Fencing experiments Monday, Nov 5 2012 

Projects acairfearann 10:04

Fences are Expensive.  Wood that has to be cut up anyway? Well, that has no cash outlay at least.  The fence by the highway is an interesting mixture; the north end is composed of old snow fence and a brushpile outside of it; the center section is composed of increasingly solid brush piles of pine/spruce/other slow rotting wood.  This is carefully stacked so it is no more than four feet wide at the base, tied together using its own weight and branches, and if the pointy ends stick out they stick out towards the road.  The last section, which has drawn admiring comments, is a modified zig-zag composed of thinned out sugar maple saplings.   Modified because I wired them to T-posts for a five foot high fence. None of the sections are especially fun to climb over, part of the point.  It’s all a lot cheaper than seven hundred plus feet of fence would be.

More interesting is that the fence actually does cut wheel noise and there has been a noticeable increase in the health of the plants behind it.  Apparently, the reduced light level is more than countered by the removal of the constant scouring by road debris.  Nor does the fence appear to block animal movement, it was specifically designed not to, actually. *

In any case, I hope to add a new section.  Theoretically, spruce splits.  Whether it splits by hand in long enough sections to be turned into rails or palisades?  We’ll see, I’ve got about 160 feet to play with…

*I have other more effective ways to control munching critters, and no desire to cause roadkill.

 

Fall bulb planting, 1873 Saturday, Nov 3 2012 

gardening acairfearann 11:06

Julie writing to Helen, fall 1873:

“That abominable little white rabbit has eaten up half the tulips. The wretch picks them out and sits down and nibbles them before our very eyes, ungrateful animal!  When the bed in which they are planted cost Fanny such hard work, she picked 300 stones out of it.”

Some things don’t change, still planting tulips, still picking stones, and still pondering how best to deal with rodents.  Though it rather sounds as if the white rabbit was a supposed pet….

 

Pick Up sticks Thursday, Nov 1 2012 

Modern Photos acairfearann 17:24

It’s hard to see, but the two trees crossed as they came down.  You can see the trunk crossing over in the first photo, about seven feet in the air.   The root balls were about 8 feet high, both flipped down quite nicely when the trunks were cut.  The trees were about 75-85 years old, they had been planted along the old road alignment when the state built the new highway in the 1930’s.

 

 

Where in I… Tuesday, Oct 30 2012 

Uncategorized acairfearann 17:41

reveal inner tendencies towards Druidism, or something.

Here’s the thing, if you really, really want to you can rebuild a building exactly as it was before it was damaged or destroyed.  You can even blow it up* and do so, there are several very impressive churches in Cologne, Germany that were rebuilt from rubble.  With advances in imaging, I suspect that it will shortly be possible to create perfect replicas of even small details, technically possible if not financially so.

What you can’t do is rebuild a tree.  If you lose a century old tree, you cannot replace it.  It isn’t just a chunk of wood, it is live wood plus a unique interval of time.

The physical mark of this hurricane, however relatively minor** might be recorded longest not by man but by trees.  Interesting thought.

*technically, those were bombed ‘down’.   English, gotta love it.

**The blogosphere is apparently composed of an equal number of Manhattanites claiming the world ended and Midwesterners/Texans claiming the world didn’t end and anyway if it had they would have dealt with it better than those wimpy Yanks who are stupid enough to live in a city.  California is oddly silent.

 

well, that’s going to leave a hole Tuesday, Oct 30 2012 

Uncategorized acairfearann 13:43

Turns out Norway spruces don’t care for microbursts.  It could be worse, much, much worse.   That being said, losing the best of the ‘young’ Norways just south of the drive and another farther to the south is sad.  These weren’t small trees: about 18-20 inches in diameter and sixty or seventy feet in height.  The major loss is the one by the drive, very healthy and with good branches all the way to the ground it was an important tree in creating the feel of a deep forest.  On the way down they smashed a twenty year old spruce but avoided everything else.  Kind of them.  They could have hit the ancient Wayfaring tree, the Sargent’s Hemlock, another young spruce, a young beech, etc.

It is going to take us a while to chop them up…

A larger problem is a hemlock farther south on the old road which is tilted over at a forty five degree angle, bowing and popping another hemlock, and both leaning against a sugar maple.  Again about sixty feet tall.  Not sure how to deal with him, much too precarious for us to handle, and completely unreachable with a vehicle.

But, amazingly, that is all we lost of any consequence.

 

Entertainment? Monday, Oct 29 2012 

Uncategorized acairfearann 17:12

Courtesy of the quasi-hurricane: watching hundred foot tall Norway Spruces describing thirty degree arcs…

 

Gingko rain Monday, Oct 29 2012 

Uncategorized acairfearann 15:26

The gingkos had just turned gold about a day ago; the wind and the rain are quickly stripping them.  Usually, the big gingko off the northeast corner of the house drops its leaves straight down, all of a piece.  The fan shape of the leaf combined with its weight does not lend it good aerodynamic properties; more like a maple seed’s helicopter nature.  Once gingko leaves have turned color they do not stay on the tree for any length of time; in fact, following a hard freeze it can drop them in a matter of one or two hours, quite unlike oaks and beeches.   Today, the big one is acting as a beautiful wind direction indicator.  I must say it is a bit odd to see its leaves ending up west and south of the house.  Usually, if they go anywhere at all it is north and east.  But today they are being lifted up, over the house, and down on to the meadow.

 

 

drabble Sunday, Oct 28 2012 

Uncategorized acairfearann 16:01

The crows have flown

Into the sun

The restless wind

Shifts around the compass points

Perhaps there will be a storm, perhaps not. 

But the house waits

A white crest where

The endless hills roll beyond.

 

Fall colour Saturday, Oct 27 2012 

Modern Photos acairfearann 14:16

Smokebush, purple leaved variety, after rain

 

Fall cleanup Friday, Oct 26 2012 

gardening acairfearann 12:15

Continues apace, I have a bucket of Morning Glory vines taken from the arbor, which hopefully should yield a nice amount of seed.  The statues are in, being an uncertain zinc alloy, we don’t think the freeze thaw cycle would be great, especially since water may be able to get in them.  All the bulbs are planted, including a number of white daffodils under the fence line, in amongst the blue crocus.

We are exploring the idea of not removing all the leaves from the north lawn. The grass is a type that should handle a light leaf cover, while the winter wind will probably blow most away. The gingko will have to be picked up though, its leaves mat and flatly refuse to decompose.  The problem is, of course, that the big perennial garden is downwind, and we don’t want major leaf drifts on it.

experiments!

 

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