that is about what it would take to dissuade them from bellying up to our conveniently situated buffet down there.
We could ask Delilah to patrol the area for us, as she would be thrilled at an invitation to chase deer, but she would likely wreak her own havoc on plants, as she demonstrates amazing reckless disregard for all living things in her excitement to chase and dig.
One last drama we came face to face with yesterday is the question of whether we will be able to continue allowing Delilah to be both an indoor and an outdoor pet. This is the first spring that she has lived with us, so we haven’t previously needed to deal with managing both spring mud and a dog before.
When we step in the door, we can simply remove our muddy boots. I wish it were that simple for her. Yesterday, a day when the temperature was below freezing, but the sunshine was still melting exposed ground, she got legs and belly covered with mud and manure-cicles. When we came inside, Delilah was rubbed down with a towel in a cursory attempt to dry her off. Later, when we had time, she would get bathed to remove the residual grime.
So much for waiting. Soon we were seeing dark spots all over the floor. The mud and manure frozen to her underside, and which toweling did not remove, was now melting at a rapid pace. Everywhere she walked in our house was becoming a bio-hazard site. Poor dog was unceremoniously evicted and sent to her kennel outside do be dealt with later.
If I thought it stood a chance of working, I’d look into mud boots for her. I wonder if she’d let me wrap her torso with stretch-wrap to keep her belly fur dry.
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Walking Partner
The best thing I can do for my back is go for a walk, so as soon as I got home from work yesterday, I headed out with Delilah for a little stroll around the property. She is very entertaining to walk with this time of year. The snow is deep enough that she struggles mightily to make progress through areas of undisturbed accumulation, quickly resorting to leaping like a deer to pounce over, instead of plowing through it.
She is happy to follow the trails left by the deer, or where someone has previously walked, sprinting to get way ahead of me, and then turning to see if I’m still coming. She shows intense interest in the scents lingering in the footprints left by the deer, and spends protracted moments in olfactory detection. If I somehow manage to catch up and pass her, she bolts to close the gap and then leaps into the deep snow for several pounces to get around me before reclaiming the trail.
We came upon the pine tree that we picked up off the ground a few times last spring, and discovered it is showing signs of not having survived. It is one of several that aren’t looking so good, and has me thinking we should be planning to do some tree planting come spring so that we add more than we lose every year. We are already behind, because a similar pine on the front side of the house died last winter and had to be cut down.
While I was taking pictures of the tree, Delilah got in some small-game hunting beneath the snow.
She didn’t come up with anything except a face full of snow, which I attempted to capture before she shook it all off. I didn’t get much cooperation from her in terms of posing for photographs, but I think this does it justice.
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I was lucky that the deep snow tired her out enough that she reached her fill of being outside at about the same time I was reaching my tolerance limit for walking. On this day, the deep snow and my ailing back ended up balancing our walking partnership perfectly.
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Double Whammy
I have been warned, multiple times, that the horses would try to chew the bark off the trees that are in their paddock. Yesterday, when I arrived to feed the horses in the afternoon, I spotted a breach in the “metal fabric” we had wrapped around the trunk of the big willow tree. I could see a piece of it hanging out, so I walked over for a closer look.
Even though there is still some material over the trunk, one or more of the horses have succeeded in scraping off the outer bark over a large area. I was never really sure whether that last metal protection I selected would ultimately work, but I got lulled into thinking it was sufficient because they were leaving it alone for the most part, up until now.
It is possible that the metal fabric could still be a viable option, if I can devise a better way of securing it. I’m not sure. My other thought would be to try some heavier woven-wire fence around the whole mess, but I’m still stuck trying to secure the joint where it would meet in such a way that the horses can’t just peel it open again.
As if that wasn’t distressing enough, as I walked around the tree to survey the damage, I discovered a gaping split from a frost crack that started near the ground and rose up over my head on the main trunk, on the side opposite from where the horse(s) damage is occurring. It looks devastating, but from what I have read about this affliction, it doesn’t necessarily doom a tree.
That willow is a glorious sight as you come upon it in the summer. It would be a real shame to lose it. I won’t give up without trying to do something to save it, but right now the horses are at the advantage. We could try locking them out of that paddock until I can get to it over the weekend, but then the system we have been using to give them their twice-a-day feed would need to be altered, since that would make only half of the barn overhang accessible.
Actually, the solution I wish for would be to have them just understand to leave the tree alone, that it’s for their own good. It would sure alleviate a lot of hassle for me. Then I would only have the frost crack threatening the tree, and that problem is pretty much out of my control.
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Opportunity Aplenty
Here are some of the issues that are crowding my realm of possibilities this morning:
Our male cat, Mozyr, has fallen into the behavior of peeing on our bed. I’ve been told that once that gets started, it is unlikely to change. We must deal with this immediately. I hate that stench.
We are getting more than enough urine smell from our manure pile. I had no idea what was involved with manure management, and I’m thinking now that the spot we selected seems undersized. I still feel like the location we selected is good, even though the smell sometimes wafts up toward the house, but I fear we may need to take out a few additional trees to expand the square footage.
Speaking of taking out trees, I now have all the equipment to do some serious lumberjacking and there is a dead tree on a corner of our property by the road. It is a chore that is overdue to have been started. Every day that goes by, the task feels more delinquent.
We spent time yesterday testing out the Grizzly ATV for assisting with cleaning up manure in the paddocks, with mixed results. The manure is frozen in multiple layers and much of it covered in snow. We tried both dragging the rake and pushing with the blade. Each seemed to make improvements, but manure that gets collected still needs to be scooped up and moved. That remains and laborious and lengthy endeavor.
I’m supposed to be clearing out our storage corner in the basement. In my search for a solution to the fractured triangular window beside the fireplace, I have connected with a local builder who stopped by to measure for the replacement. Over the phone I mentioned that we also were interested in having a storage room built in our basement. That seemed to go a long way toward enticing him to take on the window replacement. Now I need to get that space ready for the basement work to commence.
It is now nearing the middle of January and I never got around to preparing engines for winter storage. I understand that the primary reason engines fail to run well, or to even start, is leaving old gas in them over the off-season. I am my own worst enemy there. I have a hard time keeping my engines running properly, because I have a hard time getting myself to prepare them for the months of storage.
I took the mower deck off the little Craftsman garden tractor last fall, then flipped it over to be cleaned and to remove the blades for sharpening. It remains where I placed it, untouched.
I’ve got a half-built fence awaiting my attention down the hill from the house. The first snow of the season put that project on hold, but when it’s not bitterly cold, there is progress that could still be made there. I’m afraid the fence has gotten lost in the blur of other work that needs attention.
Meanwhile, we have plans for a Wintervale web site to market Cyndie’s services as a leadership trainer and to offer seminars and retreats here. The “under-construction” image is as far as we’ve gotten.
I’m sequential in nature, so I’d like to go back and get the first things done, so I can move on to the next few, but life doesn’t work like that. I’m back to playing “Whack-a-Mole” with whatever pops up in the moment.
Yesterday, since I had the Grizzly out, I ran it up and down the driveway to clear off the drifts that had developed over the week of historically cold temperatures. It was pleasing to so quickly and easily “whack” something from the list.
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Buried Wires
Our search to locate the rusty old barbed wired fence that demarcated the northern border of our property has reached a temporary pause. We made it to the end of one section of visible rusted T-posts and wires, but now the wires disappear beneath years, maybe decades, of eroded soil that makes its way down the slope from a plowed field above.
I tried pulling up on the wires, but they are so old and rusted, especially having been buried for years, they just broke. I ventured ahead, further along our property line to a new section of scrub brush, to find someplace where the wires show up above ground again, hoping to work my way back from the other direction. What I found was a batch of grape vines so thick that it makes the thorny area we had previously been working in seem like a luxury.
On the positive side, it appears we could grow grapes! This vine sure looks fruitful! Maybe if I give it good attention for a few years, pruning and supporting it, I could nurture a harvest-able crop. Fresh squeezed grape juice would be a real treat.
I did also find where the wires come up out of the ground onto another T-post. As I followed the wires into the ground there, I discovered that they can’t be pulled up from this direction because they are now running beneath years of growth of the thick wood shoots of the grape vines.
At this point, my plan is to just run our new fence in a line between the last posts I did locate. 
The property line is supposed to be straight, anyway, so there’s no real mystery as to where the fence should be. And, there is no sense digging up the buried barbed wire, just to get rid of it. In this case, buried wire is the same as no wire at all.
I have also decided that for the remainder of the thick sections in the direction toward the street, we can forego trying to cut away enough brush to put a fence down the middle, and instead, just use the entire mass of trees as our fence. I will trim the branches on our side so they form a clean line, creating the impression of a tall hedge.
That’s the theory, anyway. We’ll see if my idea works after I spend many hours and a lot of energy pruning trees to test it out.
Flying Solo
For the first time since the horses arrived, I am home alone while Cyndie is out of town. I am trying to keep calm and project a positive confidence, but… oh. my. god.
So far, so good. Our animals are eating the food I cook, er… serve. I know I don’t do things the way Cyndie does, but so far, the dog and horses are politely tolerating my methods. We’ll see how patient they are with me after a few days without Cyndie around.
The cats behave like cats, and take care of themselves for the most part. Speaking of cats, it was over a week ago now that I spotted a white and gray cat beneath our bedroom window, savagely dining on a very recently deceased rabbit. A rather graphic depiction of the circle of life. I don’t know whether that cat gets credit for the kill, or if it was some other critter. If it was Delilah, I don’t think she would have parted with it long enough for the cat to have access.
Whoever it was, the cat didn’t get a chance for seconds after its first meal, because Delilah did find the carcass and had her way with what remained of it, making sure to show everyone around that she had a special prize.
Delilah and I are already missing Cyndie’s extraordinary skills of removing burrs. My skills seem to be in the realm of getting Delilah into more burrs. Yesterday afternoon, we were down by the labyrinth garden and I was clearing a path into the woods nearby that will meet with an old trail we plan to clear and re-open. Then I wandered over to do a little work on a tree that had fallen back in May, when the late-season heavy snow storm hit.
Delilah was exploring everywhere in the area, occasionally stopping by me to bite on a branch as if to help. By the time we got back to the house, she had some burrs that I haven’t seen before. I brushed her for a while, and then we had burrs on the floor, burrs stuck to my shirt, a pile on the table, and some on the counter.
As I was getting ready for bed, I discovered I brought back one more thing from my chores by the labyrinth: a tick. I think it was smaller than a regular wood tick, so that could mean the dreaded deer tick. Unfortunately, he/she was attached and dining on me. That’s the first bite I’ve had in the year we have been here, which I consider pretty good luck. None of our activities here fall under the guidelines of ways to avoid ticks. I was bound to run into this sooner or later.
It gives me something to tell Cyndie about, since I don’t plan to have anything newsworthy to report about the horses or Delilah. Now I gotta get back to work, tending to animals. There is no copilot available to cover for me for a few days.
