dead trees

First one, nine more to go

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I am so tired.

I’m going to pay for today, tomorrow! It’s a good thing it’s Thanksgiving, so I’ll have a break to recover.

My goal was to get the felled tree that was stuck for so long, cleared and cut to size and, hopefully, start clearing access to the other tree my brother cut down for me that is almost completely hidden by the underbrush.

The first task was to clear away a small spruce tree I had to cut to allow the felled tree to drop. It was such a perfectly straight little tree, I ended up debranching in and setting it aside for future use. There were a couple of other dead trees plus underbrush to clear before I could reach the broken tree top that was laying across the trunk. The tree it was from had lost its top at some point, so a pair of branches grew upwards to create a double top. The whole thing was too big and heavy to bother taking out completely. Instead, I cleared away some of the branches, then cut it away from either side of the trunk I was after, giving myself enough space to work. I was able to use the mini-chainsaw for this, so once it was clear, I kept cutting away branches from the trunk I now had access to, until the battery died. I was already on my second battery, and the first one hadn’t had time to recharge yet, so I switched to the loppers. This part of the tree extended outside the north “wall” of the spruce grove, and I was able to use the loppers to clear all the way to the end.

The next step was clearing access to the bottom of the trunk. Between a machete and the loppers – our weed trimmer isn’t heavy duty enough for what was grown back since we were last able to work in this area – I was able to make a path. There was still the top of a dead tree I’d harvested before, laying on the undergrowth, that I dragged out. It’s straight enough, we might be able to use parts of it. Then I had to clear the trunk itself, which not only meant clearing underbrush around and branches on the trunk I was after, but even some low hanging dead branches from the spruces the trunk was wedged in between.

Once everything was finally clear, I measured off and marked 10′ from the base of the trunk, then the next 18′. The 18′ length will be for the next trellis bed. There’s still at least another 18′ of trunk left, but the closer we get to the top, the less straight the trunk is, and the more full of branch stubs it is. It will likely still be used; just not for the side walls of the next trellis bed.

Once everything was accessible and de-branched, I was finally able to cut the 10′ length.

Then I had to drag it out.

Good grief, that log was heavy!

As I’ve done with most of the logs, I dragged it out by a rope tied to one end. Getting it out of the spruce grove was quite a challenge. I even tried wrapping a plastic bag around the far end to help it slide better across the ground, but this time, it made no difference. I ended up taking it off again, as it seemed to actually make things worse.

Once it was out of the spruce grove, I left it and went into the barn. I found some scrap pieces of wood that were used as spacers between some old salvaged lumber we’ve been scavenging for various projects. The pile used to be a log bigger, before we got here, so there were quite a few of these scrap bits.

I decided to store the 10′ lengths beside the garage and lay the pieces on the ground to keep the log from direct contact with the soil. Then it was back to the log!

It wasn’t long before I gave up trying to drag it. It was not at all co-operative! I ended up simply rolling it the rest of the way.

Here it is!

The very first 10′ length of what will be the vertical supports for the roof of our future outdoor kitchen.

Only 9 more to go.

I wonder how much that thing weighs? I just tried looking at some log weight calculators, but they either require information I don’t have (oven dried weight and bark??), or they don’t have black spruce in their species list. I’ve tried a couple of species of spruce, but they don’t grow here. I also tried tamarack, which does grow here, but I think tamarack is a denser wood. The results ranged from just over 140 pounds to over 200 pounds. That’s a huge range! Plus, this tree has been dead for a very long time, so it’s very dry. If I had to guess, after looking at the calculators, I’d put it at maybe 150-170 pounds. Which isn’t really a lot. I’m definitely not as strong as I used to be! 😥

The other felled tree that I need to access looks like another big one. I have no idea how tall that one is, but I’m hoping I’ll get another 10′ length, and 18′ length again.

Anyhow.

Once the 10′ length was cleared, I went back and measured out the 18′ again, then started cutting it. With the top of the tree still hovering above ground, I was expecting its weight to drop at the top, which would have made for an easy cut.

Of course, it didn’t go easy.

Instead of the top dropping, the entire trunk slid down a couple of inches, pinching the chain saw’s bar. The chain was still free and could spin, but the bar couldn’t move any further to finish the cut. It could only just rotate in place. In the end, I had to take the bar off the chainsaw. I was then able to get the bar out, but the chain was still stuck. I had to find something large enough and strong enough to lift the log – a steel pipe my brother had found and used when the tree first got stuck on him! – high enough to open the cut enough that my daughter to pull the chain free.

At which point, I was done for the day! It was starting to get dark, anyhow.

So I almost got the tree cut to size!

I’m not actually sure how I’m going to get the rest of it out, though. The top of the tree, once free, will be easy to drag clear. This 18′ section, though, is right in between three other trees. They’re dead, too, and slated to be cut down, but they don’t have clear paths to fall. There are other dead trees that need to be cleared out, first.

I never imagined that one dead tree would be so difficult to harvest! It’ll get easier as we clear away more of the dead trees, but these first few just don’t have a lot of space around them. There’s still more than a dozen more dead spruces to cut down, and some of them are quite a bit bigger. These ones that my brother cut down for me were specifically chosen because they were smaller and more suitable for the trellis beds!

So… yeah. I’m pretty tired now! 😄 I also forgot to take painkillers before I started this. I’ve taken some since then, but by the end of it, it was getting hard to move! My daughter had to take over removing the sheets we’re using to cover the peppers from the clothes line, because I was having such a hard time of it – then did to covering of peppers for me, too!

And now it’s almost midnight, already! Where did the time go? Time to try and get some sleep. Tomorrow, we feast!

The Re-Farmer

So much done!

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I am so happy right now!

Absolutely wasted, and will probably be sore and barely able to move tomorrow, but happy!

My daughter and I got so much done today. But first, the cuteness!

Would you look at that flat pancake of a kitten!

This one actually allows me to pet it, and even pick it up at times.

After our failure this morning in getting a shelter over the stump bench, I decided we may as well cut down the dead tree beside it. I was then going to clean up the bench and get at least one coat of paint on it.

Well, it didn’t quite work out that way.

First, the dead spruce…

The first photo is the “before” image. Instagram crops things weird, and their crop options suck, so you can’t see the bench in that one.

Which direction to get it to fall was the issue. No matter where it fell, it would be landing on something. The thing was to get it to land on something with the least amount of damage. So I tried to get it to fall on the bench, in the middle, where it has the most support. It would still be hitting the big maple on the way down, but not as much of it.

As you can see in the second photo, it came down about as perfect as could be! One maple branch broke off and that was it.

My daughter and I then cut off all the branches; me with the chain saw, her with the electric pruner/baby chainsaw.

Once the branches were clear, I cut away the few bits of wood that were holding the trunk to the stump still, then cut the end flat. We then measured out 18′, and cut it with a few inches extra. This log is the right size to match the largest log we’ve got for the trellis bed. The two largest logs will be the bottoms longs for the sides, then the thinner ones will go on top.

Next, we cleared away all the branches and extra pieces. There was another stump that had originally been intended to be part of the stump bench, but it was too rotten. That finally got cut down to ground level. The new stump was also got trimmed lower, though not quite to ground level. Maybe we’ll put a planter on it or something, at some point. 😊 We also used a rope and dragged the 18′ piece over to where the trellis bed will be built.

It was SO much easier to grad that big log with two people!

This is the third dead spruce we’ve cleared out of this one little section. At least one of them was killed off by the Virginia creeper that had been allowed to attach itself to it. This tree that we had cleared away had still been alive until last year or so.

Then, since I had the chain saw handy, and 200 ft of extension cord, I took advantage of it.

First, I dealt with the crab apple trees.

The easy part was cutting away the remains of a dead crab apple tree that was off by itself. In the photos with the dead spruce tree, you can actually see it through the dead branches of the fallen tree.

In the above photos, the first one is in between two large crab apple trees. These were suckers growing out from around the remains of trees that died long ago. They were much harder to cut away and clean up, because they were so tangled up in the two live trees. In one of those, I cut away some dead branches, too.

Now that the suckers are gone, there are branches from the live trees hanging really low, as they are no longer being held up by the suckers!

The second photo shows where the single dead crab apple tree had been. Between the freshly cut stump and the next live tree are another three stumps cut to ground level, plus two more behind where I’m standing to take the photo. Way too many trees were planted way too close together!

There is still one more at the very end that will need cleaning up. Again, the original tree had died long ago, and there are just suckers growing. There may still be one that produces tasty apples; another that I knew for sure had good apples broke in a storm last year and didn’t recover. We’ll see if any of the remaining ones are worth salvaging, but they won’t be ripe for at least another month.

My daughter made many trips to the branch pile past the fire pit, clearing away as I cut. As we were finishing up, I decided to take a closer look at the stuck tree my brother had cut down for me. I wanted to see if I could safely cut away the dead tree it was stuck on. There were actually a couple of trees that were holding it up. One was a small spruce that got bent under the fallen trunk. Sadly, I had to cut it, even though it was still alive. I could see that even if I got the bigger tree cut away, the little one would still hold up the tree we were trying to access, and cause the tree we were after to roll towards other trees, rather than fall to the ground

I was able to cut through the little spruce’s trunk, but with everything so jammed together, nothing moved. I was, however, able to get a good look at the dead tree the fallen tree was stuck on.

It wasn’t a tree.

What you’re seeing in that first photo is a tree top. You can see that, at some point, the tip had broken off, and two branches grew upwards, forming a double top. This is pretty common for spruces. As the tree my brother cut down fell and got caught on other trees, it broke this tree top. As it slowly continued to fall lowers in high winds, the tree top ended up vertical, with its broken end on the ground as it it had grown there!

In the second photo, you can see the tree with a broken off top that I think it came from.

So I grabbed the rope my daughter and I used to drag the 18′ log out, and wrapped it around the bottom of the tree top. I wasn’t able to get it completely off, as there were branches getting caught, but it is no longer holding up the stuck tree. Since I had also cut the other little tree, that came off its stump and fell, too. Finally, the stuck tree came down! No, it’s not on the ground, but that’s just fine. It’s only being held up by its own branches and undergrowth now, and it completely accessible!

We can now clear it, cut it to size and drag the pieces out.

But not today! My daughter and I were both completely beat by then. Thank goodness it was a “cooler” day, with a high of “only” 27C/81F.

So… we didn’t paint the bench and, with possible thunderstorms or showers starting tomorrow afternoon and over the next few days (depending on what app I look at), it may not get done for possibly another week.

That’s okay. The bench and the folding table I want to also paint won’t melt. It just means we work on something else, instead. Like finally continuing that trellis bed!

I’m just so happy we were able to get all this stuff done. It feels so good!

The Re-Farmer

Morning kitties, and checking beyond the outer yard

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It’s a good thing we normally keep kibble, water and a litter box in the sun room. When I closed the door last night, I made sure to check for kittens and saw none. This morning, I discovered I’d closed the three amigos up in there overnight!

I was able to get a picture with Rosencrantz’ tortie! It is the shiest of the bunch. I was able to pet the one at the pack a little bit, at least. Rosencrantz herself acts like she wants to be petted, will stretch out to sniff my fingers, bump her head against my hand – then try to bite and scratch me, too! She used to be much more friendly.

While doing my rounds, I kept hearing cows and calves, very loudly. The renter has rotated his cows out and took away the power source for the electric fence to use in the other quarter he’s renting, so if for some reason there are cows in this quarter, there is nothing to stop them from getting into the outer yard – and we’ve opened up the gates to the inner yard.

For all that I could hear them, I couldn’t see them. I decided to do a walkabout, though. I haven’t gone beyond the outer yard since last year, and I really wanted to see how the gravel pit was looking, after the renter hired someone to dig it deeper during the drought last year.

Wow. What a difference!

September 2022

I couldn’t even go to where I had tried to consistently take pictures last year, because it’s under water. You can see a whole bunch of ducks swimming around, too!

Just for comparison, this was last year.

August, 2021

That was the most water it had all of last year. The clay held what little rain we finally got.

September, 2022

Only the deepest part was dug deeper; it extends quite a bit in one direction, and forms a sort of marsh in the other. Last year, this part didn’t even really get muddy.

This is what it looks like in July of last year.

July, 2021

If you look in the trees, there’s one that is distinctively bent up. If you look in the photo I took this morning, you can find that tree, further away. The spot I stood in to take the picture in July of last year is underwater now, too.

I wish I’d thought to head out and see how high the water was when things were flooding in the spring!

I followed along the marshy bit to where it ends at a sort of roadway, with a pond on the other side.

It has water, too!

When I was a kid, I remember there being enough water in here to float makeshift rafts in, but it has filled in a fair bit over the years.

I was surprised to see this, not too far away.

This tree is still alive! The trunk is even more split open, with the middle rotted away, than when I first found this tree broken after high winds.

Since I was in the area, I decided to head towards the field, which the renter has prepared for next year already, so check on things. There’s an old junk pile there, too. All during my walkabout, as much as possible, I was picking up junk and scrap pieces of metal the cows had scattered around, and put them onto the nearby piles of junk.

I really look forwards to being able to get a scrap dealer to clear away some of this stuff!

I found more pieces of junk scattered about near the fields and cleaned them up a bit.

And found this.

It’s completely intact. Not even a chip, though it was full of dirt.

I brought it home and added it to the table of other found objects. 😁

My daughter came by as I was working on this post, and I showed her the photos I took this morning. She was happy to see the cup! She’s found it last year and had intended to bring it back, but her hands were too full of other things. It’s now sitting exactly where she’d wanted to put it, herself! 😊

I found another surprise in the area.

More water!

Normally, this area has water only during spring melt. There is a sort of “river” that heads off to the right in the photo, all the way to the road, where there is a large culvert, and continues north in someone else’s property. To the left, it goes into the field and joins up with the municipal drainage ditch. The group of trees in the middle become an island, but right now, we have another pond!

While chatting with the renter, I’d commented on how glad I was that they were able to get the gravel pit dug out. He mentioned that, in this quarter, getting enough water for the cows has always been difficult. Not this year, that’s for sure! And with how deep the pit was dug, and the heavy clay bottom, it should not be a problem again, even in dry years.

While heading back, I spent some time checking out the car graveyard, which has all sorts of old farm equipment as well. In the process, I think I found a solution to a problem.

One of the things I want to get built this fall is a chicken coop, so we can get chicks in the spring. We can’t get away with the basic chicken tractor that is so easy to find plans for all over. We need something suitable for our winters, so a lot more substantial. However, I still want to be able to move it to different locations, so that we can incorporate chickens into our garden plans. I’ve been doing some research and have seen mobile chicken coops that are more or less what I have in mind. Basically, they are build on a wagon chassis. I’ve looked around, and even second hand, those can be pretty expensive.

I think I’ve found one.

Among the junk is an old, wooden wagon of some kind. It’s got sheets of aluminum in it, and the wood walls are rotting away. It has all steel wheels and, as far as I can tell, the chassis is completely intact.

As soon as I have the opportunity, I want to go back out there with some tools, pull out the metal sheets, dismantle the rotting wood portions and see what’s there. Once clear, we should be able to just roll it home. We should be able to build a pretty decent sized chicken coop on it, if it’s intact enough!

It’s remarkable what we have been finding among the junk, that can be salvaged. It’s a shame so much of this stuff was left to rot away in the first place.

It would be really awesome if we can salvage this!

The Re-Farmer

Clean up: dead trees, and I’m being watched!

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Yesterday evening, I was able to head out and finally work on the dead tree that’s stuck. While I was getting tools out of the sun room, I discovered I was being watched!

They were not only watching me, but they did NOT run away, and one of them looks almost relaxed!

I’ll take that as progress. 😀

Then it was time to get to work.

For the tree that’s stuck, the first thing that needed to be done was to brace it before I started cutting. Then I measured a little more than four feet from the bottom and cut it most of the way through. Then, just to be safe, I used a rope to pull out the brace from a distance, then used the rope again, to pull out the cut piece.

Now that this has been cut shorter, the tree can be pulled out with the van, once we have something we can use to safely haul it out. We do actually have chain handing around but 1) I won’t want to use chain, because if it breaks, the damage could be catastrophic and 2) the chain I’ve found is so big and long, I would have to use a wheelbarrow to bring it over! 😀 At this stage, though, the tree can wait until we get some strong enough rope. It’s also now low enough that I could remove the rope that was wrapped around the trunk, from when I tried to get it to roll off the branches it’s stuck on.

The four foot length was moved to join the others by the main garden beds. Then I took down the third dead tree in this group.

This tree was a fair bit thinner than the other two, and was faster to cut down. When it fell, it landed on the stuck tree, which basically guided it away from the trees it’s stuck on, and down to the cherry trees.

All of those cherry trees will be cleared away, as they are not right for our climate zone, so the first order of business was to start clearing enough of those away that we could access the trunk. Dead branches were also cleared off the trunk. Then, while I continued to clear more of the cherry trees away, using loppers for the thinner ones, and the baby chainsaw for the few larger ones, my daughter started to measure off the trunk to cut the first four foot length.

We got two four foot lengths and a nine foot length before it got too dark to work, so I got these photos this morning.

As with the other two trees, the wood is nice and solid, with no sign of rot. That means, not only will the wood be used to build our high raised beds, but the stump will be used to support a seat or a table.

With so many dead trees to clear away, we’re going to have a lot of those by the time we’re done!

While cutting lengths from the trunk off, we were able to pull the rest of the tree out a bit, but at this point, it’s too hung up on the cherry trees that haven’t been cut away, yet. I had thought to be doing more of that today, but it might have to wait. Pain levels are high, which is no surprise, but as I write this, it is also 30C/86F right now!

One more nine foot length, and I’ll have enough wood to make a raised bed that’s 3 logs high. With how thick the trunks are, that might be high enough! 🙂

The Re-Farmer

Why thank you, wind.

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While I was working outside with the loppers and lawn mower, in the area we intend to seed with wildflowers, the winds were pretty high. By the time I was done, I was dealing with double ear aches from it. :-/

It has since only picked up. I’ve just come back from a walkabout, picking up fallen branches and closing up the pump shack door that I found blown open.

There was a benefit to the high winds, when it came to the stuck trees I cut down.

One of them broke free and fell all the way down, right were I was intending it to fall! Which means I can start breaking it down to the lengths I want and clearing it out, and can access another dead tree in this group to cut down.

Unfortunately, the bigger tree is on the wrong side of the tree it’s hung up on. The winds are blowing it into the tree instead of away from it.

Getting this one out is going to be an issue. The only direction it can be pulled from is where I’m standing to take the photo. That leaves the stump in the way. A stump I want to keep, to use as the support for a seat or table.

The trunks will be cut into 10 and 4 foot lengths. What I figure I will do is first find something to support the trunk, then cut it at about 4 1/2 feet from the end. That leaves room to trim the end level. The rest of the tree would then be clear of the stump and can be pulled out, once I have something strong enough to pull it with.

Unless the winds shift, and it manages to fall. Unlikely, but one can hope!

The Re-Farmer

I was hoping to avoid that

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After giving my hips a chance to recover, it was time for more manual labour today!

Today, I decided to do a bit more cleanup around the junk pile, so I could access some dead trees that need to be taken down.

Here is how it looked before I started.

We have our ongoing battle with the spirea that’s choking everything out, so I wanted to pull them up by the roots as much as possible.

Some of them had roots so long, they started going under things. I pushed them aside after a certain point, so I could focus on clearing around three specific dead trees.

The thistles were much more of a problem. The thorns go right through my work gloves!

I did leave on thing behind, besides some wildflowers.

There was a little Saskatoon bush, at the base of one of the trees, and it’s actually trying to produce berries! Weather willing, the berries you see will turn a deep, dark purple, and look a bit like blueberries.

Once the area was cleared of tripping hazards, I started taking down the first tree, using a bucksaw. Because of where these trees are, I tried to do it in such a way that it would fall in a space between some other spruces. I didn’t want it falling towards the open yard, because then it might land on the beet bed or compost pile, or some Saskatoon bushes and an elm tree we want to keep.

It almost worked.

It fell too far to the south, and got hung up on another dead tree, that’s right nest to a still live one.

I was able to wrap some rope around the trunk and get it off the stump, but it would not come loose from the dead tree it was entangled in.

So I moved on to the next tree. This time, it actually fell into the gap I wanted it to fall into.

It still got hung up! I had hoped these trees would be heavy enough that the dead branches would break and let them fall to the ground, but apparently, they are still quite strong.

On the plus side, I was very pleased with what I saw after cutting them down.

The wood is nice and solid, with no sign of rot or ant damage. This is very encouraging, because I want to use the logs. These nice, solid stumps will later be used to make seats and tables.

Here is how it looked when I stopped for the day. I did try to use the rope and our van to try and get that first tree loose from the dead tree it’s hooked up on, but the rope kept breaking. We don’t have any stronger rope. If we’re going to need to use the van anyhow, I will pick up some sturdy rope and hook it up to near the base of the trunks, and pull the entire trees out into the yard, where we will break them down.

Since the wood is in such good shape, these will be used to make the high raised beds we will be building in the main garden area, where we currently have the low raised beds we’d planted spinach, onions and carrots in. I’m thinking of cutting the logs into 10 ft and 4 ft lengths, and I figure it will take about 4 logs to get the accessible height we are after, though of course, that will depend on how big the individual trees are. We don’t have a lot of time left, if we want to get these ready for next year. I’m hoping to get at least a couple built for next year. By using whole logs like this, we won’t have any concerns about the sides bowing out under the weight of the layers of wood, compostable materials and soil they will be filled with.

Once these dead trees closer to the edge of the spruce grove are down, we’ll be able to feel the other ones towards the yard, and there will be no other trees for them to get hung up on!

Once all the dead trees in this corner are down, and the area is cleaned up, we will be able to convert the trunks into seating and surfaces. Then we can start planting food trees that need a protected microclimate. I will be testing the soil, and if the acidity from all those decades of spruce needles is high enough, I hope to be able to plant blueberries. We do still want to grow a mulberry tree, since the one we got this spring got killed off by that one cold night in May, and it was in here that we originally intended to plant it. I think, this time, we will try and get a Canadian variety we found out about, that is increasingly endangered. We will still need the microclimate for it, but if we can help keep a variety at risk going, that’s what we prefer to do, if we can.

There are a lot more dead trees further to the east and around to the south, inside the spruce grove. Some will also have their trunks converted to seating, but as we go further into the grove, I want to start transplanting more spruces into the spruce grove! 🙂

While we are getting rid of the spirea, we will be leaving the wild roses and red bark dogwood as underbrush. I will probably take out most of the chokecherries I’m finding in here, as there are so many, to make room for the Saskatoons to spread. We will also be transplanting new spruces in here, though more strategically. Lots to do, but I am really looking forward to when we have a lovely little sanctuary in here, where we can sit and enjoy the outdoors, somewhat protected from the elements by the trees. 🙂

For now, however, I’m going to get some tweezers, and get that thistle thorn that got through my gloves!

The Re-Farmer

Clean up: dead spruce, so far

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It was too dark to take progress photos last night, so this is how the dead spruce tree I took down looked when I was done for the day.

When I get back to it later today, I’ll be using the mini chainsaw (cordless pruner) to finish de-branching it. Depending on how things go today, I might even be able to break the trunk down more with the electric chainsaw. I’ll have to watch myself, though. My body is already warning me not to overdo it. Power tools will help with that, at least, but it was quite painful getting up this morning. 😦

This is the larger of the vine pieces that were still wrapped around the trunk.

After fighting off the Virginia Creeper since we moved out here, it actually stuns me when I go into garden centres and see it for sale. People actually pay money for this invasive plant! I get that they’re pretty, but my goodness, do they ever kill off anything they wrap themselves around! I’m still pulling it from areas I cleared two summers ago. Any little root left in the soil will keep trying to sprout.

Speaking of invasive, you can see in the background of the above photo, how the chokecherry tree is trying to spread! Gotta get that under control, too!

The Re-Farmer

Clean up: dead spruce (gotta start somewhere!)

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One of the frustrating things about the heat we’ve been having is that it’s preventing us from doing a lot of outside work. The sort of work that involves a level of manual labour that becomes dangerous to do, simply because of the heat.

The work still needs to be done, however.

So tonight, when it was a bit cooler and there was still some light out, I decided it was time to take down one of the dead spruce trees.

No, not one of the big ones in the spruce grove. This little one.

Because it was nearing 10pm, I didn’t want to use the electric chain saw. It’s just big enough to do a tree of this size. Instead, I used a buck saw. In this photo, you can see I’d already cut out a wedge on one side.

Once it started to fall, it got hung up on some maple branches! In the end, I had to use a narrow fence pole from the pile you can see in the first picture, to push the dead tree free of the branches.

It was remarkable, how much brighter this spot become, once the tree was down!

After felling the tree, I used a hand saw to cut off branches until it became to dark to continue.

There had been a second dead tree near this one. Our first summer here, as I was cleaning up in the area, I pulled off a giant triffid of a vine from the two of them (you can read about and see photos, here). There were still pieces of it in this tree! It is likely the vine that killed both trees.

I was just about to head in for the supper the girls were making when I saw the motion sensor light on the squash tunnel get triggered. I headed over with my phone as a flashlight, but never found what triggered it.

Anyhow.

I will continue breaking down this tree tomorrow morning, before things heat up again. Unless, miracle of miracles, we get the showers that are being predicted. The trunk has a crack in it, but otherwise, it’s solid. No sign of rot. Which means we can use the wood. If we can take down more of the dead trees and they are solid like this, they will be used to make our permanent raised beds.

While I was working on the tree, it had supposedly cooled down to 17C/63F. Which would have been a gorgeous temperature to do this kind of work in, but I suspect the actual temperature here was quite a few degrees warmer! We’re supposed to be at 30C/86F, or close to it, over the next few days. For the next week, the humidex is supposed to be about 33C/81F. Which means we’ll only have small windows of time in the morning and evening when we can work on this sort of thing. But it has to be done. It’s already been delayed for far too long!

Now that this dead tree is down, I have two tall stumps that are relatively near each other. Once things are cleared away, I’ll be cutting them to matching heights, and they will become the supports for a much needed bench. 🙂

The Re-Farmer

Clean up: spruce grove, clearing to the dead trees

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Today turned out to be such a hot and sunny day, I took advantage of it to do a bit of work in the spruce grove. Specifically around the dead trees near where we intend to plant the mulberry tree that will be shipped later in the spring.

I normally post the before pictures at the start, and the after pictures near the end, but this time I’m going to set them side by side. It’s the only way I can see the difference 2-3 hours of work resulted in. :-/

Here is the first area, and where the mulberry tree will be planted.

They’re a bit hard to see in the before picture, but there are two steel wheels leaning against the reddish dead tree. Those have joined the “found object” art display for now. 😉 Then there was the remains of what appears to have been a bench made with two logs as support, and another log that I think was just there to sit on.

It must have been a very pleasant place to sit, when they were first set up.

Someone (probably my mother) had gone to some effort to make sure the seats were stable. I found these, under them.

These were under where the bench was, with a group of bricks under where each log would have been. It was a good idea to put the bricks under the logs, but nothing had been done to keep them from sinking into what is essentially composted leaves and spruce needles, so the logs started to rot from below.

It wasn’t until I found these that I realized the other log was intended as a seat, too.

I had to cut away what I thought were two small trees, just to access the area. It wasn’t until I tried to cut them down to ground level that I realized, it wasn’t two trees.

I had to dig out and cut away the roots to get them out, and they were both growing out of the same root, which ran under the bricks.

This was, hands down, the most difficult part of the clean up today. Partly because there were other roots running under the roots I was trying to cut! Some belonged to the dead spruce they were next to, but I later ended up pulling out about 8 feet of root, and never finding out what tree it came from!

While trimming the undergrowth, I realized I need to get thicker gloves than the gardening gloves I’ve been using.

Another reason to encourage the wild roses – they make great security barriers! Those spines go right through ordinary garden gloves!

I don’t mind cutting away the roses for now, though. They will grow back, and with clearing out the other stuff, they should have more sun and space to spread out, too.

It was really hot work, though, so I stopped for a rest in the shade. I look forward to when we set up new seating areas around the yard. It would be much more pleasant than sitting on concrete steps!

With how hot it was feeling, I just had to check the temperature. I was thinking we were certainly about 15C/59F Maybe even approaching 20C/68F

Nope.

It was 10C/50F

RealFeel, 8C/46F

Yeah. I know. You folks from the south are laughing at me right now! 😀

Meanwhile, the thermometer in the sun room was approaching 30C/86F. I opened the solid doors to allow air circulation through the screen doors, and increased the speed of the ceiling fan, so the onion seedlings would not be too hot!

One of these days, we should set up our own weather station, so we can have more accurate readings!

But I digress…

I did have a visitor while I was taking a break on the stairs.

I love how the woodpecker likes to get to the seeds on the ground by way of the bird feeder’s support. 🙂

Then it was back to clearing away the undergrowth, and working my way towards the stone cross. Here is that section, taken from the same spot I took the first before and after pictures from.

I’m having a hard time seeing the difference between these two pictures. In fact, the “after” picture looks worse, because I didn’t line the angle up the same. :-/ Trust me. I did take out quite a bit of undergrowth in the distance!

In the second picture, you can see the tarp covering the junk pile. The tree beside it is dead, as is the tree my supplies are under. That whole area is full of spirea. It’s better to pull those up by the roots, but I just didn’t have the energy for that, today. Too hot! 😀

I worked more into this area.

In the before picture, I’d already started cleaning up the undergrowth a bit. The row of trees you can see on the right are part of north edge of the spruce grove. My older brother planted those, before I was born. It’s hard to believe they were planted at the same time as the huge spruces on the north edge of the grove, but there were three rows planted, close together. The further into the grove the rows were planted (at a time when the rest of the grove’s trees were in their prime), the less light they got, and the less growth there was. I’d cleaned up along the north side of the grove, taking out a lot of little dead spruces in the process. Hopefully, the more things are cleaned up, the better it will be for the surviving trees.

Most of the large spruces in the pictures are dead, so once those are cleaned up, that will allow a lot more light into here. If their trunks are still solid enough, I want to turn them into supports for benches and maybe a table or two. Over time, more spruces will be transplanted into the spruce grove, as well as more food trees – the mulberry tree being our first – that need the extra protection these spruces will give them. The mulberry tree should grow quite large, and will provide quite a bit of shade, so we need to keep things open around where we plant it. Long term, I want this area to be a pleasant, park-like setting. I will have to keep in mind that the benches and possible tables that I hope to make on the tree trunks nearby will end up covered with berries when the mulberry tree gets bigger! I’ve read warnings that mulberry trees can be quite messy. 😀

I’m sure the birds will clean it up for us, though. 😉

I probably won’t get a chance to work here again for a while, as we are supposed to start snowing tomorrow evening, and it will be a few days before the temperatures warm up again. I want to get the spirea out, in particular – they’re lovely, but very invasive, so we’re keeping them in one area of the yard, and taking them out everywhere else. I know some of what I’ve already taken out today were chokecherry trees. We have lots of those, and it turns out they can be invasive, too! What we really want to clear up around are the Saskatoon bushes. These ones are still healthy, and keeping the area around them clear and open will help keep them that way. They are crowded by spirea and chokecherry right now, so when I work my way to where they are, I will back off until they are in full leaf, or even starting to bloom, so I don’t accidentally cut any down, mistaking them for chokecherry.

Today has been a very deceiving day! It got so hot, and when I was shoveling around those roots, I didn’t hit any ice or frozen ground at all. Quite a few of our garden seeds say to direct sow “as soon as the ground can be worked.” Well, that would be now, but it’s still another month an a half before our last frost date. Not only are we expected to have snow starting tomorrow evening, but we could easily get more snow later in the month, or even in May, so anything we tried to sow would likely not survive.

Which is fine for now. We can’t do anything until the garden soil is delivered! I keep forgetting to call about it. I’m sure the soil is thawed out enough to load into their trucks by now, and I still need someone to come by so we can look at where would be the best places to drop the loads.

I get excited, just thinking about it! 😀 The girls and I are so looking forward to gardening this year!

The Re-Farmer

Situational blindness?

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My older daughter just finished a whole bunch of quick commissions, and after sitting at the computer for so many hours, she really needed to get out and walk!

So we headed out together, and wandered around beyond the outer yard, cutting through the old hay yard.

I just had to share this photo of a floating tree.

This tree is a bit of a mystery. It is one of several trees that had not fallen on their own, but were cut down and just left in the hay yard. Perhaps the intent was to clean them up, but it just never happened. Who knows?

This tree, however, has a piece missing.

Unlike the others that were lying near their stumps, there is what I estimate to be about 8 feet of trunk missing. The nearby stump is much wider than the cut end of this tree’s floating remains. There is no sign of the missing piece, anywhere! I find myself curious as to why someone would remove a section completely like that, and what it was used for!

While we were walking around, my daughter asked her if I’d seen the old outhouse.

…

Which old outhouse? I had to ask, since several came to mind.

Apparently, there was an old outhouse my daughters found in the bushes.

So of course, I had to see it!

You know how you can walk past something time after time, yet not “see” it, until something calls your attention to it? And then you wonder, when did that get there? Or, is this new?

I had to have had this sort of situational blindness, because I’ve gone through this area several times, and yet I can’t remember seeing this. It’s in the bushes, between the car graveyard and old gravel pit, and most definitely has been there a long time!

Truly an odd place for an outhouse. It’s not like this was a place people spent so much time, they’d need an outhouse!

The use of wood shingles for siding like that is another curious thing. Very unusual.

It’s possible I missed seeing it because I’d gone through here at a time of year when the bushes were in full leaf.

At this angle, you can see the hinged door at the bottom, for access to emptying the… contents.

There does not seem to be a pit under it.

I wonder if it was brought in from somewhere else, and just dumped here, like so many other things were, over the years?

The roof is gone and it’s collapsing into itself to the point the door cannot be opened, though it is somewhat ajar.

I was able to stick my phone into a gap and get a photo of the inside.

I’m guessing that little blue shelf was hanging on the nails under the coat hook.

What a curious thing to have somehow not seen while going through here! Or perhaps I did see it, but just dismissed it. There have been so many odd finds since we’ve moved here, they aren’t really odd anymore! 😀

The Re-Farmer