Acair Fearann

isn’t looking too healthy these days.  Finally got the southern boundary reflagged. It had been awhile. It is frightening to see how fast the ash and hemlock have declined. And how quickly the barberry, burning bush, and bittersweet have moved in. And that barberry? Nothing else grows there: not ferns, not mushrooms, not trees.  I know what I want the land to look like. How to get there? Well, I know the what, but the how?

It is a lot of work, a lot of time, a lot of money (and A Lot of Garlon and Glysophate). For the land’s sake, I’d say it is worth it. For my sake, I’d say it is worth it….I just wonder, is there any one out there in the next generation that will care? Will they even miss it? Or will the degraded jungle be the new normal? It has its own beauty, of course it does. But it is a pale reflection of what can be there. And that, of course, is itself a pale reflection of what once was.

Yggdrasil will always be with us, and will always be beautiful. But should we accept the diminished and contorted (after all, that money and that time….) or should we fight and go down in defeat remembering the soaring cathedral of the trees?

Of course….Yggdrasil is best translated as ‘The Gallows Tree’ Which is an Interesting name for the tree associated with both the creation of man and the doomsday.

Random thoughts….

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September go anyway? I know where it went, a series of weeks that lurched from one thing to the next.

The first day of October is appropriately fall like: damp, not quite chilly, early leaves falling and the asters blooming. Very pleasant if you ask me. The vegetable garden is almost done for the year, though I have the most impressive chard, beets, parsley, and some kale.  And some experimental winter squash….we shall see on that.

A few of the hardier house plants are still outside: the scented geraniums, the passion flowers, and the fuchsia. I have no idea what to do with one of the passion flowers.  Its interpretation of eight feet and my interpretation of eight feet….Differ.  I don’t really want to cut the vine off, since it is still blooming away….up there on the second story.  Nice red flowers, very pretty!

Otherwise there are plenty of things to be done, as always!

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There are always those first fall days, when the low storm clouds are chasing across the sky, the earliest trees are turning, and the air has changed. A time for going.

One of the oddest animals around these days are the geese that do not go.  There are many migratory flocks of Canada geese of course.  But there are also the non-migratory.  They cluster, an ingathering of scattered pairs.  But, they do not seem to leave. Or they leave very leisurely. I suppose they eventually get down to the shore along about November. But currently, they occupy any large grassy areas near large bodies of water.  In between the turkeys.  Actually, the turkeys are very svelte compared the geese: lean, woodland creatures that cross the paths of the geese only on the way to the water’s edge to take advantage of any exposed bugs.  The geese simply graze and their behaviour makes a great deal of sense.  A short day’s flight will take them down to the shore when they must leave, but for the moment, why go?  Still, on a cloudy, wind whipped day, it is peculiar to note a large flock happily bedded down with no intention of getting up.

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It is right there, honest! It was located right behind the tree stump, this photograph would have been of its side and nothing else. It is interesting to note that one of the two channels the river is taking is the old raceway for the cotton factory. The other, of course, is the old main channel.  Despite being out of use for over a century and inundated by flood waters for sixty plus, the old river bed channels remain very real and very active in a reservoir, even in this location which has accumulated feet of silt and mud already. They are by no means flat pools.

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But may there be fair water and following wind on other seas for Lee: a good friend, a good man, dedicated townsman, former US Navy submariner, and a loving husband and father. A lover of boats, of the land, and of the many waters of the world. Killed September 16, 2016.

One of our two canoes he was instrumental in helping rebuild for us.

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Sixty year of inundation and still sort of solid.

(the area is public, the bridge itself is off limits, for good reason) It is usually under ten, twenty, thirty plus feet of water; but right now the big flood control dam is wide open to let as much water downstream as is possible. It has been about twenty years since the bridge was out like this, though it is not uncommon to be able to see at or just below water the top of the trusses. It is an extremely good place to fish, when there is water.

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Who knows if it will actually be a success, but still a neat program! Old, old technology and older instincts!

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37342695

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