Acair Fearann

In a fit of something or other, I managed (with help!) to get two long overdue trimming projects done.  The first was taking off a major limb on a multi-trunked Sugar Maple.  This oddly shaped tree could be entirely removed.  But its odd shape adds a nice bit of whimsy.  However, this branch, a good four inches in diameter, was casting entirely too much shade on several shrubs and one of the chestnut trees.  So it went.  With a great deal of sawing (an alternative and appropriate name for sugar maple is rock maple, this one was definitely that), and an extra set of hands to catch it and take its weight off of the chestnut tree, since the only place to drop it was On the tree.

Then, on the theory that no one was watching, I had the desire to do so, and it wasn’t windy: I shimmied a good 15 plus feet up the hemlock beyond the big garden.*  This hemlock’s sole purpose in life is to help block the road.  We do not need nor desire a one sided, leaning, 50 foot plus evergreen in that location.  So I cut its head off.  I was smart enough to only cut it three-quarters through while up in it and smart enough to climb the north side (that has essentially no branches) so that I wouldn’t be under the falling section if I cut too far.  Then I wandered off and, I confess, used the pole saw to finish the cut and bring it down.  This worked admirably….except for bending the head of the pole saw.  I can’t claim the fixing of that. Jamie fix!

Anyway, two jobs done that needed doing.  Perhaps not done in the most approved fashion, but such is life.

*Nice view of the hilltop from up there, by the way.

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Leaving aside the weather (10 F last night, really?!), I did not need to find that after several years of 100% success in keeping the large hoofed rats out of the yard, I failed majorly last night.  Went out to put Liquid Fence on things (it being the first still day promising to stay at or above freezing and not wet*) and found I was a day late for many of the broad leaved azaleas.  The deer came through this morning, hungry.

I am counting my blessing, an exercise that gets old fast, that they didn’t go after the hollies, the umbrella pine, the oak-leafed hydrangeas, the young pears and hickories, or the rhododendrons (which do Not need help in the dying department).  Still not what I wanted to see at all.  They like the flower buds best of all, of course.  Sometimes I wonder why I garden.

And no, getting my jacket, hands, and face liberally sprayed with Liquid Fence (main ingredients are garlic, rotten eggs, and red pepper) when the Brand New sprayer broke did not help.

*we learned the hard way that broad-leaved evergreens do not care to be sprayed when it is well below freezing.

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We have a little garden fish pond, with a great many fish in it.  Several dozen at last count, your standard run of the mill goldfish, none of which are gold….  Some are blue, some harlequin, many are born purple/black and slowly turn red, and some slowly turn white.  Anyway, fish.  Fish utterly, totally reliant on us.*  The pond is about six feet long and three plus feet deep and has a recirculating pump and waterfall. It has neither a natural inlet nor outlet, aside from seasonally boggy ground.  In the winter, we remove the filter, put a heater in, bury the line, and let it keep running.  We don’t always check it every day in the winter.

By sheer good fortune, it was checked on yesterday.  The fish were down to a little huddled puddle in the bottom, the pond was for all intents and purposes nearly dry.  After some hasty work with the hose, attention turned to the likely culprit: the waterfall.  It would appear that one of the stones got shifted, probably in this fast freeze/thaw cycle we’ve been having.  Almost certainly, the ice built very quickly two nights ago when the temperature dropped.  The combination of a shifted stone and ice build up redirected the water out of the pond.  This has happened once before, but not quite so dramatically.  I suspect, when it warms up enough that fiddling about in water is no longer agony, we will contemplate changing the rocks a bit.

The fish appear to have survived.

*I have always been really bothered by the ‘what if man suddenly disappeared’ scenarios (there was a TV series on that awhile back, a badly researched one).  Not, I confess, because of the people.  But because of all the animals that would be doomed to rather nasty ends.

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