The browsing deer

Now fighting the browsing deer. They are chewing away on all the trees which have grown out of the tree shelters. Put up some deer netting today. Will try Dial soap tomorrow (recommended by the Indiana Walnut Council!)

Basements full of windows and doors?

Who would have guessed there would be so many windows and doors cluttering up friends' basements?

My builder advisor had a 6 foot slider he wanted out of his house - we got that installed on Saturday.

Then my friend Bill, who helped with the giant window last week, mentioned he had a 4 foot by 4 foot casement window he wanted out of his house. So I retrieved it on Sunday. (Ends up that the mounting flanges were cut off, but I'm experienced now at installing new ones). Think I'll put it in the opening you see on the right - that was going to be an outward opening French door, but maybe I don't really need three large doors in a 12 x 16 foot shed (!).

Like Henry David, I'm making the most of freebies and scavenged materials.

As an aside, I mention that I have never seen a snake at the tree farm. But we often have them at the house -- black snakes, garter snakes and ring-neck snakes. I'm always glad to have black snakes around, to keep the mice away.

But last night was a first. Andrew and I walked Sami around the block. Got back and found a snake on the front porch. Andrew wanted to hold it, but didn't want to grab it. It was a black snake - they get pretty big (4 or 5 feet) and I've picked them up many times. I told Andrew that they can hardly bite, and that I'd never been bitten, but being a smart boy, he wanted me to grab it first.

And the dang thing whipped around and bit me! I've never been 'snake bit' before. The difference, best I can figure, is that this was quite a young snake (about 2 feet or so), maybe a couple of years old, and he was lightning fast! All the black snakes I've held in the past were big fat slow ones. This little one was not having any of this human interaction. I was quite surprised to say the least, especially since I didn't even know a black snake could draw blood. Interesting experience.... (no damage, only very superficial scratches).

The final window...

The sixth and final, and by far the largest window is now in. 6' tall, 4 ' wide. Essential muscle from Tim and Steve who, standing side-by-side, are also 6' tall and 4' wide.

Bill and I managed to do the management and finesse work. :-)

Tree Farming - easier said than done

Went over for a little weeding at the farm. With all this rain the trees are doing well, but the weeds are totally out of control!

There's regular grass, thistles, and Japanese stiltgrass all over the place. But then then mile-a-minute vines are covering about half of the entire area. The vines climb over everything, looking like a carpet with lumps and mounds as it blankets anything and everything. Easy to pull up, but very thorny.

Even though the stiltgrass is invasive, I would much prefer to have it the dominant weed.

I put down a second row of black weedscreen to see how well it works. I hope it doesn't make it too hot for the little Douglas firs.

Big Window finally in? Not yet.

I realize now why the window was 90% off. It's a magnificent window, but apparently it was removed, probably from a new house, by cutting off the mounting flanges.

Crafted some new flanges - aluminum sheet (for the curves) or extruded angle (for the straight sections).

Lined up 3 big guys to help at lunch - average 6'3", 290 pounds. Me being the shrimp (6'1", 180), I'll be the supervisor. Needed the big dudes since we need to hoist this 150+ pound window into place, and the sill is 7 feet above the ground.

Unfortunately big rains are forecast all day tomorrow. Weekend should be nice, then rains again Monday and Tuesday. I'll have to recruit a different, non-work, crowd if I do it this weekend.

It's the last of six windows in the shed. :-)

Note the Makita and DeWalt cordless drivers - I had to include them in the picture since I was recently ridiculed by a manly woodworker for having a wimpy Skil driver.

Progress

Last weekend I got the final few pawpaws in the ground.  The task was easier since not all went into the woods - I gave 3 to Dan, a couple for my back yard, I planted 3 in Nancy's yard, 4 in a pot for grandma, and the rest in the woods.

I went over tonight to check on the plantation.  Weeded a lot in the black walnut section.  Two have already popped out above the tree shelters- very exciting.  The little Christmas trees are looking pretty good.  Only a few look like they won't make it.  Biggest problem is the mile-a-minute vine which is taking over the place.  

The pawpaws, on the other hand, aren't looking too good.  Only a few are budding out.  Maybe I'm expecting too much since they have only been in the ground two weeks.  

Pawpaws

The desire to plant trees, and be organic, and use native species burns on. And coincidentally my daughter has a passion for odd fruits and happens to think pawpaws are great (!). Well, pawpaws are a tree native to this area, with very few pests, and best of all they are an understory tree, which means they can grow in my forest!

I must say that I see this as a real opportunity for my ‘tree farm’ to get a few more trees in the system. And the state (where I got my walnut and fir seedlings) had an ‘end of planting season’ sale last week, including pawpaw seedlings. The bad news is that they sell them in minimum lots of 25, and the end of season sale is two-for-one. So here I am, committed to planting 50 more trees. It will undoubtedly be the largest pawpaw plantation in the entire state.

I’ve never had one and don’t think that I’ve ever seen one, but it's quite intriguing, and I hear it tastes like chicken. Jk, tastes like a banana-mango combo. On the other hand, the flowers are 'fetid smelling' in order to attract their main pollinator, the dung beetle. (are you grossed out?). I didn't even know we had dung beetles around here. They must fly in special due to the fragrant flowers (beauty is in the eye... or nose ... of the beholder?). The only place I've ever heard of dung beetles were in Africa in some National Geographic special. Perhaps they are all around us, but ... simply not discussed in polite circles? In any event, a most interesting plant!!!

The pawpaw seedlings arrived yesterday. Today I planted 28 of them.

The seedlings wake up!

Last weekend about 5 or 6 of the black walnut seedlings started bushing out inside their tree shelters - it was a thrilling moment for the nacent tree farmer. Somewhat like the first dollar from a paying customer, except not worth as much.

The trees look totally ridiculous inside the shelters, but from everything I've read, they should thrive.

Today I took another walk to the farm. We are in the middle of a solid week of rain - should be good for the trees. All the walnuts are leafing out except for about 8. That means 25 have survived this far, a 25% survival. From what I hear, that's not too bad, and there is still hope for the others.

Douglas Fir - all done

My boy, Andrew, and I finished planting the last 20 Douglas firs.  It's been two weeks since they arrived, so I was concerned that they might not be in good shape.  But all was well, they looked good, and the roots weren't dried out.

Andrew insisted that we plant them all, even a couple that were about 2 inches tall.

Look at this little guy - we may end up with a lot of Charlie Brown Christmas trees!

New wood and old wood

Quite a weekend.  The seedlings, 25 black walnut and 50 Douglas fir, arrived Wednesday afternoon.  They are magnificent, with great roots.  They are supposedly 1 year seedlings, but the roots are better than the 3 and 4 year trees I got from the Georgia grower.  And the state of Maryland sells them for 50 or 75 cents per  -- can't beat that!

So far I've gotten 20 of the black walnut planted, and about 20 of the firs.   I watered them well, and it's supposed to rain tonight and tomorrow;  should be a good start for them.  

I would have gotten more planted, but I got distracted.  They are tearing down the condemned house in the neighborhood, and I saw a number of boards going into the dumpster that could be used for my "barn-board" siding on the shed.   The wood appears to be a mix of pine and oak, maybe red oak, all rough sawn.  From what I hear, the wood was sawn on site back in the 40's from the trees they felled on the lot.  Could explain the odd sizes (like 2.25" x 4"), and why some of the pieces have bark on them.  They all look incredibly straight.  So I spent a few hours selecting pieces and pulling nails.  In the end, all the 1x's were too split and broken from the demolition to use, but I got some nice 2x4's and 2x6's.  The bigger boards are nearly 12 feet long, and with the rough, circular buzz-saw pattern on the faces, they might make some nice inside beams in the shed.

Like the color choices?

The odd thing is that the county requires that they leave two walls standing from the original house and use them to build the new house.  And the two walls they left are rotting and temite-ridden.  It will be a challenge for the builder.