Posts Tagged ‘trees’
Most Rewarding
Planting trees is one of my favorite accomplishments. Yesterday, we transplanted a young pine tree that had unexpectedly sprouted near our front walkway where it had no room to grow into a full-size tree. There was a spot down by the driveway near the road where I had just removed a dead tree, so we chose that spot for the relocation.
This is another of the two-for-one tasks I am most fond of because we have removed a tree from a spot where it didn’t belong and we gained a new tree in a location that had just lost one.
Instead of both areas nagging at me every time I pass by them, each one now brings me new satisfaction.
Doubly rewarding!
Especially since the raccoon that I tried to chase from the tree out our front door reappeared Saturday evening. Two steps forward, one step back.
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Watching Change
How often do we notice that we are witnessing change? Consider the perspective that everything is changing all of the time. We are watching transitions and adaptations happen every single second.
This time of year, the metamorphosis of our dull brown forests from open branches to a thick fabric of green leaves is very easy to notice. The significance of the difference is truly dramatic to experience first-hand. One snapshot is entirely inadequate to represent the vastness of what is happening, but that didn’t stop me from deciding to take a picture of one moment when the early sprouts of green are just becoming visible.
It was a moment when I was witnessing the continued adjustment of our horses to their new home. I stood among them as they luxuriated in the calm comfort of our hayfield. Cyndie captured the view as it appeared to her from the driveway.
Meanwhile, major change is now underway in the pile of composting manure, as revealed by my thermometer.
The modifications underway that will transform this pile of shit into rich soil are happening right before my eyes, even though there isn’t much to see except a little steam, depending on conditions.
I did the first lawn mowing of the season yesterday and kicked off the oscillating changes of long grass/cut grass that will play out for the next many months.
Change is happening all the time and we are witness to it whether we are paying attention or not..
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Necessary Evil
One of the tasks I tend to delay more than any others is cutting down trees. There are times it needs to happen and times it probably should happen, but I struggle with knowing when an ailing tree honestly has no future. I usually choose to rely on time to make the status obvious.
Waiting comes at the expense of a perfect landscape view. Cyndie admitted to not enjoying the scene out across the deck that, from her vantage point, was always filled with the brown needles of another dying pine tree. I respect that.
Yesterday, we dispatched the fading relic. A necessary evil.
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Of course, I saved a portion of the trunk to serve as a platform for balanced rock art.
While I was at it, I also trimmed a section that looked like it had potential to become a future heart sculpture.
Do you see the beautiful pine heart hiding inside there that I see?
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Time Weathered
What a wind we experienced yesterday! A simple walk around the property was an exhausting struggle. The bare branches of our trees clattered overhead as they bounced against one another, putting me on alert about walking beneath them. Delilah’s ability to smell what’d been going on overnight was visibly altered as a wealth of distant scent information was arriving through the air faster than she could parse and the ground scents were being endlessly scrubbed away.
While deep in the woods near the edge of our property, we witnessed the sound of a large tree cracking and falling. My first impression had me turning to my left to look up the hill toward the direction of our house, but that didn’t sound right. Looking in the opposite direction into our neighbor’s woods locked into the full sound, but I couldn’t see the source.
It was definitely impacting multiple trees and the cracking and crunching made quite an impression. I looked toward Delilah and she was staring intently toward the direction of the sound, after which she looked up at me as if to say, “Whoa!” –as in, ‘that was huge!’
Yeah, that was a “whoa” alright. It was a big one that answered any questions about falling trees making sounds whether anyone was there, or not.
We were out on the second trek of the day and I could see the footprint evidence of Cyndie and Delilah’s first walk at dawn. Cyndie was able to stay on top of the frozen crust. It provided a contrast to the other extreme from her afternoon walk the day before when the soft snow had her boots dropping to the full depth, making a stroll on our trail into a real slog.
At the hour I was traveling over the terrain, my boots were just breaking the surface.
Our snowpack has experienced multiple thaw/freeze cycles in the last week and then yesterday the surface was scoured by the relentless battering of gale-force gusting winds. It barely looks like snow anymore. It resembles the surface of the moon, except for the occasional random foot path trails various wildlife visitors have left in their wake.
This morning’s peaceful calm almost enhances the perception of a lunar location.
It’s a calm before the next storm, we are told. A Winter Weather Advisory is on for tonight and tomorrow morning in our location. That crusty surface will be given a fresh new coat of inches on which we get to tread in the days ahead.
Huzzah to that, we say! Bring it on.
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Virtual Hugs
Flip the calendar. It’s another year. And here I sit, isolated from all but my wife. This doesn’t feel any different than the year that ended two days ago. Our cat, Pequenita just gave out a yowl of objection from the other room and Cyndie immediately responded with an admonishment to Delilah, sight unseen.
Once again, the dog was trying to play with the cat in the manner that dogs like playing. Pequenita has not once shown the least bit of interest in playing like dogs, including this morning. I wonder if I can teach Delilah to give virtual hugs.
Stuck in continued isolation for the unknown future, I am feeling inclined toward practicing increased focus on nurturing my metaphysical energies to travel the universe so I can mingle with the essences of all those whose vibrations resonate with mine. My heart loves others and I want to send that out in a virtual hug of your energies, all over the world.
But that is not all. I also want to send that love to those whose vibrations don’t resonate with mine. Like it or not, you just might get hugged.
Like the arms of my favorite tree, the reach is up and out in every direction, branching out in too many separate forks and arms to count.
We are all connected. Our thoughts and energies infectious. I don’t know if my love and wishes for peaceful feelings hold the power to eliminate anxieties and emotional pain in others, but maybe they can give a moment of pause. Provide a window of opportunity to choose a preferred alternative.
This may sound all too sanctimoniously philanthropic, but consider the possibility that there is a fair amount of selfish interest in my intentions.
I am seeking this path as a way of helping myself evade a tendency for doom and gloom. I don’t suffer so much from anxieties, but I tend toward a despondency of disheartened hopelessness.
I strive to love others as a means of avoiding a slide into my self-centered depression.
It’s what I can do from wherever I am, whenever I need. It’s choosing to make the world a better place no matter what virus or corruption or neglect is wreaking havoc at the time. It’s allowing myself to be happy in the face of misery.
In that, I see this as a win-win situation. Loving you helps me.
<virtually hugging you right now>
May you feel peace into this new year. May dogs and cats find a way to love each other, at a comfortable distance.
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Beautiful Views
Despite human industrial activity dumping carbon into the earth’s atmosphere for generations, grass and trees continue to jam carbon back into the soil. Imagine if we had enough forests and fields to reverse the changes our burning of fossil fuels has done to the atmosphere.
Thinking like that is more fun when gazing upon the beautiful views we enjoy than trying to wrap my head around the continuing damage that is being done every day, like driving my car for two hours a day during my 4-day workweek. Working from home on Fridays is a small token toward driving less.
We watched the NOVA episode, “Can We Cool the Planet?” on PBS last night. Seems reasonable to believe that we can cool the planet. The difficulty is whether or not humans will actually undertake the needed steps.
It certainly doesn’t hurt for individuals to strive to do their part, but the solution will require a collective global commitment. Based on the history of the human race, it is hard to picture how such a thing would even be possible.
Maybe an existential threat will be the difference that one day drives a coordinated response.
In the meantime, I’ll continue to plant trees and enjoy our lovely views.
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Planting Acorns
When all around you the world appears to be unraveling in every direction, try planting a tree.
In our case, we’ve decided to take a crack at planting many. Last week we buried over a hundred acorns in a line outside the fence of the paddocks.
Since nature does such an amazing job of producing oak sprouts everywhere on our property, we decided to see if we could organize some of them to pop up right where we’d like to have them growing for the shade they would eventually provide.
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Note: WordPress has done another update to their format, changing the look of my editing space and eliminating options that I previously used when formatting my posts. I do not have the control I once had, so things may appear different from what you were used to seeing until a time when I figure out a new way to achieve the results I desire.
Already, I miss the good old days of composing my posts.
Disgruntled-ly yours,
JWH
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Two Angles
Cyndie has become quite the photojournalist of late, supplying the majority of images I have been using in my posts. Here are two from differing angles capturing the early fall color we are enjoying this year.
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Taken over the last two days, you can see how just a little direct sun really amps up the boldness of color in the leaves.
I recently saw maps showing the percentage of peak color for Minnesota and western Wisconsin that indicated the county where we live was ahead of the surrounding area. We aligned more with the amount of color seen up north early on.
It’s a wonderful perk, except that it likely means we will lose leaves sooner and extend the monochromatic months of bare branches.
How’s that for two angles of looking at a situation?
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Magnificent Days
We are enjoying magnificent weather this week for the month of September, although in the back of my mind the very summery temperatures echo too well some of the anticipated ramifications of the warming planet.
No floods or fires in our region at the moment. Just high heat (80°F!) and evolving colors in the tree leaves.
Wandering down the backyard hill toward the opening to the labyrinth, the leaves are still primarily green. Beyond that, there are brilliant splashes of gold, orange, and red showing up with surprising speed.
Our growing season seems to be ever-lengthening, but the end of this summer’s agricultural period is undoubtedly near. The declining hours of daylight aren’t being altered by the changing climate and plants don’t grow so well in the dark.
On the bright side, I think my lawn mowing might be done for the year.
Yesterday morning at work I received a sweet text from Cyndie letting me know that she heard “Rocky the Roo'” making progress on learning how to crow. She said his call had a definite sing-song inflection that was recognizable as the vague hint toward the ultimate “cock-a-doodle-doo.”
I wonder if the magnificent weather days will be just as mesmerizing with non-stop echos of rooster crowing reverberating across our valley. We didn’t check with any of our neighbors about how they might feel about the prospect. At the same time, none of them have ever asked us if their gunshots, barking dogs, hollering for missing cats, or high RPM farm machinery soundtracks have been any problem for us.
I think it a feature, not a bug, of living in the country.
Where pretty much every day is magnificent, no matter what the sounds.
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Bold Color
Yesterday was a comfortably quiet Sunday. I stole some time to nap in the hammock, but otherwise, my day was consumed by a small number of tasks in the incredible comfort of a gorgeous summer day. I took Delilah with me to trim a rash of willow tree sprouts starting to clutter the main drainage swale running the length of our southern property border.
She is back to her old bouncy self already, long before the shaved wounds have fully closed.
The beef cattle in the adjacent field took an interest in my activity and congregated along the fence. When a couple of them pushed their giant heads between two strands of the barbed wire to munch on the leaves of a tree I had just tossed aside, Delilah asserted herself enough to back them all off.
She appears to have a keen grasp of our property line.
We are back to full walks around the periphery trails, where we came upon one of nature’s brilliant displays of uncharacteristic color.
Looks like this could be where the idea for crunchy Cheetos® originated.
Delilah totally ignored it as she strolled past, but I stopped to give it my full attention. I decided against checking to see what it tasted like, though.
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