willow

How things went today – we got her! Mostly

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Today was a lovely day out, though we will dropping to freezing temperatures tonight. We’re supposed to get more rain in a couple of hours, but I’ll believe that when I see it.

When I headed out this afternoon, a number of cats came over to say hi, including Kohl. While petting her, I decided we really needed to take a chance and break out the clippers. Not only was the matting on her back really bad, but it was looking like sections were starting to get torn up from scratching.

So we got the clippers out and I held her, while my daughter very carefully denuded Kohl’s back. I think Kohl was noticing a difference and put up with it a lot longer than I expected, and even licked our fingers at times. As soon as we got the big mat off, though, we let her go.

She looks very strange, now!

You can see the patterns of her fur colour in her skin, but some of the white lines that you see are the result of her skin being pulled into folds by the mat. You can see the mat itself in the next two photos. That thing is SOLID!!

Hopefully, we’ll be able to get her again to trim off more mats. There is one on her right front leg that was under my hand as I held her. I could feel the burrs that are caught in her fur there.

Then, since the clippers were out anyhow, we got Ginger. Ginger is a short haired cat, but he’s basically all undercoat. We just can’t seem to brush him enough! He does love to be brushed, at least. Part of the reason I got the mat cutting combs we got before was to get mats out of his and David’s fur. As we trimmed him – he was very cooperative! – we actually did find mats we hadn’t felt while petting or combing him.

He seems to be quite happy with his hair cut! There were some areas we couldn’t get at. With his missing leg, he doesn’t like to be held in certain ways, so there are patches of untrimmed fur that we’re just going to leave. They aren’t in problem areas.

I still haven’t been able to get a good pictures of David with his hair cut. He still hasn’t forgiven me. 😄

Once we were done, I headed back outside and, of course, had to check on the kitties. That little black and white one is so eager for attention! Brussel is leaving them more often, and they’re exploring all over the cat cage. I’m so glad they are safely in there right now! I kinda dread them getting big enough to climb to the second level. Some of the walls here have 2″ square openings instead of 1″ square openings, and they could fit through. If they get to being able to climb to the second levels, they’d be able to climb out the entry, too.

For now, though, they are happy to play in the cat catch, or catch a few Zzzz’s in the sun spot.

I love how the black and white and his adopted sister are so cuddled up in the second image above.

The little one’s siblings are starting to get more active, too.

Such squirmy little grublings!

Aside from tending to kitties, I went around to find and gather some of the supplies I’ll need to work on the garden beds and raised bed covers, then did my usual checks. I was happy to see more snow crocuses blooming.

There still aren’t a lot of them, and they start blooming at the East end of the area they are planted in, then more slowly emerge and bloom Westward. With how the trees and pathways are, the East end gets sunlight and warmth earlier in the season than the West end of the bed.

One of the things I worked on for a bit was gathering and breaking away branches from the fallen willow, in preparation for when we get in there with a chain saw to cut up the trunk and clean things up.

Which may not work out as originally planned.

Willows are truly remarkable. This tree is probably a hundred years old or more, and has been slowly dying since before we moved out here. Yet even a broken off section like this is somehow still able to have fresh growth!

The top of this broken section landed next to another smaller broken and dying willow nearby. At the base of that willow are a whole lot of larger canes that will do quite nicely in wattle weaving!

Thankfully, the bed I want to add wattle weaving to only needs maybe half a foot added to it. While I’m finding all sorts of potential material to use for that, it takes a whole lot to make a decent weaving. I discovered that when making the L shaped bed in the old kitchen garden. I gather long branches to weave in, thinking I had plenty, but kept running out!

That project will wait a little longer, though. I’ve been talking with my daughter about working on the trellis bed, tomorrow. That’s something I’ll need a second person for. Well… I suppose I could get it done on my own, but a second person will definitely make it easier!

Hard to believe we’re coming up on the end of April. Just a few more weeks, and we’ll be planting outside!

The Re-Farmer

When the bough breaks…

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Well, it did finally happen, some time while I was taking my nap.

The broken willow that was stuck on neighboring trees came down. Not all the way, but as much as it’s going to, until we start cutting away branches.

I had thought this was two trunks, twisted around each other, but no. This is one trunk that split and twisted as it fell. There are still three trunks remaining around this old willow.

We have some cooler, wetter weather over the next day or two, so it might be a while before we can start breaking this down and cleaning it up. Running an extension cord this far out, for our chain saw, is going to be an issue.

We could really use a gas powered chainsaw!

Ah, well. We use what we have.

There are some branches on there we might be able to keep and use for wattle weaving.

This tree may be about a hundred years old, is rotting and dying – but it’s a willow, and they are very hard to kill! There are suckers growing around the base, and even the deadest parts of the tree can suddenly shoot out fresh growth. I’m pretty sure the four (now three) trunks growing out from a rotted out base are suckers from an original tree that died long ago. When I was a kid and climbing this tree, it was always these four trunks, and they were pretty big, 50 years ago. I suspect that even after we eventually lose the remaining three trunks, we will still have willow growing here.

I might even deliberately stick a sucker into the rotted out centre. With willow, you can just stick the branches into the ground, and most of the time they’ll start growing.

Somehow, I feel we can learn a lesson from such resiliance.

The Re-Farmer

Being judged, wind damage, and it got done so fast!!!

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Good grief, it’s just past 10am as I start this, and things are already done!

As we were expecting the septic company to come out this morning to fix the expeller on our system, my daughter and I headed out together to do the morning rounds. Today, that included opening the main gate, as well as moving the chain and electric fence across the gate by the barn, for the equipment to get through.

Judgement came along.

Syndol did, too, but they were both moving around so much, I barely managed to get one decent photo of Judgement!

I just realized; one of his eyes looks more dilated than the other. I’ll have to monitor that.

Once the gates were done, my daughter went on to to the inner yard routine, while I went around to check some things in the outer yard. I’m glad I did! One thing I found was one of the missing cat collars. This time, the break away buckle was actually open. The last one I found, it turned out the stitching can come loose at one end and slipped off the buckle. The buckle itself is still together, so no missing parts. I’ll just have to sew it up.

As for the one I found this morning, I spotted Nosy in the sun room as I was coming back in and was able to get it on him.

After checking things in the outer yard, I made my way back into the inner yard through the gate by the fire pit, and started checking the maple grove for fallen branches.

Well… I guess you could say I found a few!

The winds finally broke two of the three rotting trunks on the ancient willow. They’re hung up on other trees, still. My daughter joined me while I was checking it out. As we were going over it, we could hear popping noises and, every now and then, another branch would break off and fall down.

How it is right now is quite dangerous. We’ll have to find a way to safely pull it down the rest of the way. One of the trees that’s holding it up is another willow with a rotting trunk, and it may well pull that one down with it, too.

It was just a matter of time for this to happen and, to be honest, I’m just surprised it was this part that fell, and not the trunk with a super long branch extending horizontally over the fence.

While we were checking it out, my cell phone started ringing. We get a better signal outside than in the house!

It was the septic company, asking about where we were. Turns out, they drove right past us. I’d told him, “first driveway on the right” – and he even had that written down on his printout – but he was looking left, instead!

There are no driveways on that side of the road, other than into hay fields!

So I went to meet him at the driveway while my daughter quickly went inside to use the bathroom before they started work.

As I was talking to the guy (the company owner), I brought up about not using water in the house, and he said it should only take about an hour or two.

?!!!?

I was expecting at least four to six hours, based on what the other company had said.

As we were talking, the truck hauling the excavator made its way over, but parked on the road to unload.

I went along to show them where the expeller was, and explain to them what direction the pipe was running underground. Normally, it would have had a pipe going straight to the house, but this pipe followed the water pipe to the cattle fountains and barn, first. Which meant it was basically at right angles from where they would have expected it to be.

The job was a repair by replacement. The leak would have been at the bottom of the expeller pipe. How the pipe was leaning back like it was, instead of being straight up, would had contributed to the damage. They then dug a hole about ten or so feet away from the existing expeller.

When I mentioned, I thought the pope would be maybe twelve feet down, the owner said it was more likely about six feet. That would have been typical, I guess, and with how much of the original expeller pipe was showing above ground, that would have been a logical conclusion.

After the guys got started, the owner left them to it.

It was definitely more than six feet down.

There were also a LOT of rocks.

The excavator was able to pull a few larger ones out, but there was one huge boulder that was not going to move.

Every now and then, the excavator would stop, a ladder would be put down, and a guy went down with a metal tool to poke around in the clay and gravel, trying to find the pipe. Then he’d climb out, and the excavator would dig some more.

That process got repeated a couple of times before they found the pipe, and then had to dig more to access it.

Watching the excavator operator was truly amazing. He was making that thing dance! It was beautiful to watch.

By the time they found the pipe, there was water on the bottom of the hole. I asked one of the guys about it, and if he thought they’d just hit water, or if he thought it was from the leak.

He said it was most likely from the leak.

The guy that went into the pit was eventually able to clean the pipe of clay residue and start cutting it.

There was a whole lot more water after that!

The excavator went back to work, clearing space for the water to drain away to. Then the guy went back down and finished cutting the pipe. The new expeller’s end was lowers, and he used a torch to soften the plastic of the pipe, so he could insert the brass fitting before tightening it with screw strap bands.

Then he got to hold the expeller straight while a couple of guys started shoveling clay down! The guy in the hole ended up taking one of the spades and digging clay and gravel from the sides while a guy on the surface used a tool to hold the expeller straight. Once there was enough clay and gravel around the base to hold the expeller, the guy climbed out and the excavator took over.

The first of the photos above is how it looks right after the guy climbed out.

This is an excellent visual cross section of what our Dark Grey Zone soil is like. There’s just a few inches of top soil, and the rest is a mix of clay, sand and gravel.

This is why we do raised bed gardening!

Filling that hole back again was when the excavator operator truly showed his skill! He had to carefully lay the soil around the expeller without pushing it aside. There was still a guy using a tool to hold it straight, but there’s only so much that can be done from a distance like that.

When it got close to the top, the excavator pulled down the old expeller, breaking the pipe and pulling out the venturi pipe inside. He then leveled that area and covered over the old pipe in the process, filling an eroded hole near it, while filling and building up the soil around the new expeller.

Which is much lower down than the other one was! I’m guessing the old expeller was on top of a vertical pipe, for it to extend that far above ground. These expellers only come in one length.

Once the hole was filled and leveled, the excavator operator moved aside some of the bigger rocks he’d pulled out. Then the guys put the sheet of metal roofing back and weighed it down, while turning the nozzle so the water would be expelled towards the low area it’s intended to drain into.

I checked the time stamps on the photos and video I took. From the time they started digging to when they were done filling the hole and leveling around the new ejector, was only about 45 minutes. From the time of arrival to when they left was maybe an hour.

I can’t believe how fast they were! It was amazing!

And here we were worried about having to set up the diverter, so we could use our plumbing and the septic pump could empty the tank into the maple grove while they worked. It wasn’t long enough to be even a slight inconvenience!

As for the bill, that will be sent to me by email, which I’ll pass on to my brother. Between him and my mother, it will be covered. The total, before taxes, was even a little bit less than the estimate I got over the phone. After taxes, is should total under $2300.

Getting this done is SUCH a huge weight off our shoulders! Especially getting it done now, before winter. We might have been able to make it through the winter, if this didn’t get done now for some reason. The pipe is well below the frost line, so the saturated area around the pipe probably would not have frozen, and the expeller did start working again, somewhat. The fact that at least some of the water was being properly expelled is the only reason they weren’t digging a hole in a quagmire.

I’m just so happy – and thankful that my mother offered to pay for it, or we would not have been able to get it done at all!

As for me… well… I’m going to be taking a nap. I woke up somewhere between 3:30 and 4am, and wasn’t able to get back to sleep. A couple of hours sleep, and I’ll be heading back outside to get some work done!

Today is already a very good day.

The Re-Farmer

Almost clear

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I was able to pop outside and work on the willows a bit more. I really wanted to get that power line clear.

After clearing a bit more from where we left off last time, I moved to the outer yard and worked on the willows behind the junk pile.

I’m going to be so happy when we can finally have that junk hauled away.

I used the wide angle on my phone to get this photo, which is why everything looks oddly distorted. The willows aren’t actually bent like that in their middles.

The power line is now clear of willow branches. What you see on the ground are the vines I pulled down from the trees in the process. After this picture was taken, I also cleared some of the branches that were growing over the junk pile. Working back here was a pain. The vines on the ground were a tripping hazard. The maple tree on the right was in the way of some cutting angles. I actually expected the junk pile to be more in the way, but it wasn’t. An unexpected problem was burrs. They were mostly hidden by the vines. I was pulling those off of my clothes by the handful!

The branches have been set aside for now. When it’s more pleasant out, we’ll go over them later to gather and strip the longest, straightest branches for wattle weaving. The rest will go onto the burn pile.

There are still some maple suckers that will need to be cut away, as they are getting tall enough to reach the power line. That will require different tools and more time. At some point, someone wrapped fencing wire around the maple, likely to protect it from cattle. The suckers have grown through the wire’s mesh. Since I have to work around that anyhow, I figure I may as well clear the tree enough to take out the wire completely. Hopefully, no sections of tree have grown around the wire itself anywhere.

I will also need to cut away those vines, and they will need to go into the burn pile, too, so they don’t root themselves and spread. This section of chain link fence is the only place we’re allowing vines to grow, but it still needs to be kept under control.

I feel much better now that the power line is clear again. Those willows grow back fast!

The Re-Farmer

Well, it’s a start

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Since I wanted to keep an eye on the kitties anyway, I decided to see what I could do with the willow branches. After sorting the longest ones out, I started weaving.

This is all of the branches I have so far.

Minus one that was too bent to use. At least here. When we’re ready to weave the ends, we only need pieces less than 3 feet long, so I could probably salvage it.

As we get more branches to weave in, they’ll get pounded as low as we can, with each layer added keeping everything below in place. Right now, some of them just sort of pop back up a bit after they’ve been pushed down. Until it’s all tighter together, it won’t be holding much soil in place! One more layer along the short wall, and I think we can get away with no longer debarking the branches.

I really hope those maple posts that still have their bark won’t start growing.

I’m just itching to get back out there and cut more willow branches for this, but the weather out there really sucks.

I want to keep an eye on the bitty kitties, though, so maybe…

(glances out the window and tries to convince myself the wind isn’t that bad, and it’s not that cold out…)

The Re-Farmer

Yesterday’s progress: trellises down, and pruning willow

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Things turned out to be rather pleasant yesterday afternoon, so I took advantage of it to get some stuff off my to-do list.

First, the trellises.

The netting and bamboo stakes are all put away. I even unwound the blue twine from the pea trellis. We won’t be planting vegetables here again. We’ll be planting food trees and bushes in the area, instead (except for the area over the phone line, wide enough to drive a vehicle through, that we’ll be keeping clear). So, the trellises are coming down!

The five uprights from the pea trellis all broke at ground level. I was able to pull the others straight out of the ground, with only a little big of wiggling. You can tell by the dirty on the ends, which pile has those!

Since I had the materials, I used some of the pieces to make a buck and pole “fence” over the sea buckthorn. Only two have survived, so I only wanted it long enough to go over those. Hopefully, that will dissuade deer from nibbling on them. The gap in the hedge is right near here. One end is far enough out that it should make a deer not want to jump the fence there at all. On the trail cams, I’ve been seeing quite a few deer walking around this corner of the property, so it seems they are already not jumping the fence here much. There is another spot they prefer to jump the fence at.

Later on, I decided it was worth working on the willow. I’m after branches to weave into the wattle wall I’m building in the old kitchen garden, so this is getting two things done at once.

The trunks were barely visible from all the branches that had grown along them. Thankfully, we have an extended pole pruner that I can use for the higher branches, instead of trying to get at them with loppers from a ladder. You can see the vine has climbed it quite a bit, too!

The power line to the house is still not clear of branches. This job will be continued later, and includes the trees on the other side of the chain link fence.

The longest and straightest branches were kept, stripped of side branches and leaves, and a daughter started debarking the biggest ones for me while I pruned more, until it started raining. Then I grabbed a knife and helped debark. Wattle fencing isn’t normally debarked, but I want to debark the branches that are going to have contact with soil – because the last thing I want is for willow to start growing right next to the house! I love willow, but that is not a tree you want close to infrastructure!

There were some really straight, thin branches I kept, too, putting them on the pile of maple and cherry wood that’s already there. Who knows. We might find some use for them.

This is all the branches we got out of there, so far. Not even close to how many will be needed to weave a wall. Only the bottom few inches needs to be tightly woven, as it will be holding soil in, but eventually that will be on all sides, not just the “back” that is the focus to get finished first. The high parts of the back wall are to keep things out, rather than in. It’s going to be a challenge to find enough suitable branches for this!

Today is supposed to be a semi-warm day – with both rain and snow expected – then we’ll have several days with highs just barely above freezing, before it warms up again and stays warm for about a week. Hopefully. At least the rain will keep those willow branches from drying out. I’m hoping to at least get these ones woven in, some time today!

The Re-Farmer

Trying again

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We had another fairly chilly night, but things are definitely warming up again. Enough that the outside cats were all running around by the door when I came out this morning!

They were both hungry and thirsty! Even Junk Pile cat didn’t quite run away, waiting for some food. The kibble bowls were all empty, and even their heated water bowl was almost dry. The other bowls were frozen, so they were very happy for the warm water.

We really need to work on getting Creamsicle Jr. to let us near him. I want to get a look at one of his eyes. It seems to be leaky.

This is the same pussy willow I posted a picture of, less than a week ago. It’s really, really trying to develop those catkins! It should be warm enough from now on for them to finally develop fully. The brief cold of the past few days set it back quite a bit.

We never got much snow out of what should be the last winter blow out, and it’s already pretty much gone. Which means things are still very dry out there. I’m hoping we will get some good rain this spring. We’re going to need it!

I received an interesting hint that the weather is warming up and expecting to stay that way. I got a bank notification that a charge from Veseys came through. I expect to soon get a shipping notification. The only things we have with them right now are items that will be shipped when it’s time for planting. It was a very small charge, so not everything that’s waiting is going to be on it’s way, but the ground it still frozen solid. I’m curious to check what we ordered that can be planted this early in the season!

We had another bank transaction that had my husband and I wondering. Something got credited to our account, but neither of recognized the listing it was under. It seemed to be a refund of some sort. It took me a while, but I finally found the original debit, almost a month ago. After some searching, my husband finally figured out it was the new ergonomic keyboard he had ordered for me that we were waiting for (not the only thing we are still waiting for, either). For some reason, we got refunded, but have had no notification. He’d ordered it from this company (the name of which was not what was listed in the bank statements, lending to the confusion) as a “guest” and gave them my email address, but I’d received no notifications from them. I even searched my spam folder. He thinks he may have accidentally put in an old email address of mine that I no longer have. We decided to try and order the keyboard again, but this time he created an account with the company, rather than ordering as “guest”.

Which is when he found out what happened. As soon as he tried to place the order, he got a warning that they don’t ship to box numbers. He never got that warning when ordering as a guest, and since the email address was likely goofed, they couldn’t get through to us to fix the problem, so they canceled the order and refunded the money.

Unfortunately, he’d ordered it originally at a sale price. The sale is over, so this time, it’ll be full price. Ah, well.

While he was going through the purchase, he just had to call me over to see the shipping costs. There were three options, with different expected delivery dates. Two of them were free, but the expedited shipping cost was actually more than the full price of the keyboard. Including taxes!

There was still the issue of their not delivering to box numbers. We don’t get postal delivery, so there’s no point in giving them our physical address. Hardly anyone can find our place, even then. This is not a new problem, unfortunately, but my husband found a workaround. He inputs the physical address for our post office/general store. Since the package would have his name on it, and the population here is so low, the post master knows which box number such packages belong to, so we still get our parcel pick up card in the mail box.

It may still take 2 or 3 weeks to get here, but it should work.

It’s interesting how much more difficult it has been to get things delivered out here today, compared to when I was growing up here. We didn’t even had driveway markers until not all that long ago, but people could still find us with our section number. The modern delivery systems just sort of assume people live in cities and towns, with street addresses. Box numbers are now associated with security problems or scam artists. Never mind that so many people still use box numbers, even if they live in towns. The town we go to for most of our shopping and errands, for example, has an organized street address system (unlike our hamlet, which does have some street names, but no street numbers), but all mail goes to box numbers at the post office. If there is only a street address, the post office employees have to figure out whose box number it belongs to. A little more difficult when the population is several thousand, instead of a couple hundred.

You’d think, with modern technology, it would actually be easier, but the systems don’t recognize section numbers, can’t figure out our rural road systems, and don’t accept box numbers.

So we have to get creative, just to get things to go to our nearest post office!

I love my technology, but sometimes, it just makes things harder! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Growth

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So the series of severe storms that looked like they were going to head right over us… didn’t. They passed to the East of us, instead, though we did get some nice rain.

I’m good with that.

I headed out to check on things this evening, and was greeted by a Rolando Moon!

She seemed quite happy to see me and let me pet her in the tree. Right up until she decided to grab my hand with her paws and try to bite me.

Ah, Rolando. She doesn’t change. :-D

I took the opportunity to take the grass clippings I’d left beside the carrots and beets and use it to mulch in between the plots. Creamsicle joined me and did his rolling around thing to get me to pet him. Unfortunately, he decided to roll around on the baby beets! What a bad boy. :-D

I completely forgot to take any pictures, though, as I started to hear growling from Rolando Moon in the tree. It took me a while to see which cat was after her and, much to my surprise, it was Butterscotch! A quick spritz with the hose got her away, but then Creamsicle went after her!

Creamsicle got a thorough soaking before he took off!

Other things have gotten a good soaking, and are thriving for it. Like my mother’s lilies.

The flowers are so big, they’re starting fall over!

The maple grove is looking absolutely lush.

When we first moved here, this area was full of tall crab grass, like you can see in the background, broken branches and dead trees. Once the big stuff was cleared away, all I had at the time to cut the grass was the weed trimmer. Under the grass, it was pretty sparse, and mostly covered with dead leaves.

Last summer I was finally able to mow in here and, again, it was pretty sparse with lots of dead leaves. Some new growth was starting to show in patches, but not much. I had to be careful mowing in there, as so much debris was being thrown out and blown around – usually right back at me! :-D

Now… well, you can see it’s changed quite a bit!

I don’t know about the shorter plants; I think they’re a flower, but I’m not sure. Sprinkled throughout are taller ones that I know a flowers. You can’t really tell them apart in the picture, though!

While there, I noticed some other new growth.

Willow is just amazing. This tree is full of rot and dying. This section of it broke in a blizzard last October (you can read about it here). Yet now, this almost completely rotted out section is throwing out new growth! There are small bunches of branches like this in several places. (Read most about the storm damage here, and here, and how it was before, here.)

It is not the only storm damaged tree that is showing new growth.

The elm tree in front of the kitchen had lost a couple of large branches, including one that had broken, but still needed to be cut. (Click here to see the clean up process.) When I cut loose the broken part, the remains of the branch, free of the weight, sprung up much higher than it was before.

It’s hard to see, but that arrow is pointing to the cut end of the branch.

It had no smaller branches around there at all when it was cut. Now, it’s absolutely bushy!

It’s amazing how resilient some trees can be.

The Re-Farmer

Storm clean up: the old willow

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I’d posted a video I took after this job was done, previously. I am honestly surprised more of this tree did not come down in the storm. I hope it survives many more storms, because it’s such a beautiful old tree!

The first thing I had to do was assess the fallen branch more closely.

The branch was long enough to reach the double row of elms heading towards the garden gate.

As I started cutting away sections, I was able to see that the whole thing had been kept from hitting the ground by the skinny little top of the branch that landed on an elm!

Amazing, that that was all it took to keep such a big, heavy, branch from falling all the way to the ground!

After clearing away enough branches that I could reach the main part with the extended pruning saw, I just start pulling.

Eventually, the top came down, and I was able to start breaking it down from the end.

The main branch ended up being held up by another branch I’d already cut away part of. While I continued cutting away smaller sections, it looked like I would have issues with where it cracked at the trunk. How would I even reach it? I had expect this to be the easy part of the job, but it took a lot more work just to cut away pieces, so I could reach where I needed to go!

Plus, I had to get the weight off the branch that was still holding the whole thing up, so I grabbed a branch and started dragging it off to the side. It all twisted at the cracked trunk.

Hmmm…

Little by little, I cut sections away until I reached the cracked trunk.

This part of the trunk was too high for me to reach, and I couldn’t see how I could cut it away. It would be too dangerous to use the step ladder and a buck saw.

However, it was really quite rotten, and it twisted quite a bit when I was manhandling it to get those sections cut away. What would happen if I pulled on the cut ends?

I found the whole thing easily twisted around, and pieces of the trunk started to fall off.

What I thought would be the hardest part of the job turned out to be the easiest part – it just pulled right down!

The pile at the base of the tree is all from that one branch that broke.

I’m leaving it there until spring, when I plan to take down the rest of the rotten trunk. I’d already added lots of other downed branches to the pile by the fire pit.

So that is done for now!

When I started working on this area, though, I spotted more storm damage that I’d missed, because I simply hadn’t slogged my way far enough through the snow.

That will be my next post. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Rotten

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Things have been warm enough for the snow to mostly melt away, so today I was finally able to go around the yard and take care of the storm damaged trees.

I will process and upload photos, probably in a couple of days, but until then I wanted to share this video I took of the big willow tree, after I’d finally gotten the broken section down.

The base of this section is pretty much compost.

I really am amazed that this is the only section that came down in the storm.

I’m leaving the remains where I’ve put them, to clean up in the spring. That is when I plan to take down the rest of the rotting trunk.

Assuming it doesn’t come down on its own, over the winter.

The Re-Farmer