Posts Tagged ‘woods’
Clearing Trails
The list of tasks related to fighting back the natural growth constantly threatening to overgrow our property is getting shorter and shorter. On Sunday morning, I took the chainsaw into the woods to cut up the trees and limbs that had fallen across several of our trails. Yesterday, the tool of choice was the STIHL string trimmer to clean up the paths, some of which we haven’t been walking since they’d gotten too overgrown.
Soon after I’d made it a little way down one of those pathways we hadn’t been on, I discovered another downed tree we hadn’t noticed that would require the chainsaw.
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The two plants most often cluttering the pathways are Virginia Creeper vines and wild raspberry shoots. Less often, there will be clumps of whispy grasses that tend to resist the spinning trimmer line. Shredding the growth at ground level in the woods with the string trimmer tends to kick up a lot of moist dirt that sticks all over me.
It became a toss-up between the splattering dirt or the mosquitoes as to which was most irritating.
There are two versions of trails through our woods. One is wide enough to accommodate an ATV, which is a valuable thing to be able to do sometimes. The majority of the wide trails were already in existence when we bought the property.
The rest of the trails have intentionally been left narrow to limit them to foot traffic. We have created almost all of these pathways.
This was only the second time this growing season that I have used the trimmer to mow down the trails through the woods. I’m hoping it won’t need to happen again, as growth should begin to slow soon now that we are in the dog days of summer.
There remains some branch pruning to be done to reach my ideal of perfectly well-tended trails, but we are darn close to completing the maintenance of our walkways in the woods.
Forest bathing can soon commence without obstructions.
I suspect I don’t reap the same rewards of walking through the woods when I am wielding a loud and smelly small gas engine and wreaking havoc on a wide variety of growing plant life.
I’ll just have to take follow-up walks on all the trails after I am done, which is easy to make time for since they become somewhat irresistible when they are so thoroughly groomed.
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Clock’s Ticking
We are quickly running out of time to accomplish any of our goals that require an ability to see clearly into our woods. Leaves and flowers are about to burst forth like a volcanic eruption.
Grass is growing enough already that I did a little mowing with the push mower in front of Cyndie’s perennial garden and the sunny spot behind the barn that always grows faster than anywhere else on our property.
While I was tending to compost piles mid-morning, I looked up and found three of the horses on the ground napping with Light standing watch.
I finished the afternoon with a shift clearing out downed branches that have accumulated in the area where we recently pulled out a few miles of grape vines. All the time I spent in there battling vines revealed just how many branches were on the ground.
We keep going back and forth over wanting to pick up dead wood that falls or leaving it to decay. We soon discovered it’s a fool’s errand to think we could stay ahead of the number of branches that are constantly dropping. The problem is that ignoring the situation for very long gives the place a neglected look and makes the clean-up job much more work when we finally decide to do it.
I made piles that must now be hauled away from the lane around the back-pasture fence. Anything dry can be run through the chipper, but the rest will be tossed onto the natural fence wall where we just piled all the willow branches we cut down on Monday.
If we don’t move all these branches today, I worry we will get distracted by other projects. Suddenly, the piles will be swallowed by grasses and brambles, and we won’t see them again for a year.
We are on the verge of a green growth explosion. If we listen closely, I think we could hear leaves unfolding all around us.
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Food Choices
As I was eating my fancy breakfast of yogurt with cereal and a side of peanut butter toast all by myself yesterday morning, it occurred to me that there is a pretty well-defined difference of choices I make when it comes to eating for nutrition vs. eating for pleasure. The most obvious influence is directly related to how much sugar has been added. It’s a fact of our human nature that sweetness is very high on the pleasure scale. There are people who can claim to be exceptions to the norm of appreciating sweetness, but I believe the number is a minority.
If a well-balanced diet didn’t matter, I’d choose ice cream at every meal. For uncooked breakfasts, I tend to select yogurt with my cereal. That is not a choice I would make from the side of pleasure. I select a yogurt with little to no added sugar because it’s good for me. Instead of hardly being able to wait for the next bite, yesterday, I found myself noticing that I wasn’t all that excited to put the next spoonful in my mouth.
But it’s good for me, so I eat it anyway.
If healthy nutrition didn’t matter, I would eat even more pizza than we already do. I’m okay eating fruit and vegetables, but I would choose a lot less fruit if I didn’t know it was good for me.
I’m not always hungry, but that rarely stops me from eating food when I see it. When I am on my own, like I have been the last few days, my laziness keeps me from eating all the food Cyndie sends along. For lunch, I could heat and eat the beef stew she provided, but it is quicker and easier to grab some cheese curds and crackers, mixed nuts, and beef jerky. Since they were convenient, I also grabbed a bag of pea pods and carrots to munch.
Of course, all I really wanted to eat was ice cream.
Rural Development
While out on a walk yesterday to get some exercise in the high heat of early March, I spotted new additions to the landscape in the forest across the highway from the Wildwood lakefront properties.
An electric company has wired power to the edge of the wooded land across the road. I passed two of these boxes that make it look like a new subdivision is going in. Maybe they are putting in the infrastructure to support a massive influx of climate refugees who will want to move to the Midwest after fleeing rising seas, intensifying hurricanes, and inhospitably hot high temperatures.
This area is probably not immune to drought and wildfires, but we are close to the Great Lakes, which might ameliorate those risks some.
We used to bushwhack our way through those woods to explore, at one time bouncing over downed logs on mountain bikes. We found several routes that reached all the way to the Birkie trail for skiing or cycling. More recently, I’ve noticed “No Trespassing” signs going up in those woods, so I’ve greatly curtailed explorations other than very close to the road.
Those new utility installations gave me a real sense of how much time is marching on.
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Today Arrived
It’s here! We have arrived to the day Saturday, August 17, 2024. If you haven’t been waiting for this day to happen, it might feel like just another Saturday. Maybe it is simply the first day of the weekend. I suppose a few birthdays fall on this date or maybe a few weddings were scheduled.
While I was walking this morning with Cyndie and Asher and we marveled anew over the grandeur of our surroundings. I asked Cyndie if she thought she would still be able to visualize the views along our Middle Trail in some future situation when we are no longer physically fit enough to walk these woods.
We are in our twelfth year of living on this land and I still feel awe over the fact we own a portion of a forest. This summer has been different than most since we moved here from the suburbs. It has been wetter and for longer than normal. The land reflects that in a variety of ways.
There are new levels of erosion and significant accumulation of the runoff soil downstream that disrupt our preferred flow through ditches. Meanwhile, plants and trees are growing strong. It requires a constant effort to control undesired invasives and keep vines from swallowing trees.
In that regard, today would be just another day for me.
I feel lucky to have the opportunity and the time to tend our fields and woods but I won’t be doing much of that this day. We have a lunch date in the Cities that will fill much of our time. Another luxury we enjoy of visiting with friends, some with whom we rarely spend time.
Our land will wait another day for attention from me.
I have a strong suspicion that Sunday, August 18, 2024, will be arriving soon, and with that, new opportunities galore as time keeps ticking away.
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Photo Moments
Another fine day in the woods of northern Minnesota. Strong winds, warm temperatures, smoky haze-filled sky, swimming, eating like royalty, and ending the day with the spectacle of the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris.
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Woods Work
While professionals were tending to the log truss, we had plenty of free time to wander in the wooded areas of the property that are usually buried under snow or overgrown with ferns and trillium. The “in-between” season is greatly expanded this year, allowing for unobstructed travel on days with very summer-like warm temperatures.
I needed to dig deep through stacked storage in the garage to reach a leaf rake that I wanted to use in reclaiming our mini-labyrinth path.
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Cyndie and Asher found a couple of trees girdled by a large metal cable. She asked me if I could do anything to save the trees. It looked pretty daunting to me at first but after pondering the situation for a while, I went back with some hand tools.
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I suspect there is probably an old ring of keys in the house somewhere, one of which might just match that big old padlock. Doesn’t everyone have an old set of keys stashed someplace with purposes no longer remembered? This could easily be one of those cases.
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After returning for a closer look, now wearing a good pair of gloves, I started pulling where the cable disappeared into the dirt. It had been buried for a long time but I soon discovered the length between the two trees had been cut. That meant I could pull it back through the loop and didn’t need to find a key for the lock.
On the other tree, I just needed to unwind the small wire that had been binding the cable together.
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Once that was done, I pulled the cables out of the bark up to the point where the tree had grown over the metal rope. I needed to return to the house for more equipment. I found a small pruning saw that was able to do the trick. I sawed into the bark on either side of the cable until I was able to muscle it free.
The trees should both be able to heal the wounds and continue to grow unrestrained. That would be the best reward I could wish for upon achieving completion of the rescue effort.
I would appreciate that a lot more than the tiny tick that found purchase under my chin as a result of my time in the woods. Dammit.
Janet.
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Different Sleep
A change of perspective is always a valuable experience for me and this weekend up at the lake we have been residing in the old cabin #3 beside the main log house above the water. It is one of the original cabins of the former fishing lodge that Cyndie’s family saved when the Wildwood Association transitioned to families owning individual lots.
The Friswolds moved cabin 3 to a new foundation farther back from the lake to make room for the new log home they had built back in the early 1980s. When our kids were young, we spent most of our time up here in the old cabin, granting people in the big house respite from the clamor of infants waking early and the occasional outbursts of either glee or angst associated with that age.
Currently, there are no young ones of the next generation in the family and cabin 3 gets used less often, primarily as overflow accommodations when attendance numbers swell for a weekend.
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Cyndie and I are really enjoying the throwback to a time when our primary experience up at the lake was from the vantage point of the old, and much smaller cabin.
I have been sleeping deeper than in recent memory and with Asher left back in Beldenville with a sitter for this visit, we have no reasons to rise early. This morning the 8 o’clock hour had arrived before we got up. I had woken early and read the whole paper in bed on my computer and then faded into a morning nap that felt rather decadent.
The small rooms and close proximity to the ground (in the big house we usually sleep in the loft) make it feel like we are almost sleeping outdoors.
The view out the back window is one I relish for the trees and forest floor I’m most attracted to for a natural environment.
It’s as if I’m forest bathing all night long as I sleep.
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Lonely Walk
I took a walk on the perimeter trail through our woods yesterday for the first time since Delilah died. That path was getting footsteps (boot steps) up to three times a day with Delilah to give her exercise that would expend her high energy. Sometimes I wasn’t all that interested in making the trek for a third time in a day, but I never regretted the opportunity once I was out there getting my own exercise and experiencing our precious wooded acres.
Without Delilah needing to be walked, I have been avoiding wandering our trails, partly out of respect that it was her thing and she isn’t with us anymore, but also because it would poke at my grief over her passing. Yesterday, I decided to trek through the crusty snow for the first time in almost three months to see if any trees have fallen or what wild animal tracks might be visible now that there isn’t a dog living here.
There were a few branches down and several spots where limbs burdened by snow had tipped over, now frozen in place. No large trees have come down in all the winter weather we’ve received thus far.
It was a lonely walk and it did poke my grief.
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View Within
Living in farm country has exposed me to the life cycle of cultivated crops and I was just commenting to Cyndie the other day how entire fields of soybeans suddenly all turn from green to yellow-brown in about a day. I wondered what it is they trigger on. The hours of sunlight? The reduced angle of the sun? Some particular overnight low temperature?
Boom. All at once, the field is no longer green.
Walking through our woods yesterday, I realized some of the ground cover that grows beneath the canopy has abruptly traded its green color for yellow.
That is a blurry photo but I am using it anyway because it still shows exactly what I’m describing.
Driving through the countryside to see the fall colors won’t show you this version of autumn. The view from within the forests of the fading greenery provides a different perspective of transformation after summer is over.
I did succeed in capturing a couple of other views from yesterday that weren’t as blurry.
It won’t be long before our boardwalk will become entirely obscured by a thick blanket of leaves. You won’t see any of the wood blocks after the maple trees drop their leaves.
The views from within the forest of the changes from summer to fall are a wonderful compliment to the brightly colored tree tops available from a distance.
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Nose Knows
Against my best effort to thwart Delilah getting after something we wouldn’t want her to have, I came out entirely outmatched. It’s not that I doubt her olfactory abilities, it’s just that I’ve seen her get excited over so many spots that turn up nothing that I hoped this would be one of those.
It’s not uncharacteristic for her to venture off-trail to follow some critter’s paw prints, stopping at whatever point I decide to lock her retracting leash. I rarely allow her to go past our property line and usually stop her from forcing me to step off the trail, but generally grant her the added excitement of some varied explorations beyond the obvious path.
The other day, she fervently wanted to go after something that she sensed while we were still on the trail. With a complete lack of interest in her goal, I waited as she made her way as far as the leash reached into a tangle of growth. I waited and waited.
We each held our ground until I finally decided to tug the leash and talk her into coming back to the trail. She reluctantly came out, took a couple of steps on the trail, and then headed right back into that tangle from a new angle. She really wanted something in there, so I decided to take a look for myself.
I pulled her back until I could clip her leash to the nearest tree and then I wove my way through the mess to look for the most likely attraction, typically, something dead.
Finding nothing, I came out again to let Delilah have her wish and allowed her to get all the way in there so she could sniff around and find nothing, too.
She rushed back in there and made her way directly to an undisturbed spot of snow, put her face in it and immediately started crunching on some bones. That was exactly what I didn’t want to happen.
I had to go back into the tangle again because she showed no interest in coming out to the trail at the moment. I negotiated a release of her clenched jaw holding what looked like a rib bone.
It was about fifteen feet from the trail under the snow and her nose absolutely knew it was there, most likely dropped by some predator who had cleaned the meat off and left it for other scavengers.
With the fresh bone now tucked into the back pocket of my overalls, I had Delilah’s full attention all the way back to the house. In reward for her letting me take the precious find away from her, I served up a sanctioned purchased bone in place of the wildlife remains of unknown condition.
Her nose didn’t seem at all disappointed in the difference.
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Relative Something 