I managed a bit of work in the yard, during a break in the high winds we’ve been having for the past while.
There were so many tiny branches and twigs fallen from the Chinese elm in front of the house, I needed to use a rake to pick them up.
I also found this.
Continue readingBetween the high winds and rain we’ve been having recently, it’s been a while since my rounds have included all the perimeter of the spruce grove.
The predicted storms have, once again, passed us by – this time to the south – but we have been getting rain almost constantly for the last while.
Which would have been wonderful in the spring. The farmers in the middle of harvesting their crops are now being hit with a triple whammy. A cold late spring followed by a hot dry summer, and now when hot and dry is what the crops need, it’s cold and wet.
That’s the reality of farming, though, and everyone just goes with it. What else can you do?
Continue readingIt’s been a while, but today I was able to continue working on the perimeter of the spruce grove. I started off at the little maple I had stopped at, last time, and made it to the fence line. :-D
The last time I went through the area, looking ahead to what needed to be done, it was still green. The leaves are completely yellow, now!
Here are the before and after pictures. (click on the images to see them better)
The cluster of trees is made of up 3 poplars and 2 spruces. One of the poplars has lost its top, and I’m pretty sure that’s what’s lying on the ground near the little dead spruces I took out. There is some dogwood at the bottom of this group of trees that I cleaned up a bit, but otherwise left to grow. It’s one of those things that will spread quite handily, given the opportunity.
The next section is an open, mossy area. I’ve been using it to turn around with the riding mower.
Most of the clean up here involved pruning shears instead of saws.
Once that was done, I was at the fence line and had to make some decisions. How far to the north did I want to go?
In the end, I decided I needed to at least clear out a dead tree that had fallen on the fence, so I could access it for repair.
Though the dead tree was a big poplar, the remains of two other trees had also fallen on it.
The poplar itself was growing on the outside of the fence line. There are a few larger trees on the outside that I will have to leave, but I will be taking out any smaller trees on that side, as soon as I am able. I’m not sure about the bylaws in regards to municipal land along the roads, as far as who is responsible for keeping it clear, but I don’t want it to become overgrown with trees like it has on the other side of our gate.
I didn’t do much more in this area, as I want to focus in the other direction, so this section is unfinished. There are a couple of trees that will be taken out, because they are too close to the fence line. Otherwise, it’s mostly undergrowth that will need clearing and cleaning. There seems to be some juniper in there that I intend to leave.
Moving southward, now.
There are some pretty massive spruces here! There isn’t really a lot that needs doing with the trees themselves; a few low hanging branches and dead branches to clear out. I could see that, at some point – long ago – someone had gone through and cleared the lower branches, so they were already pretty good. Again, I spent more time with the pruning shears! There are quite a few poplar on the outside of the fence that I will have to go back to, later.
If you look in the before picture, at the big spruce to the left of centre, you can almost see a potential problem. The top of this tree is broken off, and its top is still there, hanging upside down. I have no idea how long it’s been like this, but at some point, it’s going to fall. Ideally, we’d get it down before it falls on its own and potentially damages something, but for now, it will have to wait.
It’s starting to open up quite nicely.
Though my priority is clearing the fence line, so it can be accessed and repaired as needed, I might have to clear out some of the dead wood further into the grove. There is a large spruce that has come down in the area that I am leaving for next year, but I might have to cut away at least some of the branches, just so I can drag out some of the stuff I know I will be dealing with, further down.
And that is my progress for today! It might be another few days before I can work on it again, so I’m glad I was able to at least get this little corner done.
The Re-Farmer
I won’t be able to continue cleaning up the perimeter of the spruce grove for a while, yet, but this evening, I decided to walk through it, check things out and take some photos of what it looks like now, so I can go over them later and plan ahead for when I work in the area next year.
Mostly, though, I wanted to go along the fence line I plan to work on soon, and especially check on the fence where I knew a tree fell on it.
Here’s a look at what I’ll be working on in that area.
In this first photo, you’re actually seeing the tops of two trees. In the foreground, to the right, is the top of a tree that fell some time ago. On the other side of the fence is the top of the tree my brother had cut off, to get its weight off the barbed wire to the right of the fence post.
Here, you can see the mess of dead branches, and the section of barbed wire that was damaged by the fallen tree.
All along the fence line, I am seeing trees that have sown themselves on the outside of the fence. In the section of fence line going in the other direction, some have been there so long, they are full sized, mature trees. I’ll just have to clean them up and leave them. However, going towards the gate, the self-sown trees are still quite little, and I want to clean them out while it’s still easy to do. This had not been done between the fence and ditch on the far side of the gate. It’s not just overgrown, but practically a forest. This affects ditch drainage and, of course, visibility.
I have no plans at this point for clearing that out, except perhaps what needs to be done for visibility. For now, I need to just focus on the inner yard.
The first of the above photos shows the two, quite large, trees that have come down, with one of them landing on the fence. A third tree is caught up in the mess, too.
I found this interesting…
The damaged barbed wire is propped up with a stick! I’m guessing my older brother did this, after cutting the tree loose from the wire.
Also, that pile on the other side of the stick?
That’s an ant hill. Red ants like to build big nests like that, using spruce needles.
I did not try to get close enough to see if it’s an active nest. Yet.
Oh, look. Another Bud Light can.
I’ve found a number of beer cans around the place. I think my late brother was the only one to drink that brand of beer. Since he died in the early summer of 2010, that means these have been sitting around for a minimum of about 9 years. It looks like no one has gone through here to clean things up in at least that amount of time, too.
This is why the tree came down. Ant damage. From the freshness of the exposed wood, I’d say this tree fell within the past year, year and a half, at most.
The other tree came down for the same reason, though quite a while ago, from how much the wood is weathered.
This makes at least three large spruces that have come down after being weakened by ants, that I have found. While there were many other downed trees scattered about the spruce grove, there are also a significant number of dead spruces still standing. And there’s no real way to see if any of them have ant damage, just by looking at them.
Which is why I look forward to having the tools to start cutting them down, before they fall and cause more damage.
This undergrowth will be kept, after we clean the dead trees off of it. I think it’s a type of juniper.
There is an area full of wild roses, closer to the house, that will be cleaned up, but also kept.
I took quite a few more photos, though less than I would have, were it were not so difficult to wrestle my way through the undergrowth and dead trees and branches.
Cleaning up this area is going to be a huge job. I’m hoping by the time we get to it, we’ll not only have a full size chain saw, but some sort of large wagon or small trailer we can use to help haul things away more easily. All the work done in the maple grove was downright easy compared to what is going to need doing in here!! I would not be surprised if it takes me a couple of summers to finish, at least.
At least I’ve got some idea of what we’ll be facing in there!
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 