spruce grove

Clean up: spruce grove fence line, more progress, part one

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The chilly weather we’ve had for the past few days has really got me wanting to finish this fence line along the spruce grove!  As long as I can clear to the driveway gate before winter, anything else is gravy! :-)

I took a whole bunch of photos, so I’m splitting them into two posts again.  Here is the first section I worked on.  With how I was finding things, I decided to go with before, during and after photos.

This is where I left off, last time.  I was able to leave the oaks, just pruning them a bit, for transplanting next year.  They are really leaning towards the fence, where they would have been getting the most light, but once they are planted somewhere more open, they should start growing straight again.

Over the years, I could see that someone had trimmed branches back from the fence line.  A lot of those have died, but are high enough and short enough that I will leave them for now.  I pruned the undergrowth only as much as I needed to, to clear the fence and access things.

That meant cutting away some of the things growing in the juniper, as well as some of the dead juniper branches.

The ground cover (I am not 100% certain that they are juniper, but that’s what I’m calling them for now) stayed as well.  I had to walk all over them, but they can handle it.  They did make working in the area more treacherous, though!

I know these have been growing here for a long time, but seeing this stem really shows just how long.

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It takes a lot of years for these to get such thick stems!

Clearing this first section revealed enough that I took before and after photos of the next section, too.  Which will be in my next post. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Clean up: spruce grove fence line, part 3

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Yes!  I finally got to the area where the trees had fallen on the fence!

What the area looked like before can be seen in this post.

First, I got rid of part of the tree further into the grove, so I could drag things by.

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The next area actually had three fallen trees in it, each having fallen at different time.  One had fallen with its top just touching the fence.  In clearing that out, I discovered it was so rotten, the branches I grabbed to move it just broke off.  Then, when I tried to shift the trunk itself, to decide where and how to saw it, it broke, too.

I cleared away the broken part and left the rest for now.

Another fallen tree was under the three that had fallen the most recently, but it was small enough, and smooth enough, I was able to just pull it out from underneath, then carry it away.

Then I cut branches from the one that had fallen onto the fence, before cutting through the trunk itself, a few feet away from the fence.  Once that piece was free, the reduction of weight shifted the center of gravity, and the rest of the tree lifted and shifted!  I ended up rotating it a bit further, and left it.

This left things clear enough for me to continue on the fence, so I’ve left it for now, too.

Here are the after pictures to match the before pictures from the previous post.

I will leave pruning the little stuff for another day.  If I had a heavy duty enough weed trimmer, I’d just use that, but my little trimmer isn’t able to handle more than grass and smaller weeds.  When I’m done clearing the fence line, I plan to use the trimmer outside of the fence.

Here is another view.

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I will leave continuing outside the fence for another time, too.

Also, the beer can I had noticed before turned out to be a bottle. :-D

It’s the brand my late brother drank, which means he was probably the last person to do maintenance on the fence itself.  He passed in 2010, so it’s been there since before then!

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The next section has these oak trees at the fence line, and some juniper.  I’m going to leave the juniper as ground cover, clearing out any other trees that have started to grow in them, and I am deciding on whether or not I should leave the oak to transplant next year.  When I get back to this area, I will decide based on how in the way they are, or not.  I’ve seen quite a few oak saplings about that can be transplanted, so if I do end up having to cut these away, there are others I can use.

At this point, I’m about 3/4 of the way to the gate.  If all goes well, next time I work here, I should be able to reach it. :-D

I love how much better it looks, even if it’s not quite finished.

The Re-Farmer

Clean up: spruce grove fence line, part 2

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I’ve got some before photos, and some taken during the clean up.  By this point, I had pretty much stopped with the pruning shears, except to clear things that were in the way.

These three before pictures were taken in an area just before there a tree had fallen on the fence.  I wanted to at least clear that area, as my goal for the day.

One thing that was noticeable is that, over the years, there was some maintenance done around here.  Despite the weird tops of some of the fence posts, they are all good posts, and still straight.  There is a bit of wiggle on them, but that could be attributed to how dry it has been.  The fence wire itself would also have been good, if trees hadn’t fallen on it!

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I didn’t want to go too far into the grove, but this tree top had to go.  It was in the way of clearing things out.  The stump of the tree can be seen where I’d cleared previously, near the open, mossy area.

I also went outside the fence to move away the top of the tree that fell on the fence.

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This is what my older brother had cut, to get it off the fence itself, shortly after we moved out here.  For now, I’m just leaving this here.  It will need to be cut down a bit before being hauled away, due to its size.

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Here’s where it had fallen on the fence.  I took a closer look at that ant hill, and there’s no sign of ants left in it.  It has been abandoned.  Which is good, because I had to cut some small trees out of it!

Then I made some discoveries.

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In the next section of fence, I found the end of a string of Christmas lights.

Notice the wire it is wrapped around.  If you follow it up, you can see it end in a loop.

In this next photo, you can see where it should be.

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This is where two lengths of barbed wire were joined together, but when the tree fell on the fence, on end broke off.

Once the fence line is clear, I will be repairing this.  I even found a tool for tightening fence wire that I can use; one of the few useful things that didn’t disappear while this place was empty!

I started unwinding the Christmas lights and found…

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… the fallen tree had also unplugged the string of lights.

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This is where it had been plugged into.  This string of lights reaches to the outlet box and still works.  I will leave it for now.  Eventually, I want to replace them with LED lights.

After this, it was time to climb back through the fence and start clearing on the inside, which will be in my next post. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Clean up: spruce grove fence line, part 1

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I was able to get back to working on the fence line of the spruce grove today.  I got quite a bit of progress, so I’m splitting the before and after photos into several posts.

I also came back to some updates about my mother, and am happy to hear her surgery went well and she is recovering quite nicely.  She is in good hands, too. :-)

Here is the progress I got done in the first section.  For these pictures, I propped my phone up on a fence post near where I left off last time.

To the right of the fence line, I’d already done some work clearing things around the trees, but not so much the fence itself.

I decided to clear the trees growing on the road side of the fence.  One advantage of having barbed wire fence.  It’s easy to get through.  Handy for work like this, but not very secure.

I discovered something while clearing the trees on the road side of the fence.

Someone had tried to do this before.

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Many of the saplings were like this; new growth out of the remains of an older little stump.  None of the stumps were cut, though.  From the jagged edges, I wonder if someone just broke them?

The pile at the bottom of the tree in the after photo is what I tossed over the fence while clearing on the road side.

Almost all of this was done using pruning sheers.  Which is much more time consuming! A lot of what I was clearing was wild roses, and my goodness, they are a pain!  Literally!  Those skinny little thorns like to slide right through the rubber palms of my gloves.  Then, when I try to toss them onto the pile, they stick to the gloves, instead.

I used the extended pruning saw to take down some of the low hanging dead branches as well, though I am not doing this as thoroughly as I did previously.  I can come back to do the rest later.  I just want to focus on getting that fence clear as quickly as I can, while the weather is good.

Now to process the next set of pictures. :-D

The Re-Farmer

Clean up: Spruce grove perimeter, reaching the fence!

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It’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

Spruce Grove Finds

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Empty beer cans are not the only interesting things I’ve been finding in the spruce grove!

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I’ve found a few different seating arrangements that use logs as the supports.

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I’m at a loss as to why these bricks and… a can? are here.  That they have been here long enough to grow moss on them likely means probably no one alive has any idea, anymore!

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The remains a of a wasps nest still hang from a branch.

The dark grey section underneath is actually a sort of ball, hanging down from the rest of the nest above.

Wasp nests are amazing structures!

The Re-Farmer

 

Looking ahead: spruce grove fence line

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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.

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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.

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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…

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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.

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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.

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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.

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This undergrowth will be kept, after we clean the dead trees off of it.  I think it’s a type of juniper.

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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

Clean up: spruce grove, further down the line

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Another lovely day for yard work!

The girls were awesome and hauled away what I took down yesterday, while I made a run into town to get the prescription refills that got missed yesterday.  By the time I got back, they were just finishing, and I could get started! <3

Before I started on the next section of trees, I got the anvil sheers out and worked on the area that was under the overhanging branches.  Here’s a look back at the area I cleared yesterday.

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The wheel barrow is filled with all the little things I pruned out, and a few things dug out of the leaves, etc.

If you look in the wheelbarrow, there is a lighter coloured stem sticking out, to the right of the handle.

Notice it looks slightly… fuzzy?

That’s a wild rose.  And the “fuzzy” is thorns.

Wild rose stems are basically all thorns.  Little, skinny, vicious thorns.

The gloves we have are decent gloves.  Not the highest end, by any means, but good, mid-range quality gloves.

Wild rose thorns can go right through them.  I had to stop and get a daughter to use tweezers to pull one out of a finger, because I wasn’t able to do it one handed in the spot it pierced me!

When I start working further into the spruce grove next year, I plan to keep as much of the wild roses in the undergrowth as I can.  What I’ve cut away here will likely grow back, since I just pruned them.  The root stocks remain.  I will make decisions about them next year, as they grow back.

Here are the before and after photos of today’s progress.

This is basically where I left off, yesterday.  Once I took out the dead and dying tree next to the last tree I worked on yesterday, I was able to finish that one up, taking out more dead branches with the extended pruning saw.

My goal for today was to work my way down to a maple tree.

No, you can’t see it either of the photos above!

Nor the photos below.

Though I did thin out some smaller poplars, I’ve left the bigger ones.  I am hoping, as they get more sunlight throughout the day, they will not lean quite so much as they grow larger.

The farther I worked down the line, the spruces seemed to get thinner, and more crowded.  Quite a few were dead, but I was surprised by how many still had live growth happening.  I still avoided working the inner row of trees, which is where most of these are.  A few times, I did have to prune away dead branches and twigs, so I could access the trees in the outer row better.  It should be interesting to see how they fare, next year.  It is very typical for the lower branches of black spruce to be dead, and it’s not always a reflection on the health of the tree.

As I cleared away the low hanging branches, I found more and more wild roses and, among them, little dogwood bushes.  I took out those that were large enough to be a tripping hazard, and will clear the rest out another day.  When I work further into the grove, I intend to leave any dogwood I find.  They make great underbrush.  It will be interesting to find that balance between open space and undergrowth that I want to foster in here.

But that will wait.

The maple I was using as my goal post was something I was intending to keep, like I am with some of the poplars.  Then I reached it and found that it was not the original tree, but growing out of the base of a rotten stump.

After removing the rotten bits, I found the rot extended quite low into the moss (all along the outer edge of this area, where the poplars and this maple are growing, the moss is several inches deep).  I wasn’t sure if the tree had much support, so I basically yanked it back and forth.  It seems to be holding its own, so I straightened it as much as I could and tamped the ground down to support it.

We shall see if it survives.

When I work on the next section, I should be able to reach the fence line.  After that spruce you see in the background, there is an open space of moss that I’ve been using to turn around with the mower. :-D  There won’t be a lot to clear, there.

There are a number of larger, downed trees around here, too.  Once I reach the fence, I will start working towards the driveway.  The goal is to make the fence accessible, so I’ll be leaving the downed trees unless they are at the fence line.  I know there is at least one that had fallen on the fence itself, before we moved out here, that my older brother had cut loose.  So I will also be examining the fence itself, as I go along, and see what repairs might need to be done.

I’m quite happy with the progress and how it is looking.  The labour is not without it’s price, however!

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Both arms, my lower legs, and even my abdomen, are covered in scratches!

It’s sweaty, dirty and sometimes bloody work.

And I’m loving every minute of it!

The Re-Farmer

Clean up: spruce grove perimeter, down the line

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I got another hour or two or work along the north side of the spruce grove.  I almost forgot to take a before picture, so the first one below was taken after I’d already removed one of the larger, low hanging branches in the first tree I worked on.

This northern row of spruce trees – at least the larger ones, that were deliberately planted – were planted by my oldest brother, probably before I was born.

There are smaller ones that are likely self sown.  I am focusing on just that northernmost row of trees, though sometimes I’ve had to work farther in, just so I can access them.

The trees just inside this row my brother planted, have me perplexed.  From their ages and sizes, I would guess they were self sown, and yet some of them are forming another straight line – or is it two straight lines? – parallel to the row I’m working on.  So it may be that some were planted, and some were self sown?

Either way, most of them are either dead, or almost dead.  I’ve taken some out, as needed, but the rest will wait until I start working farther into the spruce grove, next year.

While working, I saw evidence that, at some point, someone else had been clearing this area, too.  In some places, I uncovered hidden cut stumps, and at one point, I even found a fairly large pile of cut branches, hidden by the overhanging branches of the spruces.

When looking through here in the winter, I saw a small harrow under the branches, so I knew I would reach it eventually.  It turns out to be right after the pile of cut branches I had just cleaned out.

Also, a Bud Light can.

After finding it, I figured I would cut away some of the dead branches, so I could reach it better to pull it out.  After cutting them, however, I found I wasn’t able to pull them out.

Whoever dumped the harrow there, dropped it on top of the branches.

So I had to pull the harrow out, to pull the branches out.

Which is when I discovered that it was dumped there, upside down.

That’s right.  Those spikes were facing UP.

The cable would likely have been used as a handle; I am thinking it was pulled manually, when it was used.  It’s so small, anything bigger than a lawn tractor to pull it would be overkill.  But I am just guessing.  I have no idea how long it’s been there, who put it there, or why it was left where it was.

Now I have to figure out what to do with it!

I continued on until I got close to one of the first self-sown poplars along the way.

Most of what is now uncovered will be trimmed and cleared until I can go over it with the weed trimmer and, eventually, the mower.  I found some wild roses that I will likely take out; I want to keep the ones that are growing inside the spruce grove, but I don’t think I will keep the ones in this area.

I am waffling about keeping the poplars.  They are growing at the very edge of the low hanging branches.  Once the branches are clear, there will be quite a gap between the poplars and the spruces.  Do I really want to leave them, that far into the garden area?  Ultimately, that gap is just the right distance for both the spruces and the poplars to do well, so if I do want to keep them, they are in the best places for a new row of trees.

But do I want a new row of trees?

For now, I will leave them.

Next to the last tree I worked on before stopping for the day, there is a pair of trunks that make up one self-sown tree.  One side – the larger one – is dead.  I noticed something odd about the leaves on the smaller side.

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This appears to be some sort of fuzzy infestation.  Insect?  Fungus?  I don’t know.  They are all over this one tree.

Whatever it is, the remains of this tree will be taken down.

Tomorrow. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Clean up: spruce grove perimeter, start

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I got a few hours work on the spruce grove this morning/afternoon, and plan to head out again, but here’s progress so far!

I’ve started at the north west corner, where the stone cross is.

This is more or less what we see out of our living room window.  I went farther into the underbrush than I intend to, elsewhere.  This is part of the reason why.

That’s the top of the dead tree we watched come down in a storm this past winter.  The top alone is bigger than some of the dead trees I’ve taken down!

Here’s another view of the corner.

The topsoil here is decades of decayed spruce needles, so it’s quite loose.  This meant a lot of the spirea I cleared out could be pulled right out of the ground.  Every  now and then, I’d find myself yanking out anywhere from 2 – 8 feet of rhizome!

After this, I started working my way down the north side of the trees.

After clearing the lower hanging branches from the first couple of trees, I found a whole crop of little dead spruces that I cleared out.

Of course, there is always going to be some unusual finds!

The first was what I think is the top of an oil drum that was half buried in the needles at the base of a dead spruce.  I pulled it out, then took the photo of it right where I found it.

Then, as I was finishing up for the afternoon and bringing the wheel barrow over, I found the glass jar.

I expected it to be broken, but when I pulled it out, it was fine.

I have to say how much I appreciate my girls.  While I was working in this, I left what I cut or pulled out, off to the side.  My older daughter came out and started hauling it away for me – a much bigger job than the clean up!  My younger daughter didn’t have a shift today, and between the two of them, they took care of the household stuff, like cooking, washing dishes, laundry, etc., freeing me up to do the yard work.

We’ve started a new wood pile outside the yard for this.  It’s kinda in the middle of the outer yard, between house and barn.  This pile shouldn’t need to be moved, when we are ready to burn it.

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We do plan to rent a chipper, but there’s only so much we can chip!  Plus, even the biggest ones only do up to 4 inches in diameter.

It’s going to be much bigger, before I’m done!

Now, back to see how much I can get done, before it gets too dark. :-)

The Re-Farmer