Crunch! Wednesday, Oct 9 2013 

Uncategorized acairfearann 22:31

We have so many large, old trees here that we tend to pay attention to loud noises in the night.*  Sometimes, they mean something (as it might be a chunk of dying Norway Maple falling and nearly but Not Quite smashing a brand new laurel, silverbell, and cornelian cherry the other day).With unfortunate frequency it also means someone losing control of their car at something over 60 on the road and its deceptive curve.

So I paid attention last night to the crunch, especially since it had an ominous metal/wood sound. When I heard a car accelerating past a minute or so later, I decided it wasn’t on the road; so it was probably a tree, and if it had hit something….well nothing to be done about it at midnight!

I went looking for the culprit this morning, but found nothing.  Until I went to work, that is.  At which point I saw the state troopers and my neighbor contemplating his mailbox.  Or I should say the remains of the mailbox and the odd tire tracks.  The car I heard accelerating off must have skidded off and flattened the mailbox.  Lucky for him, a few feet farther on is a telephone pole and a few feet beyond that are two massive white pines, I don’t think the car would have won against those…

 

*why is it always at night?

 

Golden Lawns Tuesday, Oct 8 2013 

gardening and Landscapes , , acairfearann 15:26

The rather ferocious (if needed) rain combined with high winds yesterday stripped the ashes of their leaves entirely.  It also caused the white pines to drop their old needles, which had been hanging up in the branches making all the pines look quite ragged and ill.  The end result is that the lawns, and the tennis court in particular, are completely covered in golden needles.*  The roads are similarly covered, there was an actual drift several inches high along the centerline through the S-curves this morning.  The needles will quickly sink into the grass, but for the moment it is really quite impressive.  I am not sure how the pines decide to shed; since it occurs every few years it ought to be spaced out, with some trees shedding heavily each year.  But for some reason, they all follow the same schedule.

*The tennis court is not a tennis court anymore, it is a pine grove and (since I mowed it recently) there is little vegetation to break up the needles.  A few volunteer dogwoods and such here and there, the rest is a golden carpet.

 

Good timing! Thursday, Oct 3 2013 

gardening acairfearann 21:16

Why exactly am I away from here during perhaps the busiest time of the year for landscaping and gardening? At least there are two other people here to intercept the bulb order! And no trees this year.  Probably wise.

In the last few days, an entire garden bed has been reworked and a temporary garage built; I can’t take credit for either of those.  I have, at least, been running about a bit watering things.

See you after the weekend 🙂

 

Texting has not the same flair… Wednesday, Oct 2 2013 

Esperanza and Historical Events acairfearann 22:16

I haven’t done a letter excerpt from Julie and Morris in months, so here is a particularly fine passage from Julie, April 26, 1857:

“Now Dearest if you reach home once more in safety, as God grant you may, I will try if I can to make you happier than I have ever done. My boy, I hope the romance of your first love has not quiet died out. If so I must be in fault, for it ought to live always. I love you with the same kind of passionate fondness as I did at first. I feel the same wild thrill of pleasure when your image rises before me and I sit musing. Your voice has still the magic spell that held me and led me long ago almost against my better judgement to stay near you and listen to your words. I sit now as then, and ponder your dear ways….*….You inspired the first poetry of love I ever wrote and that bright star is still the brightest, and the dearest that shines in my Heavens.”

*It is a private love letter, nothing explicit but private indeed, and your editor is feeling old fashioned!

 

Obligatory photo Tuesday, Oct 1 2013 

Landscapes and Modern Photos , acairfearann 21:52

of the West Meadow on the second cutting. Actually taken a week ago, the trees have really started to turn now.

IMG_3846

 

Kaboom! Monday, Sep 30 2013 

Landscapes acairfearann 11:42

I was looking at the hay-field hedgerows the other day, eyeing the work that needs to be done, now that the hay is finished for the year.

As I got to the bottom hedgerow I noticed something a bit odd…large amounts of skinned wood and bark scattered here and there, with splinters hung up in the trees and scattered out in the field.  Look a bit harder.  Sure enough, the tallest ash (about 16 inches in diameter and fifty plus feet in height) in the hedgerow was most assuredly damaged.  A direct lightning strike had blown off the entire quarter-side of it, for all the world like someone had split a single long rail starting about forty feet up and running to the ground.  The largest ‘splinters’ were about 12 feet long and up to seventy feet away.  One that stabbed itself into the field* actually bent from the impact, no easy thing to do to a chunk of ash several inches thick.  They are also bone dry.  I can see where inspiration for a split rail came from!  For that matter where the myths of Paul Bunyan came from.

 

*a late season hay-field around here has a little more given than concrete, but not much.

 

Editing Barberry Saturday, Sep 28 2013 

Landscapes acairfearann 20:24

Now is the time to mow, or cut, or trim.  At least for things like re-sprouted barberry and burning bush.  It is too late in the year for them to regenerate successfully, but too early for them to have gone dormant.  Unlike many of the native plants, which have realized it is fall; and, if cut now, would simply wait for spring quite happily.  The barberry will re-sprout next year; but by cutting it right now, it has essentially lost an entire year.

So, despite the poison ivy still being exceedingly green, I spent a good bit of the afternoon clearing around the sugar maple sap line* along the lane and along a neighbour’s boundary line.  I have some orphan arborvitae, originally destined for the highway, that may go along that neighbor’s line.  It is not a problem, yet, but it might be in a decade or so; better to plant it now and have the privacy screening in place.  As for the highway, well!  It can’t get much worse!

*This is called being a good steward…my trees, my land, his lines.  Would he be unhappy if I didn’t cut the barberry? No.  Does it make his life easier? Yes. Is it, in the long run, also good for the land? Yes. Prior to that line being there we were essentially ignoring it.  Now, I have selected some young maples for the next generation, the invasive shrubs are under control, and we are beginning to see some regrowth of wider variety of shrubs/grasses/flowers.  There is no financial gain for us, except for a few gallons of free maple syrup. (and I doubt he makes much extra cash)  But the land benefits.

 

Fiddling Friday, Sep 27 2013 

Uncategorized acairfearann 19:32

about with old writing lurking on old hard drives…  Fall, it seems, brings out the attempted writer in me… so nothing directly connected with here!

And shall I mourn

All the passing days of this world?

Ah, to love

Is to be pierced

With the arrows of the dying;

Were it not so beautiful

My sorrow would be the less.


 

Is it possible… Thursday, Sep 26 2013 

Esperanza acairfearann 17:54

to have too many Bibles? We have the space, of course, and for a number of reasons, my answer is no.  Still, if there was anything that is a more emphatic statement of generations (until the late 20th century) I can’t think of it.  Each person had their personal Bible.  Each individual’s Bible, on their death, has ended up here. Then there are the ones in a multitude of languages: all of the major European, and several of the major Asian; and then the different translations….

I ought to count them, just for the laugh factor.  Five feet of shelf?  Not counting concordances and Books of Common Prayer?  Might be a bit high, perhaps four.  Then again, I’m looking at five versions right now!*

*one KJV, one New English, one Revised Standard, one in Greek, one in Spanish, and one in French

 

Sunset Wednesday, Sep 25 2013 

Esperanza and Modern Photos acairfearann 10:37

Fall always produces some rather nice ones around here….

IMG_3691

 

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