Acair Fearann

It is cold out there! Spent the better bit of yesterday and today helping to move some older, very useful, but very recalcitrant farm machinery. It was fun though. Learning a bit more about tying down loads and moving things. And how not to move them.

At the end of the day, an essentially brand new, solid, much bigger Brush Hog (which has a date with the lower fields as soon as this snowstorm goes away). Another, heavier tractor in essentially perfect condition; it is probably destined for a forestry operation in the next few years. An arch (think a crane that can attach to any 3 point tractor hydraulic system), a disc harrow, a rake harrow, a lawn ornament plow (it was thrown in to the deal), assorted metal T-posts, and some hand tools.

We did turn down the beat up disc harrow, the old no-climb fencing, the old tomato cages, and God knows what all else hiding in the barn!

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Reposted photo, but it looks pretty much like that right now.

Not looking forward to moving some equipment on a windy hilltop tomorrow, but a friend’s old farm house sold (they are moving from Connecticut to New Hampshire…I can’t possibly! imagine why!) and we promised to get the equipment out of there so the closing could go ahead. But that is what hand warmers and good boots are for!

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I’ll be interested to see if they can perk back up again. I suspect they will. But even the snowdrops think that two nights of single digit temperatures is a bit much in March.  I have to figure out a better management of that area, the oak leaves are really out of control on that bed, much too thick for the spring bulbs to cope with. They tend to reduce the ability of the bulbs to colonize, and with weather like this they ironically tend to deceive the bulb, which thinks it is warmer than it actually is. (The early bulbs in areas without heavy leaf cover are sensibly waiting) But, they do keep the moisture level and nutrient level high, and that is a very good thing for the area as a whole. Complex things, micro-climates and ecosystems!

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One of the projects for this year is to get as many of the little unwanted trees taken care as we possibly can on the house lot. At this point, most of these are relatively ‘little’ ash trees. While ash trees can be spectacular, they can also grow into whip like forty to sixty foot tall spindles. The problem with those, aside from taking up space without any visual benefit, is that they are the most prone to the diseases and insects that are knocking out so many ashes. A dead chunk of ash falling from forty feet up is Not desirable.

We’d have dealt with them a long time ago. But, I know what I can’t do. And I can’t do precision felling. Nor am I willing to try to cut anything over the four inch rule. So they have stayed where they are.

But sometimes even precision isn’t possible. One ash tree that I have finally gotten sufficiently tired of isn’t that Big (around fifty feet). But there is nowhere to put it. Thankfully, a bucket truck can reach it from the road.  It really should have been gotten rid of years ago:

For scale the wall is about three feet high.

It is in the center back of the picture, you can see that despite that problem with the trunk it is developing a decent crown and is remarkably healthy. That actually makes it a more pressing concern: at some point the weight of that crown will snap the trunk at that point. The only place it wants to go is straight towards the camera. It could be slightly shifted to the left, but even that would cause major damage to the Star Magnolia, the middle shrub in the back rank of shrubs.

Hopefully, we can get it out and I can fill the hole with something more appropriate for the space.

Trees will fall over and they will bash things. But there is no reason to set up for trouble.

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The pond in the woods is lovely, dark and deep water stilled at dusk. And the trees speak in the dying wind when the sun sinks beneath the hills. What more in the end is there to life but the good, growing land and the clear water? Without that. Nothing.

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But some nice lateral thinking involved between the fields of study!

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/02/14/515032512/iron-age-potters-carefully-recorded-earths-magnetic-field-by-accident

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Dreaming of the summer. But it is a delightful day out there, lovely white snow which is quietly melting down into the ground.

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lots of big dream projects out there….

I have the time now or will in about a month (not really what I wanted), so no excuses this year. Paintbrushes, trees, and gardens. Inertia is a major uphill battle, with a long way between the vision and the actual thing accomplished. And good intentions aren’t worth very much.

But there is a field of bittersweet and a hedgerow of dying ash that could be hickory.  If I do something about it. First stop: more Tecnu for the sea of poison ivy and some more tick proof clothing. Second stop: a working bush hog. Third stop: Garlon and Glysophate.* Fourth step: convince my boyfriend that he really does want to cut more trees down and get his friends to remove them** Fifth step: start it all over.

*That is the approved ‘nuclear’ option… but at this point, aside from a few young hickories, there is nothing left down there that isn’t Oriental bittersweet, creeping briar, poison ivy, and goldenrod.

**That isn’t being a wimpy female, I know my limits with a chainsaw.

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finally showed up with some determination and about a foot of snow. That was nice of it.  Or not nice of it. But all the equipment behaved, I have four wheel drive, and I didn’t exactly mind the day off….not that I did with it what I should have done with it….naturally.

Still a pretty storm, with elegant drifting. But I find I don’t really care for the tension it seems to induce. There is an expectation that weather won’t get in the way of the scheduled programming. But, you know? The weather does get in the way. And I am not sure that it is a bad thing to acknowledge this.

Minor shades on the theme of Canute perhaps.

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