Posts Tagged ‘trees’
Gnawing Challenge
Why, yes, in case you were wondering, we do have a tree, two of them, in fact, inside the fence of one of our paddocks. (I just wanted to see how many commas I could fit in a sentence.)
We have been informed by many different sources, that we need to protect our trees from the horses gnawing on the bark. Some folks, we were told, put a fence around trees in this kind of situation. We didn’t want to go to that extreme, so we planned to wrap the trees in something that would block access.
My first attempt involved some left-over plastic fence material from one of Cyndie’s previous garden projects. The horses quickly showed me they are more than happy to chew on plastic, which wasn’t a surprise, so I moved on to the next left-over material I could find lying around. There was some chicken wire that might do the trick, if I could make the limited amount stretch far enough.
It didn’t. I ran short of being able to get high enough up the willow tree, and somebody in the herd decided it was time to show what they could do if given the opportunity. When I noticed some bark had gotten chewed, I figured I needed to take it to a new level, and go the route of a fence. I don’t know why I was limiting my focus to only using materials we had on hand, but it occurred to me that we kept some old cattle fence that would work to keep them from reaching the trunk.
That effort was doomed to having been under-thought and poorly executed. Cyndie reminded me that the size of the squares were large enough to get a hoof through, so we needed to wrap it in a mesh like we did on the big field border fence. Then I noticed that they were just pushing and mouthing that structure to a degree that I would need to keep adding upgrades that would soon have it looking like a Rube Goldberg contraption.
While exploring Fleet Farm the other day, I stumbled upon some material called hardware cloth that wasn’t too expensive. It resonated with me and I decided to give it a try. We dismantled the cattle fencing completely and went back to just wrapping the trunk of the tree, leaving the earlier vinyl and metal chicken wire attempts as a base layer. Now it has a look of medieval chainmail armor from a distance.
I feel like it’s a challenge to the horses, inviting them to try their worst, by allowing them to get right up to it. They can rub their bodies to scratch themselves, then find a weak spot where they could get a grip with their teeth to pull and tear at it until something gives and it looks a mess.
I was hoping Cyndie would just ask them to refrain from chewing on the bark, but apparently it doesn’t quite work that way.
Change Happening
Last weekend, I took some pictures of the trees and their colorful leaves around here. I love the look of that period where the change is just beginning on the outer edges of the crown of a tree. Overnight, things changed such that we can now see into the woods surrounding the house. All the things that grow near the ground along the edges of our forested areas just shriveled up.
We’ve been experiencing some strong gusts of wind throughout the night and yesterday afternoon, which tends to free a lot of the leaves from trees. It is difficult to determine peak colors, but if we are not there right now, I think we are darn close. There are some big oaks that hold their green a long time, but other than those, everything now appears to be in transition.
Before After
I searched my archives for an image of what the area behind the barn looked like last fall when we arrived here. Do you remember when I discovered the eagle statue that had been hidden beneath brambles? That was right on the corner of the barn. Actually, it was the excavator who pointed out the eagle to me, when he was surveying the area for the project we had in mind.
The new access has turned out very much like we hoped and imagined. Success!
That pine tree in the “Before” image on the left is now back in our brush pile to be burned. We had thought about trying to save it and relocate it, but then the 18″ snowstorm we were smacked by on May 2nd tipped it over and broke the roots. That was the only “keeper” tree sacrificed for this project, and the storm made the decision for us. I cut out a bunch of sumac and trimmed up that butternut tree quite a bit. Of course, the different seasons make the images a less than exact comparison, but you get the gist of it here.
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Here is a shot from the day we were working on clearing the brush out in preparation for the arrival of the excavator:
Roots Respect
Toiling away on the chore of raking the ground in one of our paddocks yesterday, I had plenty of time to think about roots. I have a whole new respect for roots since I’ve moved here. Last year we had our fencing company begin the project of changing fence lines by clearing out an area that was left as a water drainage route, but which had been neglected and allowed to become a thicket of junk trees and accumulated debris. They cut down the trees, removed old barbed wire fence, and dug up the stumps to the best of their ability with their skid-steer tractor.
Much of that area they cleared became enclosed by our new paddock fences, so we are working to transition ground that was uncontrolled tree growth last year, into smooth footing for the horses. Trying to rake it is a constant battle with root remnants that continue to poke up out of the ground. Sometimes you pull and find it is completely loose. Other times, it comes easy, but is a long piece that travels quite a ways, churning up dirt. Too often, I’ll grab and tug, but the root doesn’t give at all. Then it’s time to dig and cut.
Those roots are so tenacious, I can’t help but feel increased respect for all they accomplish.
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This is some of the tangled mess that raking turns up.
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There are also rocks.
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And weeds.
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After I grew weary of raking, I took a break to check on our recently transplanted maple tree in the labyrinth. You really need to respect roots when you transplant a tree. We did our best to be careful to save as much of the root structure as possible, but I fear we ended up being rather ruthless. We cut the tap-root pretty short. I 
wish I could see what is going on under the dirt, but from the look of the leaves above, it doesn’t seem to be drinking up the water we are providing. Obviously, the tree is in shock over the experience of having its roots severed and then being transported out into full-day sunshine.
I’m really hoping that the tenacity I witness when trying to remove old roots in the paddocks, will manifest itself in the remaining portions of the severed roots under this little maple. It may be too late for the current batch of leaves to provide any indication that the root system is absorbing and transporting moisture, but I would sure be thrilled if we could find some hint that we aren’t continuing to water something that is already a lost cause.
Slow Process
Last year, late in the fall, we kicked off our big fencing project, enlisting the services of a fencing company to remove a portion of old fences, including some very old barbed wire that was entangled in years of tree and brush growth. When that work was done, the ground in those areas was a mess of deep divots with tangles of root remnants protruding every which way.
Two giant piles of root bundles and brush were created from the tree debris that was removed. Slowly and methodically, we worked to burn those piles through the winter and spring. Meanwhile, the fencing crew moved on to build new fences, creating our two paddock areas attached to the barn.
The incredibly wet spring disturbed most of our progress and planning, and the areas of dirt and divots that were too muddy to go near, fell to neglect. We ended up leaving them for nature to address. They eventually became less conspicuous beneath a cover of grass and weeds that grew through the summer.
A couple of weeks ago, when the excavator was here to dig the trench for our new water line to the paddocks, they dug two huge holes and buried what remained of the piles of root bundles that never did burn.
Last fall, a large pile of cut logs from those trees was left at the bottom of our back hill for me to split and stack for firewood. Yesterday, I finally got the last of that pile moved up to the top, near the wood shed.
The uneven terrain remains to be dealt with, but 9-months after we started that first phase of our initial fencing project, we are just now feeling close to having completed the entirety of that goal.
Of course, I still have all that wood to split and stack, but that task will get lost in a never-ending exercise of firewood production here. There are a couple of perfectly burnable dead trees waiting to be felled, and a few new ones that came down in the spring snow-pocalypse, that are all awaiting being cut into logs.
Managing Growth
We are in the last week of June now, and the growing things around here are finally at their fullest. If we are to maintain control of this property, we need to manage growth. Any areas that have not been mowed yet this year are now looking a lot like the pasture. It’s a shame we weren’t able to bring horses here soon enough for them to dine on our luscious grass. I can’t wait to see how different things will be once we get grazing horses to help keep the growing grass under control.
There are new trees growing everywhere. Unfortunately, many of them sprout in our walkway or in the landscape gardens around the house, where they don’t belong, or wouldn’t ultimately fit. Cyndie wanted to transplant the new babies. I guess she is still thinking in the mindset we had at our old home in the suburbs. Back there, we did everything we could to encourage new tree growth on our little corner lot.
Now we have so many new trees, it is mind-boggling.
I cleared out a space where I would like a new wood shed to be located. After cutting some grass and berry bushes at the edge, the area further in was almost all first or second year maple seedlings that were easier to pull out than cut down.
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It saddens me to take out any trees, but I am feeling encouraged by the incredible number of new trees sprouting without any assistance from us. It appears that it will be very easy to nurture expansion of the woods into any areas that we don’t end up assigning to other purposes.
We’re gonna want all the trees we can possibly add, if we keep experiencing losses like this year’s weather has been dishing out.
Great Generosity
Much to my horror, I have become that guy who hangs on to a borrowed item way too long. It ends today.
Last fall, my sister’s husband, Tim, offered to let me try out his chainsaw to give me a reference for deciding what I wanted to buy. I hoped to do some wood cutting right away, before winter set in, and then get it right back to him.
In a blink, fall was gone, and I hadn’t done any cutting. I eventually found two convenient opportunities to try my hand at starting it, and doing some light work on small trees in our woods. I was pleased to have successfully started it on a cold winter day. The saw seemed the perfect size for me, but I had only tried to do the smallest of work with it at that point.
Then the days rolled off the calendar, and winter became spring. I checked in with my sister, to report that it hadn’t skipped my mind, that I felt bad I’d kept the chainsaw for so long, and that I wanted to get it back to Tim before he found a need to use it. I really didn’t want him to have to ask me to get it back. Mary assured me that he wouldn’t be needing it for a while, which provided some peace of mind for a few more weeks.
Now spring has turned to summer, and storms are throwing trees down, left and right. If ever there was a time to have possession of your own saw, it is now. Unfortunately, I still had Tim’s. Then, last weekend, we had a tree fall onto the road, down by our driveway. It was the perfect opportunity for me to give his saw one last trial run, and then return it. I boldly collected everything I thought I would need, and loaded it in our little trailer, driving the lawn tractor down to the road.
Then I promptly flooded the chainsaw engine and it failed to start.
A flooded small gas engine is one of my weaknesses.
I took the chainsaw back up to the shop and removed the spark plug to dry it, and revisited the manual and a couple of online sites for advice, and then gave it another try. Yep, flooded it again. They make it sound so easy. That’s the part that eats at me. Why can’t I figure it out? I gave up after a couple more failed attempts, and went down to finish the job with a hand saw. Cyndie had already stepped in to help, using a ratcheting cutter to trim all the branches up to the trunk.
After the multiple failures over the weekend, I wanted to prove to myself I could successfully start the saw again. Yesterday, after work, I fired it right up, first try, and it worked like a charm. I headed around to the back of the house where a dead tree stood within view of our bedroom window. For the first time in my life, I felled a standing tree. I’m proud to report that my first felling also happened to be a tree leaning the opposite direction from where I wanted it to fall.
It took an extra cut, when the height of my first one was too low, and then a little persuasion from a strap to swing it over and snap the “hinge,” but it landed right where I wanted. And, I didn’t nick the adjacent tree I was hoping to save.
A chainsaw like this one should work just fine for my needs here.
Thank you, Tim, for the generous gesture of offering the loan, delivering it to us here, and being patient with the long wait for me to return it.
We are ever so grateful for the encouragement and support from both my sister, Mary, and her husband, Tim!
Weather Drama
The dramatic weather events seem to be never-ending here. Yes, it has been the wettest spring that anyone can remember, and this pattern is following the dry fall season that had us suffering under drought conditions. Now, we have entered a pattern of severe thunderstorms that keep rolling through, one after another.
We got rocked out of bed early on Friday morning, by a particularly thunderous storm. I headed to work in the darkness of driving rain, and came upon a very large tree limb, lying in a farm field. It was a big surprise to me, because there were no trees around from which the limb could have come. I turned onto a county road and a short distance further, I came to corner where a few houses are located, and every tree around appeared to be severely broken off, or completely uprooted. The debris completely covered the road.
I stopped my car, put on my raincoat, and stepped out to check if it would be possible to drive around the broken limbs. I discovered that just beyond the first few branches, a giant tree completely blocked the road. Then I noticed, that tree had also brought down a power line that was in the tangled mess of branches, just a step in front of me. I quickly returned to my car and turned around to backtrack to an alternate route.
One thing about that morning storm, as the intensity waned, the lightning flashed non-stop, yet there was only a rare rumble of thunder. It was strange to see so much flashing, without receiving the follow-up thunder booms. Last night, it was just the opposite. There was a storm in the distance that was giving off a constant rumble, even though we couldn’t see the corresponding lightning flashes.
In an interesting turn of events from the “it’s a small world” files, I think we made progress on the plan to get someone to cut our hay. Cyndie and I were hoping our neighbor who runs the CSA farm might be interested. Cyndie initiated contact by email, and received a phone message in response. He didn’t say, ‘no,’ but he hedged it a bit by saying that they are pretty busy trying to get their own hay cut and baled, in between rain storms. We figured we better keep looking for other options.
Yesterday afternoon, our fence guy called to check in, and expressed his vested interest in our getting the growth cut from the areas they will be trying to work. He hadn’t yet found anyone to take on our task, and was talking over ideas with me, when he suddenly had an inspiration. It occurred to him to call the “co-op.” He hung up to do so, right away.
It was hardly a minute later that my phone rang again, this time with a call from that very neighbor we were hoping could help us. He tells me the co-op just called him to see if he could cut my hay field!
It didn’t seem like enough time had passed for my fence guy to have made the first call, let alone the co-op person then reaching our neighbor, before he then made the call to me. He said they described my place and gave my name, and he was able to say that he knew me already.
I think he will be able to help us, but we are still subject to needing to wait for the right weather. He needs a batch of four consecutive dry days.
At the rate we are going, if that ever happens, it will be a dramatic weather event, in its own right. Four consecutive dry days?!
Stored Energy
I stayed overnight in the cities for two days in a row, so yesterday was a precious return to Wintervale for me, after work. There is no snow anywhere in sight!
I went for an abbreviated walk to survey the conditions and found that it appears to be as dry as I’ve yet seen it this spring. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean it is dry, by any definition of the word. There is still standing water visible on the gravel drive in front of the barn, slowly trying to make its way down to lower ground.
Just as I was thinking about what that meant for our fencing project, the contractor called to check in. They are so far behind on every job they have booked, that it will take them long days and weekends to adequately serve all their customers. He did not want to hear that there was still water on the driveway there.
We are hoping to see a fair amount of activity over the days of the coming weekend. Maybe even some progress on the hay shed!
I came upon a broken tree limb stretched across one of our trails, and marveled over the new growth sprouting, regardless the fracture at the trunk of the tree. All that stored energy still does what it is programmed to do.
I wish I had some of that energy in me, for all the spring projects unfolding before us at a thrilling pace right now.
Damage Assessment
Thank goodness that is over. The weekends are an amazing opportunity to work on absolutely everything here. Yes, I am feeling grateful to have the distraction of the day-job, lately.
Yesterday, we started with one agenda, and wandered through several distractions that were not really part of the day’s plan, finally finding ourselves mired in a muddy exercise of clearing an area of the woods near the barn, to prepare a spot for future manure management.
We went for a walk along the trails of our woods and discovered how merciless that last blast of snow was to our trees. It also explained the dramatic number of snaps I heard that morning. It was a bit odd, because I could hear so many branches breaking, but I rarely spotted the damage happening. Yesterday, everywhere we looked, large and small, we found branches, and sometimes main trunks, cracked, shredded, or completely broken.
In the grand scheme of overall damage, ours is actually rather small. Others suffered more dramatic tree loss than any single tree on our property. But in comparison to no damage at all, it feels like we have an overwhelming amount of loss.
It will be a big chore just clearing the trees that now block our trails. I don’t think I will venture into the rest of the woods. Nature will have to take its course there.
