Posts Tagged ‘trees’
Next Project
It’s going to be another solo weekend for me as Cyndie will be at her mom’s house in Edina and that will give me a chance to make all sorts of racket with my newest wood splitting tool. It is one I ordered online last winter and had to wait to receive it until long after I had any interest in wrestling with it in the heat of summer.
I tested it on a few logs last April and quickly learned the metal-on-metal banging demands serious hearing protection. The gist of the mechanism is basically the same as my old splitter except it doesn’t glide on a stationary post, so it’s completely mobile!
It’s got two handgrips and I can take it to wherever the cut logs are piled to split them right there.
It just so happens we have several such piles after last weekend. When I cut up the trunk laying in the paddock, we also took care of a tree that was laying across one of our trails, one that was leaning against others in the woods between the house and chicken coop, and an old dead tree in the middle of the woods where I had just cleared a new trail.
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I will bundle those little logs with the chain shown in the image above –which is supposed to hold everything in place while splitting– and chop away with reckless abandon.
Then I’ll have piles of split firewood to collect with the famous ATV trailer that Cyndie bought as a replacement for the one she sold in her big barn sale, thinking we no longer needed it.
I’ll also have an upper body workout taken care of without needing to go to a gym. It’ll be a project with multiple benefits.
We’ll see if reality is able to live up to my ambitious visions.
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Colors Intensifying
It’s already as dark as can be in the morning when I depart for my commute to the Cities and almost as dark before dinner’s barely finished so the swing of seasons is unmistakable. What I miss while I am at the day-job is the rapidly intensifying colors unfolding in a select few of our trees around Wintervale.
Luckily, Cyndie is home to capture the spectacle for me.
Soak it up with me…
Is that fun or what?!
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Inside View
Justifiably so, most pictures of trees in autumn are from beyond the forest where the view can include the variety of brilliant colors glowing from entire trees. Yesterday, Delilah and I paused on a walk through our woods so I could capture the view of early autumn from within the trees.
There are plenty of green leaves still attached to branches but the forest floor is already carpeted by a new batch of recently fallen leaves. The onset of fall is first noticeable by the leaves that fall on our trails, before the ones that start turning colors up in the branches.
I find myself needing to put effort toward consciously noticing this IS autumn. The early phases of this transition beyond summer are just as much a part of my favorite season as the later phases when branches are bare and mornings frosty.
Earlier in the week, Cyndie captured her shadow visible on the trunk of a tree that was glowing orange with a spot of just-risen sunlight appearing through the forested landscape behind her.
It may be the last week of September but the grass on our property is growing like it’s still mid-summer. It is becoming common now that I end up mowing grass and mulching fallen leaves all at the same time.
It bothers me a little bit that I am not shocked that 80-degree temperatures are forecast for the next few days.
Just like the fall season IS here right now, so is global warming and all the effects scientists have long predicted would occur if humans didn’t reduce the creation of greenhouse gasses at the rate that has grown steadily since the beginning of industrialization.
Fall colors and hot temperatures are an odd combination for my mind to associate.
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Getting Bolder
Even though the number of trees around us that are starting to show some colors of autumn is few, a couple took a jump yesterday toward premium brilliance. Those spots of bold color are particularly eye-catching.
That dot of redness stands out distinctly against the green around it. When this happens, I imagine what that tree would look like if all the leaves changed to the same degree at the same time.
Around the corner from that area is a maple tree turning orange.
I hope this is an indication of fall color intensity we can look forward to seeing more of as the month progresses.
I heard that the ever-changing sunrise and sunset times are moving 3-minutes per day about now. That’s a loss of 21-minutes of daylight this week. Could less sunlight mean slower grass growth finally?
I’m ready to be done mowing for the season. I suspect we still have a ways to go until I can park the mower for the winter.
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Mighty Oaks
Today I am celebrating the mighty oak trees outside our door with a brief photo montage of three particular aspects that appeal to me: acorns, leaves, and the canopy of leaves.
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They fall to the foot of the tree and, with the help of squirrels, find their way far and wide, sprouting in so many unexpected locations.
Leaves also fall to the foot of the tree with surprising regularity throughout the summer. I’ve come to the realization that trees shed little branches like humans shed strands of hair.
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I love looking up at the canopy of leaves overhead. We have learned from our local DNR Forester that oak trees will sacrifice their lower branches when other trees grow up from below and begin to crowd the space and make contact with the oak branches. We are slowly working on an ongoing process of freeing our prized oak trees of competition from below.
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Squall Line
Cyndie was out walking Delilah on our north loop trail near the road when she captured this dramatic view of yesterday mornings’ approaching thunderstorm.
They didn’t make it back to the house without getting soaked.
We received about 2.25 inches of rain out of the storm that kept Delilah incessantly barking at the continuous big, bad bowling balls rumbling in the heavens.
Our surface soil moisture amount now seems to be enough for most of our lawn grasses and all of the weeds. There is more rain predicted for the end of this week so maybe that will do something for our root-zone soil moisture that is still sorely lacking.
I just hope we don’t get one of those dousings like Tennessee just received that caused the catastrophic flash flooding.
The trees on our property dropped so many branches they reminded me of the amount of hair constantly shedding from my head. The big oak that stretches across the driveway up by the house has started to shed acorns. After our effort last year to collect 100 viable ones for a planting experiment, I now feel guilty every time I hear a cracking sound under my boots.
“That could have been a potential new tree!”
Yesterday, it dropped so many shards of branches onto the pavement below, the acorns weren’t even noticeable among the debris.
Walking Delilah through the woods became a stuttering start/stop exercise for her as I was constantly pausing to bend over and pick up branches to toss them off the pathway. Several were big enough they required a two-handed effort.
That doozy of a squall line ushered in quite a dose of heavy weather. Maybe the next precipitation could come in the form of a slow day-long soaking, thank you very much.
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Fawns Visit
Yesterday morning, first thing, Cyndie reported seeing a momma deer and two fawns out our bedroom window. I was just commenting the other day that there was no sign of any nibbling of our hostas back there this summer. I didn’t check yet to see if that still holds true.
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After work yesterday, I was busy mowing the opposite side of our property. After just one downpour of rain over the weekend, our grass responded with a burst of growth. There was nothing strategic about my mowing methods this time. I cut everything possible in the time before dinner was served.
I heard a meteorologist’s analysis that the one occasion of heavy rain on Saturday was not sufficient to break the overall drought our region is suffering. He said that would require getting rain in similar amounts at least once a week for multiple weeks. The long-range forecast doesn’t bode well for that happening.
I’m counting our blessings that we have so few areas where the stress of dryness is obvious. Most trees and shrubs are looking close to normal. Grassy areas that get some shade look downright healthy.
Maybe the deer don’t need the hostas if there are enough other choices for grazing. They were probably just visiting to be social.
Delilah failed to detect them, so they weren’t driven away by loud, ferocious barking. She is a little under the weather and threw up the full contents of her stomach yesterday. Cyndie said it appeared a couple of days-worth of food wasn’t getting processed and came back up.
When that happened other times, we immediately discarded the rest of whatever can of food she was being served and start a fresh one. Since it always did the trick the other times, we are returning to that solution for now.
Meanwhile, she is doing some grazing of her own, chomping on grass when she is out on a walk.
Good thing it got tall after the last blast of rain.
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No Sound
Was there a sound made when the large limb of one of our oak trees snapped and tipped to the ground sometime yesterday? Cyndie didn’t hear anything.
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Right now, I’m feeling inclined toward leaving it as it is. The upper portion is well above my lumberjacking abilities. Maybe after all the leaves are down it will become easier to assess the tangle of small trees that were victimized by the crash. I’ll gladly delay a decision on what to do until some time in the future.
Especially if it continues to make no sound.
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Alive
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morning
at the lake
quiet
filtered sunlight
leaves
green
trees
woods
calm
energy
peace
tranquility
love
family
awaken
heartbeat
spark
breakfast
stories
eventually
opportunity
arrives
life
comes
alive
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Really Dry
There are places suffering a lot worse drought consequences than we are, but the impact of our moderate drought conditions right now are noticeable all around our property. In the nine years that we have lived here, I have only seen it approach this level of dryness one other time.
It gets a little nerve-wracking owning large animals when grazing land begins to dry up. So far, I’d say we have been pretty lucky. Our hay shed is stacked high with bales and our fields have plenty of growth left from May that the horses have only lightly grazed.
We are still hoping the neighbor farmer who previously rented our fields to grow hay will cut and bale the hayfield soon. The horses barely put a dent in the growth out there and it’s long past ready for cutting. I assume it has increased value to him given conditions, but his delay tending to the task has us wondering. (We just learned his equipment broke down but he’s got it fixed and hopes to make it out later today.)
I feel really lucky that so much of our surroundings are staying as green as they are. Out of the roughly 4 acres of grass I mow, only two spots have dried up to a dead-brown-looking crisp.
We do not water the grass around the house and both front and back are faring really well considering.
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I think a lot of it has to do with the surrounding shade that keeps the ground from baking as severely as open areas.
Now if the trees can just hold out long enough to outlast the dryness, the rest of our land might get by just fine.
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Relative Something 