Clean up: after

June 14, 2018June 14, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 5 Comments

I have just finished working on the bushes in the west yard, near the fire pit, for the day. It’s not finished, but there is a storm moving in, and I did get the big stuff done.

So I have after pictures I can show you.

I actually went deeper in then I’d intended to. I started in the area around the linden and plum trees, to get more dead branches down, and everything was getting so hung up, I had to go further in, just to stop that from happening.

In the process, I found the lilacs that used to form a tunnel I’d crawled into as a child.

Yeah. Most of the lilacs are dead.

Between these and the tree directly behind the linden tree, there was just no way to avoid getting hung up on dead branches.

Here is the after, for this area.

Still lots to clean up, but the dead stuff is mostly gone. The remains of the lilacs might actually survive. They are very hardy.

Here is what it looked like around the linden tree, when I finished up.

Then I started working my way down the rows.

Here is the before of the first section;

I believe this is another crab apple tree, and it looks like it has some sort of fungal disease. I cut away lots. Here is it, now.

I freed up more plum trees in the process.

There are still signs of spotted and yellowing leaves higher up in the apple tree, but I got as much as I could reach for now.

While working in between the rows (there are three rows in total, in this location), if I had to choose between getting rid of a caragana and something else, or a false spirea and something else, I would choose the something else. This was not a difficult thing as, in the process, as the “something else” was usually a fruit tree. I also found a giant caragana in the back row. Unfortunately, the biggest trunk of it was dead and so rotten, I broke it off and yanked it out without having to cut anything.

In fact, I was doing that a lot, today. Yanking stuff out right by the roots, or breaking them and pulling them out.

The next section has a dead tree in it. Here is what it looked like before.

There was a lot of false spirea around the base of it. In clearing that out…

… I freed up some more plum trees.

That dead tree is going to need more than the little hand saw to take it down! So it stays, for now. Though I was able to just break a branch off of it.

Next was another crab apple tree.

This one has a lot of tiny apples starting to grow on it, but it also is starting to show spots on the leaves. :-(

Also, a lot more of it was dead then I thought!

I was taking out lots of dead branches, and even a couple of trunks.

Like this one.

This is probably the biggest thing I cleaned out today. It wasn’t until I cut it, then started dragging it out, that I realized how big it was, so much was hidden among the branches.

There is still lots to do here, including clearing out the section of false spirea at the end, so I can reach the dead lilacs behind it. It’s going to be a while before all the bits of dead branches and twigs on the ground are cleaned up, though I did take out the hidden ones I found by stepping on them.

All of this was about 3 hours of work, give or take.

When I was a kid and mowing the lawn in this area, when the crab apples at the end of the row were full of fruit, I would pick a whole bunch of them when I went under it, I would eat them as I mowed my circuit, then gather more when I got back. They were small, hard green apples, and very sour. I loved them!

We also had a pear tree next to this crab apple tree. It was another small, hard variety. My father told me about having this variety when he was growing up in Poland. They were too hard to eat as they were, but they would be gathered and buried under rocks in the fall. In the winter, they would freeze. Later, the rocks would be removed, and the frozen pears taken out. The freezing not only softened them, but made them sweet, as well.

I have no idea what happened to that tree.

I also wonder what happened to the mountain ash (aka rowan) that used to be here, about were the current diseased apple tree is. We had a few of them. They never got very big; nothing like the ones in the city we just moved from – I had no idea they got that big until we started living there! But they were beautiful, and produced masses of red berries.

A lot has changed over the years we’ve been away, but a surprising amount has stayed the same, too.

The Re-Farmer

Feeder Discovered

June 14, 2018 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

We haven’t seen a lot of bird action at the bird feeder stand we’ve moved outside our living room window. The odd nuthatch would show up on the platform, or a blue jay would land on the hook for the hanging feeder, but that was about it.

Today, some goldfinches discovered it, and my husband was able to get some photos. :-)

Next time we do our big shopping, we’ll pick up a bag of mixed birdseed, and see what else shows up! :-)

The Re-Farmer

Clean Up: Firepit area gate

June 14, 2018June 14, 2018 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

After cleaning up in the bushes near the fire pit yesterday, today’s goal was to access the gate by the fire pit, before continuing in that area. We needed someplace to pile the wood we’re cleaning out.

Before I could start on that, though, my younger daughter and I made a trip into town. She had dropped off some resumes a few days ago. The next day, one place called back, but she was with me at the shop with the mower, so they asked her to call back the next day.

That was yesterday. They booked an interview with her for this morning.

And by “interview”, it turned out they meant, “what hours can you work and here are your free t-shirts.”

Starting next week, my daughter begins training as a cashier at the grocery store we usually shop at. :-D

That was a nice way to start the day!

So I didn’t get started on accessing the gate until this afternoon.

Here is what it looked like before.

The far end of the gate is completely hidden by overgrown lilacs, caraganas and a maple tree.

The picket fence thing that was there appeared to be attached to the barb wire gate only by this length of wire, twisted around, and one section of the top barb wire looped around a board. So it wasn’t going to take much to separate them.

But first, I needed to clear the gate post.

Most of what I had to clear away was from a lilac bush, including a lot of dead branches and stems. My mother likely planted it there, so I didn’t want to cut it all away. The maple would have seeded itself, and likely the caragana as well.

I’ve left most of the caragana for now, but when it comes time to take down the two dead spruce trees, we might have to cut those back more. We shall see when the time comes.

That done, I could open the barb wire gate.

The closure of which promptly broke in my hands.

All the wood there is really quite rotten.

Some of the barb wire has come loose from the posts. The fence part also had boards coming loose. It’s all really quite rotten.

Have I mentioned that much of the wood around here is really old and rotten? I think I might have… ;-)

It took some doing to get the fence part loose. Hidden in the tall grass were fallen branches that had to be moved, and the grass itself – including years of thatch – had a good grip on the bottom of it!

I decided to leave the fence part like this for now, so that it’s visible. There are so many nails in that thing, I don’t want to take any chances of someone stepping on it.

Speaking of nails, it turned out that part of the fence was indeed attached, by wire, to the gate post. This length of board, however, was no longer attached to the fence part. Even with all those nails!

I count 20.

While getting all this open, I could see something blue peaking through the grass. Once done, I yanked it out to see what it was.

It seems to be a bell for a child’s bike.

Why was it there, and how many years as has it been there?

That done, I moved the barb wire gate to the outside of the yard, then cleaned up all the cut wood from clearing the gate, plus the pile from yesterday.

Since I had all that handy wood, I fixed the broken closure on the gate.

Here is the after picture.

There’s going to be a lot more to be added to the pile over the next while, so I am leaving the gate open for now.

All of this was about two hours of work. Not too shabby! I’ve stopped for the afternoon, though. I plan to continue where I left off yesterday, but we were getting into the hotted part of the day, so I will wait until the early evening, when it starts to get cooler. Now that this is done, I’ll be able to clean things up right away, too.

I placed the pile far enough away to completely clear the open gate, plus leave room to access the fence, if necessary. Seeing the fence from this side, I was reminded that, at some point, it would be good to re-fence the entire house yard. All of it, including the fence lines that are bordered by roads, if possible. I say “if possible” because they are so full of trees, and my mother’s lilac border along the garden section. It would be good to have something other than barbed wire fencing and gates! I would still want to have a gate here, by the fire pit, and the one by the garden. I’d even like to add another gate to the south fence line, so that we could drive into the yard at one end, then out again at the other.

Hmmm. Thinking of it that way, it might just be easier to build a new fence on the other side of the driveway. And if we do that, may as well extend to the fence that’s keeping the renter’s cows out. Get rid of the current house yard fencing, completely. Wow. That would really extend the size of our yard!

That, however, is likely many years into the future. Still, it’s something we can talk about and plan for.

Later.

I have to keep reminding myself. This year is our “figure it out” year, and the focus for now is on the house and yard.

That is plenty of work all on its own! :-)

The Re-Farmer

Clean up: before

June 13, 2018June 13, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

I plan to work my way down the front of the row of trees and bushes in the West yard, from the fire pit area towards the flower garden. I’ve started at the linden tree at one end. Here are the areas I will work on next.

Like the maple and spruce groves, when I was a kid, I used to be able to mow in between the trees and bushes here.

20180613.bushes.cleanup.before1

Nearest the linden and plum trees I’ve already cleared is this tree. I don’t know what it is, but a lot of the leaves are turning yellow with black spots on them. I’ve done a quick search, and it might be a fungal disease. If so, I might have to do some serious work on it – but first I have to get to it through the undergrowth!

20180613.bushes.cleanup.before2

I’m going to have to somehow get to that dead tree in the middle of some false spirea and… some other bush. I think the dead tree used to be another plum.

I like the false spirea. Really, I do! But my goodness, they are invasive!

20180613.bushes.cleanup.before3

This crab apple tree seems to be doing okay. It’s got lots of bitty apples starting, no bigger than rose hips right now. It is still going to be needing some pruning…

20180613.bushes.cleanup.before4

More self-sown false spirea at the end if this row, and you can see some of the deadwood on the crab apple tree.

Also, I think you can see some surviving lilacs.

You can’t see them in any of the other pictures, but there used to be two rows of lilacs behind all these trees and bushes. I remember how, at the end where the linden tree is now, the two rows of lilacs formed a natural tunnel that I used to be able to crawl into.

Now, I’m not sure how many of them have survived, blocked as they are from the sun by the overgrowth.

I hope to start cleaning up these areas over the next few days, weather willing.

The Re-Farmer

Clean Up: at the linden tree

June 13, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 3 Comments

Since we are starting to use the fire pit area fairly regularly, and plan to use it more, I decided to start cleaning up the next area of trees and bushes nearby. There is a linden tree at the end of a row that I wanted to clear the base of, but before I could get to it, I started clearing at a plum tree next to it.

I forgot to take a before picture, but here is how it looked before I started on the linden tree.

The poor plum tree is really struggling. It was being choked out by a caragana that I cut away, and has a lot of dead and dying branches. I am hoping, as things are cleared out, it will become stronger.

It does have baby plums, though!

This variety of plums have very small, hard red fruit. Not much good for eating, but I remember my dad had made wine with them. I was pretty young and probably never got a taste of it, but I seem to remember it being quite enjoyed by the adults.

This is the pile I started, with the dead wood from around the plum tree, the caragana that was crowding it, and the first sucker from the linden tree that I’d cut away.

Here is a before picture of the linden tree. You can’t even tell I’ve already cut some away.

My mother told me that, before she moved away from the farm, she kept the base of the linden tree clear of suckers, so I will continue that. It has clearly been many years since they’ve been cleared away! Some were huge and lying on the ground long enough to be partly buried in decayed leaves.

Linden wood, I discovered, is incredibly soft. I was able to saw through the suckers like they were barely there! In one group, because of how close they were, I ended up cutting three of them at the same time, and it was still easy to saw through them all!

I also found a lot of dead branches stuck among the suckers, and others handing above. The bottom branches of the main truck were also either dead or mostly dead, hidden away by the foliage from the suckers growing below.

Once I started cutting I could see, at the base of the trunk, where my mother had been cutting away over the years.

Here is how it looks now.

I probably shouldn’t have, but I did leave one sucker be, just trimming away some of the lower branches. Unlike the other ones, this one was growing upwards and straight.

Aside from cutting away self-sown mystery saplings among the debris, this is just the difference of cutting away the suckers and taking out the deadwood. Later, I plan to take a rake to it and get the bits of branches and twigs left behind, then take the weed trimmer to it.

There is a bush directly behind it that is looking like it has a lot of deadwood on it, but I won’t start working back there, quite yet.

I had started out trying to keep the deadwood and the green wood in separate piles, but after a while, just gave up! We will sort through it as we break it down and move it elsewhere.

Our piles for the fire pit are getting a bit big!

This is our “small stuff” pile. Twigs and small branches, mostly. Just today, I added more deadwood that I’d pulled down from the area behind the other house. I wasn’t up to breaking them down, first.

Then there are the bigger logs, including some that have been cut to fire pit length. On the far left of the photo are a bunch of logs I’d cut from the big dead branch I’d cut free from one of the nearby maples. It was one of the things I had to clean up before I could mow. I didn’t even break it all down; just enough to more easily move the top length to the “small stuff” pile.

The branch I’d found at the fence line earlier, I just left at the fence line for now. We are adding deadwood faster than we are using it for fuel for our wiener roasts, and the “small stuff” pile is getting too big! As for the greenwood, I don’t even know where we’re going to put those, for now. I don’t want to add much more to the pile by the log cabin, and the one by the garage is pretty huge.

Maybe if I can get that gate by the fire pit open, we can start another greenwood pile outside the yard, closer to where I’m actually working.

It doesn’t take much to make a big difference!

The Re-Farmer

Look what I found

June 13, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

Yesterday, I’d done the south lawns, including along the fence line and behind the “spare” house (more as a space to turn around with the mower, than to cut anything, since there’s barely any grass there).

Today, I set aside hoses, picked up branches, and so on, before I finished mowing the rest of the lawn.

Later, I went back behind the other house to see if I could get down some more of the dead branches. A lot of it involved simply reaching up with the extended pruning saw, which has a hook at the point, grabbing onto an attached dead branch, or dangling broken branch, and yanking until it fell to the ground.

I even remembered to take a picture of how it looks, after my daughters did such a great job raking up under there.

Which is when I found this.

The branch is so big, I actually missed it at first, thinking it was just another part of a tree. Nope. A big ole branch broke, some time after I’d mowed here yesterday, and was hung up in the other trees.

I couldn’t even tell which tree it came from.

In the picture, you can just see the power line that goes from the other house, to the pump shack (which isn’t hooked up now, thank God!). It wasn’t on the power line, but the branch that it was stuck on, is just above the power line.

Once again, I used the extended pruning saw to grab and yank it down, though I did have to cut down a branch from the tree outside the yard that was hanging over the fence, and in the way.

Finding stuff like this is why I’m on such a drive to get the dead and dying branches down, as much as possible. We’ve got entire trees that are ready to come down, almost on their own. One is right in this area, in fact; I cut away some of the lower branches that I kept getting hung up on, and the entire tree was shaking and making cracking noises at the base. I could probably push it right over, if it wouldn’t fall directly on that power line I mentioned earlier.

After this, I did some other clean up in the yard, but I will post about it later. After I shower. I keep finding little bits of dead tree stuck in my hair!

The Re-Farmer

Repair – Updated

June 12, 2018June 12, 2018 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I got the mower in to the shop this morning, to fix the broken belt.

20180612.mower.belt.repair

Because I had to drive in from out of town and was going to wait, they worked on my mower first thing after they did their parts run.

It was the drive belt that broke, which controls the cutting blades. The entire section had to be unhooked for the new belt to be installed. They got me a high end Kevlar belt, so it should last many years!

But…

There just has to be a but, doesn’t there?

When I was leaving home, as I braked to take a turn turn, I felt what I thought was the ramps sliding forward to hit my seat. Nope; it was the mower rolling forward, then pushing the cooler into my seat. I commented on it when I got there, and the guy reminded me that there is a parking brake. I didn’t even think of it, partly because I was already driving when it happened.

So when they loaded it into the van after the repair (not an easy job, because once the wheels clear the “lip” of the van, the whole thing drops, then the outside half – the rear, which has the full weight of the engine – needs to be lifted to get it the rest of the way in or out), the guy that guided it from the inside of the van set the parking break for me.

On the way home, however, it still rolled forward.

When my younger daughter and I unloaded it, I did confirm that the parking brake was still on.

After it was unloaded, I took advantage of my daughter being there and showed her everything to check on it and how to work it, then got her to start it and drive it around.

Which is when we discovered, the brake doesn’t work. Not only that, but it will keep rolling even when the drive pedal is NOT engaged. It should come to a stop when the drive pedal is disengaged, even without the brake being used.

I think something broke when it was being loaded back into the van.

I’ve sent them an email, copying my brother who bought it for us, describing what it’s doing. My husband has a medical appointment tomorrow, so the earliest we can take it back is the day after.

Damn.

At least it’s still under labour warranty.

Before I try loading it back into the van, I will have to find something a few inches thick to lay down on the floor of the back, to keep the mower from dropping.

The Re-Farmer

UPDATE: I checked the van and discovered some of the foam insulation that was used around the house during the winter was thick enough to match the height of the “lip” at the back of the van. Not only that, but after checking the space, I discovered that we wouldn’t even have to take the seats out again to fit the mower. I phoned the shop and they were unsure what it might be. I had time enough for my daughter and I to load up the van and drive it over (a 40 minute drive), about an hour and a half before they closed. They unloaded the mower – using their own ramp, this time – then the guy that worked on it before started it up and tested it out. Sure enough, as soon as he put it in gear, it started moving and the brake didn’t work. In fact, he ended up getting hung up on a corner of the ramp, because he couldn’t stop it. He had to shut it off!

So he pushed it into the shop and checked it out. The brake mechanism was working fine. He thought a belt might be loose, but that was also fine. So he went even further under the mower. It turns out there are two bolts that were too far forward, as if they were too tight. It’s possible, he tightened them too much when he reassembled it earlier, or it’s possible that when it did the drop as it was being loaded into the van and the front tires passed the point of no return, and the deck bed hit the ramp/edge of the van opening, it got jammed forward. No way to know for sure. He adjusted them, though, then tested it out. Forward and reverse, driving it out of the shop, and doing a loop before driving to the back of our van. It was working fine!

Unloading, testing, fixing, testing again, then reloading: about 15 minutes.

I just got back from mowing the lawn. :-D

I did as much as I intend to in the outer yard; the grass it just too thick to do all of what I’d wanted to do. It’s not just the new growing grass, but the thatch from last year’s grass underneath, that it making it so hard on the mower. I’ll just have to make sure to keep up with maintaining the parts I have done, so they don’t get overgrown again. As long as we can access, the barn, storage shed and burn barrel.

Then I mowed the south yards by the house. Because I could! :-D

I’ve Been Rolando Mooned!

June 12, 2018June 12, 2018 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

We’ve noticed that, when we get the fire pit going, Rolando Moon likes to hang around.

Last night, she decided she really wanted my hot dog.

When she couldn’t get it, she demanded neck skritshes, instead.

It was either that, or she’d fall right off me!

(photos taken by my daughters)

The Re-Farmer

Dead Wood Down

June 11, 2018June 11, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

When today’s fire pit fire was almost burned down, I just couldn’t help myself. My tools were still out, and there was this big dead branch that I really wanted to take down.

I had started to cut through it with the extended pruning saw, a while ago, so I just had to continue.

Towards the end of it, the pressure from the branch got my pruning saw stuck, so I had to take it out, then finish the last fraction of an inch with the hand saw.

This is the branch, completely cut through.

It wasn’t moving. At all.

This is why.

The branch had long been rubbing on a branch in the tree next to it. Now that it was cut, it was just leaning and being held up by this other branch.

We use a steel pole we found somewhere in the yard to move the wood around in the fire, so I used that to push the branch off the trunk.

Alrighty, then. I’ve got the base down, but it’s still hung up on the other tree.

After moving the barrel, I pulled the base of the branch out until it fell into the V of the other tree. I then swung it around to the right until I broke a branch that you can see higher up, which freed the main branch up and I could finally pull it away until the old, rotting wood at the top broke under its own weight, and it came down.

Then I had to go back and pull down the broken pieces that were still stuck in the other tree.

You can see the wound in the branch or the other tree, where it was being rubbed for so many years.

This is probably the last of the big dead branches to come down in this area. There are others, but they are too high to cut, even with the extended pruning saw. I can add another extension and might even be able to reach them, but reaching them and cutting them is something else entirely. There are also others that are partly dead, that I have to decide on cutting down entirely, or leaving for now.

It felt good to finally get this big one down.

All this clean up, however, is making it very difficult for us to use up the pile of dead wood for the fire pit! We keep adding more than we are burning.

We’re just going to keep having lots of cook outs. :-D

The Re-Farmer

There be Cows Here!

June 11, 2018June 11, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 3 Comments

We had a nice rain today and, when it was down to a drizzle, the girls decided this was a good, safe time to get the fire pit going and burn down the pile of wood we had in it.

Then we had a cook out. Because, why not?

While we were out, I could hear the sounds of cows mooing. Not unusual, except that the sounds were much closer.

Like, really close.

This is taken from the gate beside the fire bit.

My mom rents most of the land out to someone, including the other quarter section. He’s had his cows grazing there for a while, and now they are here.

While we had the fire going, even though it was still kind of raining, I couldn’t help but work on the area near the fire pit, cleaning up the area next to the log cabin that’s got a collapsed roof. There were a lot of dead branches to clean up, plus saplings to trim away, etc. More stuff for the fire pit! :-)

The roof of the cabin is decidedly interesting.

That is a lot of nails.

This would be the remains of one of the trusses.

This board would have had shingles nailed to it. They were all wooden shingles, most of which seem to be gone, now, leaving their nails behind. !!

We also had a squirrel go onto the roof, where it seemed to find something to eat among the pieces of fallen roof!

My head just clears that truss piece, as I walked back and forth under it, making my daughters very nervous! :-D

As I was cleaning up along here, grabbing dead branches and dragging them out, the toe of my shoe caught on something under the decaying leaves along the wall, and I almost tripped. Going back to pick up what I got caught on, I found it was a piece of board.

With nails in it.

Pointing down, thankfully.

I pulled more boards up out of the decayed leaves, also with nails in them, until the girls insisted I stop working in there.

Cleaning up under there is going to have to be a very careful job!

After we had our cook out, I stayed outside to burn more of the wood pile. While there, I started to hear strange metal noises coming from the barn.

I knew exactly what it was.

I got my younger daughter to tend the fire for me, while I went to check on the cows.

Who, for some reason, decided they needed to graze around this collapsed shed, with all the sheets of metal lying about. They were walking over the metal, and that’s the sound I was hearing.

They didn’t like me coming over and were already moving away when I took this picture.

The wire in the foreground is an electrified gate. There are two of them the renter puts up before he brings the cows over, so they don’t go into the house area; this one by the barn, and another closer to where the cows were in top photo.

With the electrified wire there, I went through the barn to get to where the cows where.

I moved things around as best I could but I’d really rather fence this area off until we can get this stuff hauled away and cleaned up. There’s little I can do about it. Some of the metal bits and pieces could not be picked up and moved, so I used sheets of tin to cover them as much as I could, then adding whatever I could on top, to prevent the wind from blowing them away.

On the far side, I stepped on something that felt like a potential problem. It turned out to be part of fence wire that was likely rolled up and left there. Except it was there for so long, it was now covered in ground and I could not pull it up. It was completely hidden in the grass, and a definite risk to hooves! So I covered it with sheets of metal, then dragged a metal headboard out of the pile (I have no clue why anything like that would be there!) and tossed that on top, both to weight it down, and to make it more visible.

I really look forward to when we can start getting rid of piles like this. It might be a few years before we get to the stuff on this side of the fence, though.

The Re-Farmer

The Re-Farmer

Sometimes, you need to go back, to go forward.

Month: June 2018

Clean up: after

Feeder Discovered

Clean Up: Firepit area gate

Clean up: before

Clean Up: at the linden tree

Look what I found

Repair – Updated

I’ve Been Rolando Mooned!

Dead Wood Down

There be Cows Here!

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: