Dead Wood Down

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

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

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

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

This is the branch, completely cut through.

It wasn’t moving. At all.

This is why.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It felt good to finally get this big one down.

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

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

The Re-Farmer

Front Yard Clean Up – the shrine

June 6, 2018June 6, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

Cleaning up the south yard, I finally got around to working on my mother’s little shrine area.

Here are some before pictures.

20180606.shrine1

That statue of Mary has been featured in a few different places in the yard, if I remember correctly.

I don’t know what the pedestal was for.

The little structure to the right is an actual shrine. My oldest brother built it for my mother; it is based on the kapliczki, or roadside shrines, in Poland that my mother remembers from her youth. Sadly, it has not been maintained over the years, and the wood is starting to rot in many places. For a while, it had a place of honour, right on the concrete landing at the main entrance.

20180606.shrine2

Another “before” view of the area, at the fence line. The post in the foreground is for the clothes line. I’m guessing the rope is to keep the post from being pulled by the weight of clothes on the line, but with the amount of slack on there, I’m not quite sure what it is really there to accomplish. :-D

The first area I started cleaning up was the tractor tire planter. It was overrun with vines! The roots had circled under the edge of the tire, with two big clumps of vines pushing their way out in such a large mass, they actually deformed the tire!

I’m starting to develop a strong dislike for those vines. ;-)

Once I was able to reach it safely, I took the statue out completely. Then started working around the back, cutting away and pulling up a huge mass of dead vines.

I then found a whole other flower garden area!

20180606.shrine3

Bricked up and everything.

I vaguely remember noticing a couple of bricks there, shortly after the snow melted away, but did not expect to find this!

It had nothing but dead vines and leaves in it. Any flowers that were ever planted there were long gone.

Feeling how my feet sank when I stepped in it to cut and clean away the debris, I figure it never actually had soil added to it. It’s all basically composted leaf debris!

Here are the after pictures.

20180606.shrine4

When the tire planter and bricked areas were clear, I pruned what I could reach of the willow trees, taking down more vines that had climbed their way up the trunks in the process.

20180606.shrine5

Then I gave Mary a good scrubbing, before returning her to her concrete block. There was moss starting to grow on her!

You can really see the one spot where a clump of vine roots distorted the tire. The other spot is hidden by the pedestal.

With this area, I don’t know about planting anything there again. What I’d really like to do is get rid of the tire planter. I’d like to get rid of all the tire planters! It will be a huge job to clear the tractor tire planters, so it might end up waiting until next year.

Until then, I just want to make sure those vines to take over again!

After finishing this, it was all I could do not to just keep on going and work in another section of the yard!

Have I mentioned, I really love this kind of work? :-D

The Re-Farmer

Front Yard Clean Up – by the gate

June 6, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

Today was another awesome day of clean up in the yard. It is looking so great!

I know I’ve mentioned this before, but I so missed this kind of work! I love it so much. There’s the feeling of accomplishment, and at the end of the day, when the body is sore and achy, and I’m tired – it’s a good tired. You know what I mean?

Oh, and I also got some great news today. I got an email from the electrician. The new pole to replace the one the movers broke will be delivered in the next couple of days. Whoot!

Meanwhile…

While the girls started on the HUGE job of raking between the trees I cleared out yesterday, and adding them to the flower garden, I started working on the south yard. I figure, it’s about time I did some work on the parts of the yard people see when they come to our place, rather than the parts hidden away behind houses. ;-)

The first section I worked on was West of the people gate. This is where there was a mass of dead plants that turned out to have a wire fence in it – and a bottomless glass bowl. :-D

Here is what it looked like, before.

Tree tire is tired and broken.

This is how it looks now!

20180606.front.yard1

Cutting away those vines – both the old, dead ones, and the new ones that had started to grow – was a huge job, all on its own. The mass was so thick, it was hard to find what I needed to cut with the pruning shears (those anvil shears (affiliate link) are amazing!).

Then, after getting the big stuff off, I had to go back and find more vine roots and clip them. They spread through their roots, so there was a lot of pulling up.

I like vines. I really do. But my goodness, they are invasive!!

That done, I moved on to the lilacs section.

20180606.front.yard2

This is how it looked after I first started working on it. There was a lot of clipping and pulling out of vines, cutting away dead and dying branches, and figuring out what lilac stems were keepers, and what had to go.

Lilacs also spread through their roots, and can become invasive, if they’re not kept in check. Except when they’re being choked out by vines. :-/

As I worked my way to the far end, I found…

20180606.front.yard3

… Seriously?

The biggest lilac bush at the end of the row was growing straight out of a pile of horse droppings.

I’m getting really tired of finding horse droppings all over the place.

Here are the after photos!

20180606.front.yard4

This is from the West end of the lilac row, after trimming and raking.

20180606.front.yard5

And here’s how it now looks from the East end.

With all the vines I pulled out of there, I think I just extended the life of these lilacs by quite a few years! Well. As long as we keep on top of cutting back the vines as they try and grow back, that is.

I’m pretty sure my mother had flowers planted in here, too, but they don’t seem to have survived the vines. I don’t have any plans to plant anything here this year, but we’ll see what we decide to do with the area next year.

Next post; cleaning up my mother’s… shrine?

The Re-Farmer

Maple Grove Clearing – the garden shed

May 31, 2018May 31, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 6 Comments

Today would have been a perfect day to be mowing the lawn.

If we had a working lawn mower. :-(

So, I started working on the maple grove, instead.

And I am in heaven!

I got SO much done, and it looks so much better! I took lots of pictures, though I didn’t think to start doing that until after I’d cleared quite a bit out. I worked on three different areas, all kind of overlapping each other, with a priority on clearing the garden shed door. These pictures were taken after I’d finished the shed area, so they’re all “after” shots.

20180531shed.south.clear

The items in the foreground are a mess I had to clear maple suckers away from before I could start on it, including from the dead maple, which grew out of an old maple stump, near the middle of the photo. With only a hand saw and pruning saws, I wasn’t up to taking this dead tree down yet.

Maples are almost indestructible!

I moved the picnic table to various areas so that I could stand on it to reach. In particular, I wanted to clear the two trees leaning towards the house as much as possible. Lots of dead branches on them.

20180531shed.south.overhanging.trees

I wasn’t able to get all of the dead and dying branches I wanted to. Especially on the trunk in the foreground. That one started to bounce when I started to cut farther along. It’s already touching the roof and, with the bouncing, it was hitting the roof more, so I stopped. That whole thing needs to come down, to protect the house. I’m hoping that the weight I removed so far will make it at least a little bit less of a risk of falling on the roof.

20180531shed.door.clear

Suckers from the tree on the far side of the shed had mostly covered the door. Once it was clear as far as I could reach, I dragged the picnic table over and cut what I could from higher up. Again, lots of dead or half dead branches. That tree keeps going quite a bit further, over the opening to the garden. It will need more cutting back. We’ll need to assess it to see how much of a risk of collapsing there is, to decide how much.

The shed itself has very little life left in it, and there’s a hole in the roof. My mother wants to replace it, though we could probably get another year out of this one.

20180531shed.north.clear

The north side of the shed was overgrown with maple suckers. I cut them back and discovered … stuff. Including a milk crate.

When clearing up the mess by the chimney blocks, I took out the old bed frames (or whatever they are) and those are now leaning against the shed in this space. Basically, I’m putting all the junk in one place for when we hire someone to haul it away.

Also to the north of the shed is a dead spruce tree, but it did have something growing on it…

20180531shed.north.vines

The base of the dead spruce tree is on the left. To the right of it are vines. Some were already dead long enough to just pull out of the ground, while others needed to be cut.

Even as fast growing as these vines are, it takes a LONG time for them to develop such thick “trunks”!! They may well be what killed the tree.

20180531shed.door.pile

This pile is of the stuff I cut from the shed door, and the north side, only. Most of this was blocking the door. Plus, there’s a bit of what I cut from above the shed door.

Shed is now clear and accessible again!

On to upload photos of the next section…

The Re-farmer

More progress

May 28, 2018May 28, 2018 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Since the ladder was out anyway, after my daughter caulked the screw holes from the previous satellite dishes on the side of the house, I decided to tackle one of the Chinese elms.

There was a large branch overhanging the vehicle gate into the yard. With the power pole being replaced in a few weeks, I figured I’d better get it down now. I don’t know what kind of equipment will need to be brought into the yard, but it needs to be done anyway, so may as well!

Since we don’t have a (working) chain saw, it ended up taking all three of us, taking turns sawing, until our shoulders got too sore.

20180528.elm.branch.down

And it’s down!

The next while was spent breaking it down and adding it to the pile I’d started with the saplings I’d cut away, earlier.

20180528.elm.branch.down.after

The remaining log was a bit much to manhandle alone – the wood is remarkably heavy, compared to other types of trees – so it’ll wait until there are two people available to toss it on the pile.

20180528.elm.after

This is so much better!

There is still a higher branch that should probably come down, as it’s half dead, and there’s another that’s completely dead, but that will wait for another time. At least the one big one is now down.

20180528.days.work