AngelsGarden's Blog

~~Pine Tree Logging~~
Apr 28, 2008 | 10:56 AM PST
Tags: Logging , Pine Trees

For about the last 10 days there has been logging going on in the field behind our house.  When they first started the machines were working almost directly behind our yard, about a 1/3 of a mile away.  I was surprised at my own reaction.  It almost made me cry, to hear the tree branches breaking.  I did manage to watch for a few minutes one time.  There was some kind of machine that was just mowing down any sections that didn't have decent sized trees for them to take.  The larger ones were grabbed by another machine with some large clamps, then cut off just above the ground level.  Then the cut tree was turned on its side and somehow all of the branches stripped from the main trunk.  The tree was stacked, awaiting a truck to carry it away.  I don't know why the property owner is cutting them, so I can't judge.  All I can think of though is the wildlife.  Owls, Hawks, Woodpeckers, etc. and etc.  If any of those trees had baby birds in them, they are surely dead now. I don't think I have a real good daytime pic of the before. It seems that I was always taking pics at sunset and not in the day.  Here is what I do have to give you a little idea.

You can at least see the large pine on the left and the tops of the others .

Here is a pic as of a couple of days ago, all of the pines are gone.

Since I got home there have been two truckloads this size that have pulled out.  Notice the size of the driver that is tying down the load, compared to the size of the trees.

~~Growing~~
Apr 3, 2008 | 10:02 AM PST

Lots of things growing here.  When I go to work, so much happens while I am gone.  The bird feeder is knocked 'caty-wompus' by the squirrels, the bumblebees are about done with their days work, the asparagus spears really do grow about 3 to 6 inches per day and the chickens have about 8 or 9 eggs in their nest.  I miss seeing all of the action while away, I really would rather be home where the fun is.

I am happy to say that the pink dogwood tree is not dead.  I do have some serious concern about the trees health though.  Last year, end of summer, the leaves had some spots on them and some of them dropped.  Now this spring the flower buds didn't open, they were dried out to a crisp.  I am wondering, since the flower buds formed last year, maybe whatever was on the leaves affected the flower buds as well.  I think that I may spray the tree on a regular basis this year with an organic spray.   So we will just wait and see what happens.  For now I am just happy to see the beautiful new leaves.

The asparagus beds are doing pretty well this year.  We have been harvesting some here and there.  We don't want to take too much and stress the plants.  We still need to add some more soil to the beds but it is expensive and other things have taken priority.  One way that we prepared the spears that we harvested was to sautee it with some onion and garlic from the garden.  We added seasonings and it was sooooo good.  My youngest, who is not a veggie eater, ate it all before she even touched her other food.   She loved it and then asked for more.  I was very surprised! Here is a pic of some that we harvested.

I have noticed that the brush at the back of the yard was getting over grown again.  It is all on the other side of the fence.  The owner of that land has told us (a couple of years ago) that we are more than welcome to trim away.  He had cleared some of the fence line before and ended up starting a fire along the fence of four or five yards, including mine.  Because of that we are removing everything that we cut down and we are going to burn it in our yard.  We don't want the extra brush for a few reasons.  It shelters the mice and rats from the field for one.  It also would be fuel for another fire.  Alot of the small trees that were burned in the last fire have now died.  Some of them had started lean alot and were pushing hard on the fence.  When my husband was clearing it out all he had to do was just shove on alot of them and they just snapped off.  So he was using the loppers to clear the live brush and then breaking off the dead stuff.  We found a good sized Honeysuckle vine and some wild blackberries that were growing behind the chicken yard.  The chickens have actually been eating the blackberry vines where they can reach them, stickers and all!!!  The job isn't finished, but hubby made a great start. We might get it finished tonight.

In the veggie garden the peas, salad, potatoes, onions, garlic, shallots and asparagus are all going good.  Hope to have more updates soon.  Enjoy that garden everyone!!! AG