While preparing the fire for a cookout, we got that perfect combination of sun through the trees, and smoke creating dramatic rays!
The Re-Farmer
Beep Beep and views
As the girls and I headed out to the city, Beep Beep came out to see us off.
Beep Beep is pretty much the only one of the outside cats we are seeing regularly. Every time I see her, I am amazed by how little she is! Just fur and bones!
During the drive to and from the city, we saw many beautiful fields of canola in full bloom.
Gorgeous!
We even saw some cranes just half a mile from our place this morning, some pelicans flying over as we were leaving the city on a different route, and a herd of bison, with their little ones, on the final leg home.
Pretty awesome. :-)
The Re-Farmer
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Clean Up: Maple Grove, evening progress
I wrote up my last post while taking a hydration break from working in the maple grove. By the time I was done, I found myself nodding off at the keyboard. I figured lying down wouldn’t be a bad idea.
Three hours later… :-o
But, I’ve got it done as much as I can for now.
Here are the before and after pictures of the two North rows.
I cleared out two of the tree spruces in the foreground of the second picture. The two I took out had a few green sprigs here and there, but were otherwise dead. I also cut off the dead branches from the one in the middle. I am hoping that, now that it’s open and clear, it will survive.
The remaining spruces in that northernmost row are doing pretty good. I trimmed the lowest branches, as well as the dead ones that I could reach with a hand saw. The dead ones were mostly on the south side of the trees, where they had no light. The other living spruce trees, I only took off what was in my way as I moved around. I will finish cutting away the dead branches when my birthday gift comes in. :-)
This is the remains of a row of raspberry bushes. I can see some dead canes from years past, but no fresh canes in this area.
To the right, you can also see a gooseberry bush I found. I had cleared out a broadleaf tree that was between two spruces, and discovered the gooseberry under it!
Then there’s this gooseberry bush, in dire need of having the deadwood cut away. It’s growing next to a chokecherry tree, which was also overgrown and in need of pruning at its base.
It was amazing how cutting just one sucker at the bottom of the chokecherry tree cleared almost everything up! A few downward hanging branches to clear away, and various saplings, burdock and stinging nettle to clear away at the base, and what a difference! I even found some raspberry bushes with baby berries on them.
The gooseberry, on the other hand, has almost no sign of berries on it at all, and what little it does have are not looking good.
This is the very end of the “raspberry” row, with an apple tree near the compost pile. There’s even a lonely little asparagus fern growing in here!
I found more salvageable raspberry canes. After cutting away some lower branches and saplings at the base of the apple tree (including maple and elm saplings), it was basically just weeding and removing old raspberry canes. There are some plants in there I recognize as flowers my mother planted, so I tried to avoid taking those out. Lots of creeping charlie and burdock in here.
At this point, I called it a night. Which worked out perfectly, because that’s when I got a call from the second tree care company about coming over. It was another father and sons team. :-)
When they got here, I showed them the areas I wanted work done on, plus the trees to come down. He asked questions about how far back I wanted to cut things (basically, enough to not have to do this again for 5 years). He wanted to know about the overhanging branches, which would normally be left if they are not touching the lines. One of them is a very healthy maple tree, and cutting it back would mean removing pretty much half the tree. When I pointed out it was from those overhanging branches that we got the burned branch from, and that it had happened before, causing a power outage, he understood why I didn’t want ANY overhanging branches at all. They even measured the trunks of the trees that will be taken down, including the dead spruce. They had to take into account being able to get their equipment in, too, and I told them about the three different gates that were available. We also talked about cleanup. He charges extra if they bring in a chipper, but I did say I wanted to keep the chips for mulch, and to keep the bigger wood, too. He mentioned they don’t usually chip dead branches, because it dulls the cutting edges, but the stuff they’ll be cutting back will mostly be life branches.
He took a whole bunch of notes, and I will get the estimate emailed to me.
I told him about how we don’t own the land, and that I am getting estimates to talk to my mother and brother about before a decision is made, and that I’m hoping to get it done in the fall. Or spring, if the cost is higher (which I suspect it will be, with these guys, but we shall see). He was good with fall, mentioning after August is when they’d be available to do the work, so that works out.
And that’s it for the next while. Tomorrow will be a trip to the city for my daughter, which should give my body time to rest. Feeling pretty stiff and sore right now! :-D
The Re-Farmer
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Clean Up: maple grove progress
Today, I am continuing working on the East end of the maple grove, and have just stopped for a hydration break before finishing for the day.
I am thinking it would be a good idea to rent a wood chipper in the fall. There is just SO much wood being cleaned and cleared away.
So this is what the area looked like on Saturday, after I cleared out the old garden path.
Apparently, the only photos I have taken from the other end don’t show the whole area. Ah, well.
An interesting thing about my taking all these before and after pictures, as that I have a time record, too. I don’t typically pay attention to what time I start or finish, but my phone’s camera is set to use the date and time in the file names. This means I can say with confidence that I worked about 1 1/2 hours, starting just before noon, in this area.
This is what I did in that 1 1/2 hours. :-)
I started by clearing away by the water tap. For that one, I just had to take some video.
So… that post isn’t doing anything useful anymore. :-(
I cleared out a couple of dead spruces beside the tap, one of which was rotten enough that I just broke the trunk at ground level and pulled it out. There were some elms growing out of an old trunk that was pretty big when someone finally cut it down. That’s the one that has me wondering if the roots have caused any problems with the underground water pipe.
There was another dead spruce nearby that I took down.
I even got it to fall right on my pile! :-D
As I moved on and went to pull some stuff out of the grass by another dead tree, I stepped on something that sank under my foot.
Do you see it?
Neither could I. Even after using the weed trimmer here, I see nothing.
It was some fence wire that was rolled up, but ended up flattened at some point. From the looks of the rusty old soup can I also found under it, it’s been here for quite a long time!
I moved the two tillers closer to the shed so I could clear where they were sitting. That included moving two garbage cans (one of which was partially sheltering a tiller) and piece of aluminum that looks like it is part of ducting for a large building that used to shelter a push mower. My brother took the mower to see if he could fix it.
When I went to take out some other fence wire in the area I found…
… a chokecherry tree and some vines growing through it.
Some of this is going to wait until my telescoping pole chainsaw arrives – I got a shipping notification in my email this morning. :-) I also won’t be going back through this area with the weed trimmer until after I’ve cleaned it out more and cut trunks down to ground level. I was finding too many rocks, branches, brick and pieces of wire. I got the cheapest weed trimmer I could find, so I don’t want to wreck it!
At the Easternmost end of this area is a couple of dead spruces. One of them had thick vines growing out the bottom of it that I had cut, but left hanging.
Today, I pulled them out.
The vines may have started at the base of one tree, but part way up, it spread to the other dead spruce tree (and is likely what killed both of them).
Looks like some kind of triffid!! Some of it broke off and is still in the tree, but this is most of it.
These are the two dead spruce threes it was attached to. Funny. They look MUCH emptier, now that the triffid vine is out.
Oh, my SIL told me about an app called Plant Snap that I downloaded and tested out. These vines are Virginia Creeper. It is related to grapes, but their berries are poisonous to humans (birds can eat them), and the sap can be an irritant. Because they spread through rhizomes so aggressively, it looks like the only way to permanently get rid of them is with some Roundup. Which I plan to use elsewhere, at some point, so that works out. I’m told that spruces are impervious to Roundup, but clearly not to these vines!
This is what the area looks like now.
Later today, I plan to work on that north row. After that, this section will be pretty much done, other than what is waiting for a chain saw.
Here is the pile of what 1 1/2 hours of cleaning and clearing trees looks like, including the vines.
Yeah. Wood chipper.
The Re-Farmer
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Canada Day Storm!
We got hit by a short, but intense storm today. Severe enough to warrant shutting down the computers.
I got a couple of videos, so when the storm passed, I turned on my desktop, and began uploading the videos.
Then the power went out.
It was just for a few seconds. Then it came back on. Then off. Then on again. Then flickered a bit.
So much for my uploads!
I didn’t try again until after picking up my younger daughter from work. Thankfully, my older daughter and I had put on the new windshield wipers, first! Turns out that we have to open the hood to be able to access the wiper arms, which meant I could barely reach, and couldn’t see. The wipers the van came with were broken and kept together with electric tape, which had come off some time ago, so the ends on the driver’s side blade were just sort of flopping.
Changing wiper blades should be easy. Just pop off the old ones, pop on the new ones. But no… that would be too easy! I got the old wiper blade off, but there was a piece attached to that arm that should have come off, too. It wouldn’t. After a while, I figured I’d put the old blade on and try again later. That didn’t work; a piece broke off, instead. So later on, I backed the van out of the garage so we could see, then popped the hood.
Of course, that’s when it started to rain. *sigh*
After righting with it for a bit, and another piece breaking off, I drove it back into the garage while my daughter got our tool kit (with all the stuff in the garage, do you think there are any actual usable tools in there? Nope!). While waiting, I got the passenger side blade changed. That one came off easily, and the new blade popped right on, the way it’s supposed to.
It took a pair of pliers and elbow grease to get the driver’s side arm bar clear of the broken bit. Once that was done, the new blade went on quite easily. Yay!
It made all the difference while driving in the rain!
As for the videos, I’ve had some trouble uploading them; I think the power outage happening while I was trying to upload them the first time messed things up. As I type this, the second video is still uploading, after the file got rejected three times! But it seems to be fine now.
After the storm, I did a walk around to see if there was any damage. A few branches had come down, but nothing serious. I did another walk around after picking up my daughter, and there were even more branches down. No roof damage, though, which is the main concern. :-)
The sky is clear, now, and it’s looking lovely out there. The rain is much appreciated!
The Re-Farmer
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Clean Up: Maple Grove, garden path
We had some much more pleasant temperatures today, so I headed out to do some work in the maple grove this evening.
After the tree care guy came to give us an estimate, I decided to focus first on clearing the old garden path. Whether we hire these guys, or the company coming to give a quote on Monday, they will need to bring equipment in to access the trees they will be cutting clear from the power lines. Good enough reason to start at the old garden path.
This is what it looked like before.
The deadwood on the ground here is partially cut, and it made up of several trees. Elm and maple, from the looks of it.
This photo was taken back in May, and you can see where the path is supposed to be in the background.
I also worked my way along the north row of trees, bordering the garden, and heading towards the garden shed. I started off by using the weed trimmer to take town the tall grass and weeds, so that I could at lease see the branches and trunks.
Then I started dragging stuff out. This photo is of JUST the deadwood I pulled out of the grass.
Almost all of this is just from that blocked garden path! Even after this, I kept finding more, as I walked back and forth and I would step on something. I’d then go to pick up what I expected to be a small branch, often finding myself pulling out something 6-7 feet long, and completely buried in grass and leaves!
After I cleaned out the stuff already on the ground, I started taking out the dead spruces on either side of the path, and cut back the other trees that I had pulled the deadwood out of. They were mostly dead, already. I also took out another small dead spruce tree that was near the big dead one that will be coming down when we get the lines cleared. I almost left a young elm to grow, until I clued in to how close it was to the big dead spruce. I looked up and, sure enough, the elm was directly below the power lines.
So that had to go.
Along with the dead stuff, I also cleaned up some suckers at the bases of other trees, or growing out of stumps. Some of those suckers had been growing long enough to almost be trees all on their own. For the trees I took down, I left fairly tall stumps to make it easier to see them until I can cut them at ground level. A fair bit is being left until my birthday present arrives. :-D
I finished off with the weed trimmer again.
Here are the after pictures.
A couple of the stumps near the centre of the picture were already there, hidden by the suckers growing out of them. The old garden path is now open!
The big dead spruce tree that will come down is the one with the big rock next to it. There is also a young maple kind of by itself there right now, and I will be cutting that down when my birthday present gets here. It’s directly under the power lines, too, and already grown tall enough to almost touch them!
This photo was taken from near the big dead spruce tree. The main garden area is completely overgrown, but it was so roughly plowed, mowing is not an option. It’s not a priority right now.
There are three spruces next to each other, just right of centre in the photo. I am hoping the one in the middle can be salvaged. The other two are too far gone.
On the garden side, starting from about where those spruces are (I think they are Colorado blues), is the old row a raspberries. It’s completely choked out with crab grass and weeds, and overshadowed by mostly dead trees, with a very few canes trying to grow. Another area that is not a priority right now. When the time comes, we plan to have a raspberry patch with three different varieties, including one with gold coloured berries, that mature at different times. That way, we will be harvesting berries from July through September. :-)
All in good time.
I plan to work my way down these two rows of trees, next. Where the big rock is, is the garden tap. It’s got a couple of dead trees by it, as well as a live one. They will all come down to clear the tap, and the buried pipe that leads to the house. I’m hoping the roots haven’t caused any problems. I have yet to hook it up at the house end to test it out, since it’s barely accessible right now.
There are two old tillers that have been sitting there for years, one covered with a piece of tin, the other with an old rug. They should still be salvageable, so I am hoping to be able to move them into a shed or maybe the barn, to get them out of the weather.
Once this area is done, I will turn my attention to the West side of the maple grove. Lots of deadfall in there, too.
The really big job is going to be dealing with the trees to the North of the grove, that has been so densely planted with trees.
While doing this outside, I also will be working on packing up the old kitchen, so we can get that cleaned out and looking good again. I want to get that done within the next week. I’d like to be able to open the door and not worry about the cats getting int. :-)
Lots to do! :-)
The Re-Farmer
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Resilient flowers
These flowers are growing near the fence line along our driveway. I remember when my mother first starting planting flowers there, back when I was still a teen, and I had been wondering if any had survived. The area is overgrown, with trees, as well as grass and weeds. Sure enough, however, there is a whole row of flowers running near the fence line. The red flowers are only at one end.
I am glad to see they have survived all these years. :-)
The Re-Farmer
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Trees: first quote
Goldfinch on our platform feeder.
I called two companies to get quotes about clearing our power lines, and removing the two trees that are a risk of falling on our roof. One called this morning and will be coming out on Monday. The other came today, so I have one quote now.
There are a LOT of trees that will need to be cut back. There are the first group of trees in the south yard, the ones in the maple grove to the north of the house, the ones by the second power pole in the main garden, and finally the ones at the fence line as the lines exit the property. One of the dead spruce trees will be taken down completely, as it is a risk for falling onto the lines, plus the two maples at leaning over the roof will be taken down completely. They will be bringing a chipper for clean up, and after talking to him about that, I’ve said that we will keep the chippings. He said the size of the chips are appropriate for composting, so that’s perfect for what I’ve got in mind for various areas.
Altogether, the quote is $1500 (plus, I assume, taxes, to about $1700 total). For the number of trees they’ll be working on, I find this very reasonable, and we would be able to come up with the funds to get it done in the fall, rather than have to wait until spring. Though when he saw the maple with the rot in it, he was visibly surprised that tree is still up, and was saying it might be better to not wait until fall! I told him it’s been like that for years, and yeah, I’m in agreement with him on that. But we will do it when we have the money.
So that’s one down!
Nuthatch on platform feeder.
After we get another quote on Monday, we will make a decision on which company to use and start setting aside funds.
I will be much relieved when this is finally done!
The Re-Farmer
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So Excited
My husband is awesome.
Amazing.
Kind, loving, fantastic, thoughtful, romantic.
He knows what makes my heart go pitter patter!
He got me an early birthday gift. Kinda. It’s not in yet.
Today included a late in the day trip to the city. I was going to wait until after Canada Day to do the non-Costco grocery shopping, but I’ve learned there is a 24 hr Walmart in the city (except on Sundays; they close at 6pm on Sundays) and I have a planned trip there later in the month, so I figured now would be a good time to make sure I know the route, get the things I need, and still manage to miss out on the holiday weekend crowds.
There also happens to be a Home Depot basically across the street from it.
So after going online and narrowing down my birthday gift to 2 versions, my older daughter and I went into the city to look at them in the store and make a final decision.
After checking out various areas, we never found any version of it.
Eventually, I found a staff member at one of the computer terminals, talking to a customer on the phone, so I waited until she was done, then asked her about it. She looked it up on the computer and…
… it’s only available through online ordering.
*sigh*
But, she tells me, there’s free shipping. Delivery or pick up.
I mentioned we lived an hour’s drive north of the city, so I wouldn’t want to make another trip if I could avoid it. Would they send it to the post office? She wasn’t sure.
In the end, I decided to order it (she let me use the store’s computer until it got to the part where it needed her associate’s number! :-D ), plugged in our address and…
… does not accept box numbers.
Okay. I took that out and left just our physical address.
Much to my amazement, it accepted everything. At the end, it said that I would be notified by email when the order was ready to ship, and that I wouldn’t be billed until it was ready for shipping.
Cool.
We finish up, I thanked the poor, overwhelmed staff member profusely (SO many people came to her while I was inputting our info!), then walked away, looking around for my daughter.
I happened to have my phone out, so I saw right away when I got a notification from my banking software, informing me that my purchase just went through.
Looks like it’s in stock and ready for shipping!
If they really will deliver right to our home in the sticks, I foresee many more online purchases in the future!
Meanwhile, this is what I’m getting. 
It’s a telescoping pole chain saw that converts to a regular chain saw.
*swoon*
I was really torn. This version has an 8 inch blade and is only 6 amps, but the pole can be removed completely, and convert to a little electric chainsaw. The other one I was looking at had a 10 inch blade, 8 amps, and you could pivot the blade head for angled cutting.
Both types extend to 15 feet. Both are electric. The one with the 10 inch blade was more expensive, of course.
In the end, I felt the ability to convert to a small chainsaw would be more useful than the extra blade length and power, or the ability to angle the blade head. We have been intending to get one of the multiple chainsaws in our garage fixed, and we will still do that, but this way it’s not as much of a priority. I might get one of the push mowers fixed right away, instead.
I can hardly wait for it to come in!!
<3 Did I mention my husband is awesome? <3
The Re-Farmer
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Critters, and technical difficulties
First up, I want to share a couple of photos from our living room camera.
This one was taken a few days ago. With the birdseed running out, there have been much fewer visitors of late. Which means that, of the ones that do show up, they are less active and easier to get photos of. :-)
While doing our Costco shopping, I made sure to pick up a bag of mixed bird seed. I even figured out how to pop the roof off of the bird feeder, so I could fill it. I also added some seed to the platform part of the stand.
The birds haven’t really rediscovered it yet, but this squirrel did!
I know squirrels aren’t supposed to be good for feeders, as they eat so much of the seeds, but I really like these guys. They take cat or dog kibble, too. Back when this place still had a wood burning furnace, when it was time to gather wood from the big pile outside to throw into the basement, we would sometimes uncover a cache of kibble that the squirrels had hidden in the logs. :-D
My dad really liked the squirrels, too. Sometimes, he would sit on the concrete steps out the main entry and lie back in the sun and fall asleep. At least once, he woke up to find a squirrel on his chest, checking him out!
With another scorcher predicted for today, I headed out early to try and mow the lawn. I don’t like working with loud equipment in the morning, but I wanted to get it done before things got too hot. I got most of the lawn done, and was just doing the last couple of bits around the main garden, when I ran out of gas. After refilling it, the mower wouldn’t start.
While I was trying to get it started, I jostled the fuel line filter, and it popped off! I got it back on again, then got a screwdriver to loosen the clamp, push the filter nozzle as far in as I could, then tightened it again. Then I went back to trying to start the mower.
No go. Literally.
I ended up pushing the mower all the way back to the garage. My daughters and I headed into town in the afternoon, then back again soon after we returned (but for good reasons… ;-) ), so I wasn’t able to try again until almost evening.
It started beautifully.
I guess it just needed a rest!
I finished the last bit of lawn. Though it took me maybe 15 minutes to do it, it was about 30C out there, and wow am I glad I started early in the morning, when it was still relatively cool!
But at least that’s done, now.
And that’s the extent of outside work for today!! Looking at the forecast, it looks like early mornings, or late evenings, are going to be the only times we’ll be getting outside work done for at least the next two weeks.
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 