This morning, I applied the first coat of spray-on rubber to the legs of the picnic table, and the cracks on the rain barrel.
This is the product I am using.
I have never used this stuff, or this brand, before. It was the only one on the shelf, so it’s not like I had a choice of brands or product versions. I think it will work just fine.
The first time we used a product like this, it was a can of liquid rubber deep enough to dip things directly onto. Like the handles of tools. Which is what we did at the time. Or it could be brushed onto a surface. The first time we tried a spray, it was basically the same product as an aerosol. My husband used it to coat the handle of one of his canes (made with aircraft grade aluminum, that could also be used for self defense), and to a cord wrapping he added to parts of his walker for extra support to hold the weight of the backpack he has hung on it. For the can, a dip version would have done a better job, but as a spray, it worked very well on the uneven surface created by the rope work. It’s still holding out, and it’s been about 5 years.
So that was basically what I was expecting. Black, spray on rubber.
Nope.
It’s white.
At least it looks white against the blue paint.
It’s also a lot lighter and thinner than I expected. Which I suppose is exactly what I need to fill in all those crevices. I added extra along the part where the most rotted wood had come off on the one leg.
I probably could have applied it more carefully to avoid drips, but there is no aesthetic requirement on this.
On the rain barrel, it looks a bit different. The barrel got sprayed both inside and out.
Here, you can see it has an almost blue tint to it. Depending on the angle, it looked a bit more purple than blue.
It should be interesting to see how it looks when it’s done.
How many layers we put on will depend on how well it coats. It requires at least 2 hours between coats. Depending on how often someone can get outside to add another coat, this may take a day or two! It then needs at least 4 hours of curing time after the final coat for the coated object can be used. Thankfully, these are not things we need to use, quickly.
It was a hot day to be taking my mother for her medical appointment in a van with no air conditioning!
It was already cooling down when I took the above screencap. 28C/82F, with the humidex bringing it to 35C/95F From the weather radar, I don’t expect to get that predicted thunderstorm; it appears to be moving to the north of us. I hope we’ll at least get some rain. It’s been a challenge to keep the garden beds watered. At least I haven’t needed to mow the lawn in a while. :-D
While driving my mother to her appointment, she actually asked me to open the windows more, even though we were at highway speeds. Normally, she’s asking me to close them because of the wind! Well, hopefully we’ll have her car back next week. I could see she was really struggling to get into our van. She’s so tiny! :-D
Her appointment went well. She is frustratingly healthy. All her tests came back excellent. She has obvious issues with arthritis, which there’s really nothing more she can do about, and problems with her knees. She could get surgery to fix those but, considering she won’t even wear her knee brace, there is significant doubt she would keep up with the post surgical requirements, so it didn’t even come up. Her major concern is with her “heart”. By which she means her breathing. But only sometimes, and only in the morning, when she sometimes wakes up gasping for air. The doctor suggested she try sleeping upright, to relieve pressure on her chest from certain generously proportioned parts of her anatomy. I mentioned my siblings and I have discussed getting her a sleep chair, and he said he thought that would help her a lot. He also suggested we try putting something under her mattress to elevate it. I figure we can try that for a few weeks, then assess how it helps or not. She might actually do well with a hospital bed, like my husband’s, which would allow her to lower the whole thing to get in and out easier, too.
He will also be referring her to a geriatric team to assess her. Or an “elder care team”, as he put it. She still didn’t quite understand what he meant, so when we were talking about it later, I explained to her about how some doctors specialized in helping older people, with their physical and mental needs that are different from younger people. Once she understood, she was quite excited about that, saying that yes, she needs that!
Since I was driving her around anyhow, I also helped her get some grocery shopping done, and then we had a very late lunch – in a nice, air conditioned restaurant!
All in all, it went really well, and she was on much better behavior than usual. She was having one of her good days, so it made a huge difference.
After I got home and updated my siblings on how things went, I went to do my evening rounds a bit earlier. The girls had already watered the garden beds. I tried weeding around the beets a bit, but so many of the leaves have been eaten by deer, I don’t know if I should even bother. I’d mentioned this problem to my mother, and she decided that meant we needed a dog. A dog will keep the deer away! I wish I’d remembered to mention that my sister has a dog, and they still had to fence their garden to keep the deer out. And bears, but that’s a problem we, at least, don’t have! :-D
With the bird feeder painted and done, the girls are still doing coats of paint on both sides of the screened window frame for the old basement. Today, I flipped the picnic table and scrubbed the bottoms of the legs clean of dirt, so that we can apply the spray rubber on the ends. I also cleaned a rain barrel I’ve moved near the squash beds, around the cracks it has in one area. I was going to look for some sort of silicon caulking or something to patch the cracks when I realized the spray rubber would actually be better. The application will wait until tomorrow. According to the instructions on the can, the weather we’re predicted to have will affect how well it works. The 14 day forecast predicts continued high temperatures, but no rain, so that will be a good time to start applying layers of this stuff. Meanwhile I want to make some sort of screen cover for this rain barrel, plus the one set up by the house, to keep debris and critters out. I found a bird downed in the one by the house once already – I’m guessing it flew into a sun room window, knocked itself out, then fell into the barrel. :-( Once I have a cover made, and the cracks coated, I will keep the one barrel filled so that we can use ambient temperature water on the squash, instead of cold well water. If we don’t get rain tonight, I’ll likely be filling the rain barrel by the house to warm up, too.
In the long term, I want to get some large tanks like this.
We had a really hot day today, so when things cooled down enough, I went out to water the garden plots and sunflowers.
Which is when I found this.
All the leaves on one side of this one have been eaten!
This is the first of the large sunflowers that has had this kind of damage. :-( At least the top didn’t get chomped off.
One of the more recently chomped smaller ones is showing signs of recovery.
It also had a friend!
We’ve got a lot of grasshoppers and locusts this year, but this is the first green one like this that I’ve seen. :-)
When I was done and dragging the hose back to the house, I found Creamsicle napping on top of the straw bale. :-) My coming close for a picture woke him up…
I caught him mid stretch. :-D
Meanwhile…
Today, my husband and I had our doctor appointments that we should have had back in March. They were supposed to be physicals, but the doctor wasn’t expecting that. Which is when I found out he does physicals in the mornings, when, as he put it, his mind it still fresh. Which was not a problem, since we had lots to catch up on. He hasn’t seen my husband since December, and has seen me only while I was accompanying my mother.
Us all having the same doctor is coming in handy.
Before doing a full physical, he wanted us both to get fasting bloodwork done. For my husband’s part of the appointment, we updated the doctor on his upcoming visit with the pain clinic. Even though he hasn’t seen my husband in more than 6 months, he remembered that we’d already been waiting for almost 2 years, so he was a bit shocked that this was going to be a first visit. We also told him about the appointment at the cardiac clinic to discuss my husband getting a defibrillator implanted. He had questions about that. Mostly, why does my husband suddenly have such a low ejection fraction? It turns out that the cardiac clinic has not been sending any files to our doctor, so he had nothing. He still has nothing, really, because the cardiac clinic has not been able to find why my husband’s ejection fraction is so low, and are openly perplexed by him. The doctor has requested for us to remind the clinic to send the files to him, so he can see what’s going on. Same with the pain clinic, when the time comes.
In our previous province, all medical files were electronic, and could be accessed by any authorized doctor. So my husband could go from his GP to the specialists at the pain clinic (all 4 or 5 of them that were assigned to his case), to any other specialist, and they would all have access to the same information. Here, there is no connectivity. When our previous doctor suddenly moved out of province, we had to pay to have our files sent to the new clinic. A GP can access the electronic files at their own clinic, but not the files at the heart clinic or the pain clinic. They all have to send their files to each other, as needed. All of the specialty clinics should be sending everything back to the primary caregiver every time, so that at least that one person has all the information. Why that isn’t happening for my husband, we don’t know, but the doctor was not happy with having so much information missing.
We spent some time talking about my husband’s medications, and the problems he’s been having getting refills for the painkillers. So that’s been updated but, after we get the bloodwork done, he wants to look at switching my husband to morphine, and focus on pain management a lot more. There’s one medication in particular that he was wondering why my husband is on at all, and he just didn’t know anymore. I suspect the total number of prescriptions my husband is on will be reduced.
I’m happy to see him being pro-active about it. The previous doctor didn’t want to change anything until after my husband was seen by the pain clinic, but that took so long, the doctor moved out of province before that could happen!
My own part of the appointment was short. I have only one prescription, and I’ll see him again after my bloodwork is done. We ended up chatting a bit about my mother, since I’ll be bringing her back to see him tomorrow.
As for our follow up appointments, he started to ask if we could book them in the mornings when I mentioned I’d asked for the afternoon, because of the drive. When he realized how far away we live, he completely back tracked and said to make the appointment for whenever works best for us, and to book another “joint” appointment, and he will accommodate us. Since our bloodwork requires fasting, we will book the appointment after we get it done, which likely won’t be until Monday.
So we’ll have at least one more medical appointment this month, on top of the others.
With this doctor wanting to work proactively on managing my husband’s pain, I suspect we’ll be back fairly regularly.
By the time we were done, my husband was at his limit – and we still had the drive home to do. He was worried about his appointment at the cardiac clinic next week. The letter said that there have been a lot of delays, and to expect to be there for as long as 2 hours. That’s after a 1 1/2 hour drive. We’ll have to make sure to call in advance so they can have a stretcher available for him to lie down on; something they were able to arrange to do for him before, after a previous appointment was so late, he ended up walking out because he was in just too much pain. They’re a cardiac clinic. They don’t take into account any other issues a person might have, unrelated to the heart, unless it’s brought up directly.
Another reason why not having central files is a problem. When he goes to any specialist, he has to explain everything else to them. At the cardiac clinic, he could see any one of a team of 5 that works together, so he has to explain his disability, and why he uses a walker, all over again with each one. Otherwise, they assume that his use of a walker is related to his heart condition.
It’s frustrating, to say the least.
At least now we’re able to actually get appointments and treatment. The months of delays because of the pandemic shut downs have really messed things up for him. Our province has once again had more people testing positive for the Wuhan strain of coronavirus, and people are freaking out and demanding things shut down again. What the media isn’t including in their reports (though it’s on the provincial government website, for all to see), those new cases are from 5 days of testing, and represent only .9% testing positive. The total number of positive and presumptive positive cases for the province since March is .03% of the entire population. A person is more likely to get hit by a car than test positive for the Wuhan strain of coronavirus. People don’t seem to understand risk factors at all anymore, and the panic means people like my husband are having a hard time getting medical care. During our appointment, the only time it came up at all was when I mentioned we were supposed to have today’s appointments back in March, when everything got shut down. My husband’s appointment at the cardiac clinic got cancelled. While my husband did get one appointment rescheduled at the cardiac clinic, for a test in nuclear medicine, next week will be the first time the cardiac team will be seeing him. He’s had a couple of telephone appointments, but that’s it. He had also finally gotten contacted by the pain clinic just before the shut down, which that added a few more months to his wait.
If things shut down again, lack of treatment would certainly mean his condition degenerating further. Lack of treatment is more likely to kill him, than any of us coming in contact with the Wuhan strain of coronavirus.
He is certainly not the only person in this position.
It had been a while since I’d seen the outside kittens, so I was happy when they showed up this evening. Little Braveheart had follow Junk Pile to the food bowls by the house, but ran off when I came out. They hung out by the steps into the storage house, before hiding in the grape vines, so I decided to sit on the steps and see if I could tempt them to play.
Braveheart was immediately curious!
Just look at that intense gaze! :-)
And who’s that back there?
Another baby, chewing on a grape vine! :-D
Junk Pile, meanwhile, came over and lay on the mulch, growling at me the whole time! That seems to be her default attitude these days. :-D
I broke off the spent flowers of a spirea growing under the stairs to wiggle around on the step. It worked a bit!
Braveheart pounced at it! :-)
Her sibling even came a bit closer.
I saw no sign of the third kitten, though. I hope it’s all right.
After this, they ran off with Junk Pile into the spirea, so I let them be.
Once indoors, I got entertained by more kittens.
The cats love the base of the washing machine packaging so much, we don’t have the heart to get rid of it, yet! :-D
Layendecker had been napping on it when Turmeric crawled on and woke him up. :-D
This evening, I remembered to grab a box of screws so I could get the newly painted bird feeder back up.
I did have an unexpected problem, though!
The feeder had been moved to the top of the picnic table, so that wire frame it was on could be used to hold the screen window from the basement for painting.
Either the feeder or the picnic table were not quite cured yet. The feeder was stuck!
In the photo below, you can actually see where some of the paint came off.
It’s the underside, though, so it doesn’t matter.
Meanwhile, the post mount now has 6 of the same type of screw holding it in place, instead of the two very different screws next to each other, like it was before! :-D
It’s up!
The post is actually narrower than the opening in the mount by a fair bit. Plus, I noticed the post, which is basically a steel pipe, is slightly squished. Which means the feeder wobbles. I’ll have to find something I can put around the top of the post to make up for that.
I did have to move one of the lilac branches and tuck it behind another one, to get it out of the feeder, as well as angle it to keep the one side clear. It holds a surprising amount of seed; I’m going to have to pick up more, if I want to keep adding bird seed to the other end of this flower bed, where the platform feeder and bird bath are.
I look forward to seeing how quickly the birds find it. :-)
As we work on clearing, cleaning and reclaiming the yard and planting our first garden beds, I’ve been keeping a close eye on details to keep in mind for the future. Things that will help us decide what needs to be done next, what to change or what to keep the same.
This morning, I found myself making a lot of comparisons.
The cutest one is the cucamelons.
This is the largest one that is developing, with my fingers giving an idea of just show small these are!
Isn’t that just the cutest thing? :-D This is the first one big enough to start seeing the patterns developing.
The trellis I made for these is just cotton yarn. It is working very well, except for on thing.
The cats.
When I am out there and the boys come over for some attention, they will plow their way through the trellis, pulling tendrils off in the process, then look at me all confused over why I’m flipping out at them. :-D They also try to lean and rub against the strands of yarn, only to flop over onto the plants. !!!
We already know that this location doesn’t have enough sun for cucamelons. If we grow them in the future, they will be planted somewhere with full sun. Our original intention was to plant them against the chain link fence for them to climb, and the cats are showing us exactly why that’s a very good idea! If not there, then we will have to make sure to have trellises that are sturdier, with strands much closer together. Not because the cucamelons themselves need it, but because of the cats!
Here is another comparison. These two squash plants, with the mottled leaves.
They look pretty much like the same kind of plant, don’t they?
Now look at the developing squash.
They’re completely different!
I’m looking forward to being able to start harvesting these. My favourite way to eat them is raw, with dip. No need for anything else, when they’re at just the right stage. :-)
It was looking at the chokecherry trees that I am really seeing what a difference even minor changes in conditions makes.
This first one is at the south side of the garden where the squash beds are.
This one gets sun in the mornings, but for most of the day, it is shaded by spruce and maple trees to the South and West of it. It is not crowded by other trees. It has quite a lot of berries that are looking big and juicy (well… as much as chokecherries can be! ;-) ). Even last year, during the drought, it had larger berries. While I do not specifically water this tree, I do sometimes water the little patch of flowers and raspberries on one side of it, and the black current bush (my sister confirmed what it was for me) on the other side, so it does get extra water from that. While is has larger berries, it also ripens later. As you can see, the berries are still very much on the red side of things.
This next one is the chokecherry tree that is engulfed by lilacs.
This one gets full sun for most of the day, though it does get slightly shaded at the end of the day, by the trees my mother left to grow after she moved the raspberries they’d self-sown in between, years ago. This whole area gets quite dry, and we do not make any effort to try and water anything here.
The berries themselves are noticeably smaller than in the previous tree, and there are less of them, but they are also ripening faster.
Then there is this tree, right nearby.
This is the top of a young, small tree that was self-sown and allowed to grow (rather than get mowed over, like all the other saplings) in a grassy band between the old garden area (with the row of trees mentioned previously) and the lilac hedge. It might get some shade towards the end of the day, but otherwise gets full sun. Our first summer here, it did not produce fruit yet, and I wasn’t even completely sure what kind of tree it was. Our second summer, it had a few berries. This year, it has matured enough to produce quite a lot of berries. With full sun most of the day, not at all crowded, and little moisture, the berries are still not as big as the ones closer to the house, but the clusters are dense and ripening quickly.
You can see how this tree is situated in the background of the next photo, below. This next chokecherry is also among the lilacs, but on the edge of the hedge, not in the middle of them.
Here, it gets no shade at all. It has lots of berries that are already ripe. As you can see, though, some of the leaves are turning yellow. Only a few branches are like this, not all of them. It’s not stopping them from heavily fruiting! Like the other two along this side of the old garden, the berries are not as large as the trees nearer the house.
This next one was a surprise find, along with the Saskatoon berries. This area had been full of spirea that I had pulled up. It’s starting to grow back, so I’ll have to do it again, as pulling them up has been a good thing for other trees. The Saskatoons thrived this summer, and we discovered another chokecherry tree among them.
This area is under spruce trees, both living and dead, getting very little sun. In the above photo are the berries on the North side of the tree, where it gets even less sun. As you can see, they are just turning from green to red here.
This next photo is of the same tree, but on the South side.
That little bit more sunlight sure makes a noticeable difference in how fast they ripen!
Again, while I have not really been watering these trees, they are near the horseradish, and with the spirea taken out, wildflowers have come up and I’ve been watering those. So they will have benefited a bit from that, too. Mostly, though, being under the spruces as they are, they don’t get the full heat of the day, so the soil doesn’t dry out after a rainfall as quickly, either.
Then there is this one…
That’s a chokecherry in the middle of the photo. I had cleared a path to the junk pile you can see part of, to try and find useful pieces of wood in it, but that’s as far as I got so far. The tree itself is not crowded by other, large trees, and is shaded only in the morning hours. It’s surrounded by spirea and thistles, so we can’t get at it right now, but it appears to be just loaded with ripe chokecherries.
Finally, there is this one.
This is the top of a chokecherry tree among the cherries. I can get close to it, but not enough to be able to harvest it until I clear away the cherries around it; mostly cherries that had been killed off by last year’s horrible spring, and the bits that are now growing up from the bases. They create a formidable barrier!
This tree also gets shade in the morning hours only. Our last two summers, I don’t recall seeing any flowers or berries at all. Last summer, I’d cleared away the old wood pile, which turned out to be a much, much larger job than I expected. You can read about it in this series of posts (all links should open in new tabs, so you won’t lose your place!); parts one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.
Did I mention it turned out to be a really huge job?
Yeah.
So while there is still lots to clean up to work our way into the spruce grove, what has been done so far made a big difference. I’m thinking that, had the cherries not been so damaged by the previous spring conditions, they would have improved, too. Mind you, the one cherry tree I kept because it managed to actually produce a few berries, and is not at all crowded, did not produce even a blossom this year.
It’s amazing how the same type of tree, while not really all that far apart from each other, are so different based on even minor changes in sun, shade, moisture, etc. When it comes time for us to plant more food trees, the differences among these chokecherry trees is providing us with a lot of information.
Today, the girls held down the fort while I headed out early to take my mother for a doctor’s appointment – her first since things were just starting to shut down. Most appointments were being cancelled – thankfully, not hers – and they were only doing phone appointments. The clinic is still doing “walk ins” by phone, but are now doing in person appointments again.
The doctor had wanted my mom to be able to do fasting blood tests, so the appointment was shortly after the clinic opened. That way, she wouldn’t be without food for too long. The doctor also wrote her up for an EKG and chest Xrays. Without the results of those tests, he didn’t want to do a physical or address her prescriptions, etc. quite yet. So he did memory test with her, and talked about some of her concerns to address next time.
Which will be this Friday. He wanted to get her back as soon as possible after he got the test results. She also formally gave him permission to talk to me about anything regarding her health, at the same level as he can with my brother that has Power of Attorney. This will reduce the burden on my brother, as well as make things easier for the doctor, since I am more available to both the doctor and my mother.
Right after her appointment, we went across the hall to lab and Xray with her requisitions, only to be told that their Xray machine was broken and wouldn’t be fixed for 6 months. We could go to the hospital near my mother’s place, though, so we got that paperwork back while she got blood taken, then her EKG. The staff in the lab were the only ones we saw wearing masks and gloves, besides the odd patient.
We wanted to stop for lunch – breakfast, for my mother! – in the town the clinic is in, but the places we normally would have gone to were all closed. We ended up going back to her town before we found someplace open. By then, she’d gone 12 hours without food! Then we got her Xrays done. Thankfully, we didn’t have long to wait. At this hospital, there was one person near the door who was wearing masks and gloves and asking the usual “have you traveled, do you have any symptoms” questions. The only other people I saw with masks was a couple of patients. I found myself in the waiting room with a couple of people, with chairs physical distanced apart. The woman nearest me was wearing a cloth mask, and I could hear the poor woman struggling to breath through it. :-( At both hospital clinics and lab areas, they had the same sign saying who should be wearing masks. Few would have been required to wear them, based on their list. It seemed very reasonable; cautious, without being excessive.
I was going to help my mother with grocery shopping after she was done with the Xrays, but she was – understandably – too tired and just wanted to get home. I’m glad I persuaded her to bring her walker. She was ready to just cane it, but I told her it was better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it. Plus, I have plenty of space in the van to bring it along, and don’t even have to fold it up. The only time she chose not to use it was when we went into the restaurant.
After dropping her off at home, I then had to head to the pharmacy – which made town number 3 I drove to! ;-) – to pick up the rest of my husband’s medications for the month. I let the pharmacist know about potential updates or changes in his prescriptions over the next while. As we were talking, she mentioned that my husband is the only person they have taking the painkillers he’s on; the ones with all the restrictions and regulations. He’s at the maximum dose already, and all they really do is take the edge off the pain. I really hope the folks at the pain clinic can help with that!
I took advantage of being in town to run a few errands. That included stopping at the garage to see when my mother’s car would be worked on. I was told they’d be able to work on it at the end of the week, or next week. I mentioned my mother having a doctor’s appointment on Friday, and that I hoped to be able to use her car, since it’s easier for her to get in and out of. He couldn’t say for sure, but they would try. We’ll see how that goes.
A stop to pick up our mail on the way home found a letter from the heart clinic for my husband. They made an appointment for him next week, to discuss implanting a defibrillator. His ejection fraction has improved, but not much – and they still don’t know why it’s become a problem in the first place. All the tests they’ve done have come back normal and healthy.
So we now have a phone appointment for my husband tomorrow, with home care. The day after, he and I have appointments for physicals with the same doctor as my mother. Then on Friday, I’m back at the clinic with my mom. Next week is the new appointment at the cardiac clinic in the city, and the week after is his first appointment with the pain clinic, also in the city.
I have to admit, I’ve become spoiled by our current situation. This is now a lot of driving for us. When we lived in the city, I did a lot more driving. Not drives of an hour or more, to be sure, but our mileage of less than half what it used to me. A few extra trips now feels like a big deal! :-D
It’s going to be tiring – especially for my husband – but I’m just grateful we’re finally “allowed” to get health care again.
It’s a hot day today, but it’s going to get even hotter throughout the week, hitting above 30C/86F in a few days. Plus, I’ll be doing a lot of driving throughout the week. I figured if my brother could be out baling hay in this heat today, I can prune some deadwood!
There were two trees in particular I wanted to get at. Here is the first I worked on.
I had already cut the dead parts of the main tree, our first summer here. What was left were the suckers growing out the base. As the main part was grafted, what grew out the base was not the same type of apple as what had already died.
When I first worked on it, the live parts were bending low, so I left tall stumps of the original tree and used them as supports to tie the live ones to. One, growing out the middle, didn’t need the support.
As you can see in the photo, that’s the one that is now dead.
It actually did have leaves and even flowers this spring, but they didn’t last. As I cut it away, I was surprised it managed even that much. It was so dead and dry, I could only cut about half way, and then it was easier to break it off by hand.
One of the live branches was hanging down again, even though part of it was supported, so I got creative.
I found what was probably an old mop handle and zip tied it to one of the old stumps at the bottom, and to another live branch higher up. Then I lifted the bent branch and attached it to the support. Hopefully, this will be enough for it to start growing straight – or at least straighter – on its own. If nothing else, I won’t be getting my hair caught in it when I mow past it, anymore!
The next tree was a bigger job.
I’d actually thought I would be working on an old plum tree, but it was another apple tree that needed help.
There are two large branches on the apple tree that have died. In the background, you can see the dark coloured plum tree meandering its way up. The branches are so tangled, it was hard to see what belonged were, but it seemed that the plum branch still had live branches and little plums at the top.
I would see better, after the apple was cleared.
I took the slightly smaller branch off first (on the left of the trunk, in the above photo) using the reciprocating saw, and it came down fairly well. The branches at the ends were tangled with live branches, so it ended up standing upright on its cut end when it fell. Once I cleared that, it was time to get the big one down.
When cutting larger branches like this, you always have to be careful when it gets past a certain point, depending on the angle and weight of the branch. Once it starts breaking under its own weight, things can go in unexpected directions.
This one was a bit different.
It didn’t fall.
You can see the one live branch growing out the side, so I made sure to cut above it.
I cut right through, and it just sat there!
Hmmm… I wonder why that would be…
The live plum and apple branches were holding it up!
There was a lot to get tangled on!
For this tree, I used pruning spray on the cut branches, to protect the main trunk a bit.
There is still one branch alive on this tree, and it’s got quite a few apples on it.
The plum in the background does have a lot of dead branches, but at the top, it’s still alive. I am leaving it for now.
Usually, for stuff like this, I would have broken down the branches a bit, but otherwise just hauled it over to one of the piles of branches we’ve made while cleaning up over the past couple of years. I did things differently this time.
The small branches, I cut short and loaded into the wagon, to be used as kindling in the fire pit.
The large pieces will wait until I can co-ordinate with one of the girls to work on them.
The wood looks surprisingly solid. I’m going to see if anything can be salvaged for carving. If not, they’ll be cut to fire pit size for use during cook outs.
It isn’t much, but I’m happy to have gotten at least this bit done. There is another tree, an elm, near the fire pit area that is mostly dead. I actually thought it was dead our first year here, but after a rainfall, it perked up. Last year’s drought seems to have done it in, though. It’s quite large, though, so we’ll have to be more careful taking down the dead parts.
Of the first sunflowers that we planted, several of them are now taller than me!
Unfortunately, the smaller ones from the second planting are still having deer issues.
Right next to the nearest sunflower in the above picture is this one.
This is one of the ones that had had its head bitten off a while back. It had been recovering, but this morning, almost all the new leaves have been eaten.
Then I found this one.
Newly decapitated, with so many leaves eaten, I wonder if it will recover.
Like this one.
This is just a couple of feet away from the newly decapitated one. Just the head had been eaten off, not the leaves, and now it’s growing a new head out the side.
We will have to think on how to protect the sunflowers from the deer in the future. We intend to plant more in general, plus more of the giant varieties. There’s also variety that is used to make a purple dye that I’d like to try. They only need to be protected when they’re little; once they get big, the deer leave them alone. My daughters and I have been talking about different temporary fencing ideas, though another possibility is to companion plant things that deer don’t like. Or we could try both.
Having deer come right into the yard is one of those things that we have now, that never happened when I was growing up here. Most likely because there was just too much activity, plus we always had dogs. My mother never had to deal with deer eating her garden! I love having the deer, and that they come right up to the house, but they can sure cause some problems! :-)
The Re-Farmer 