Or I should rephrase that. Ryan cut down the tree. I stood way off to the side watching, waiting to yell loudly over the sound of the chainsaw that it was swaying, and he should get out of the way NOW! But he doesn't really need me to tell him that . . . he's cut down trees before and knows what to expect. Its more of just an insurance policy I guess. Plus I had helped make the decision about ending the life of the tree, so I figured I should be there to witness.
Which is kinda of a hard thing for me. I like trees a lot! My mom knew I was a goner for Ryan when I said that he had lots of trees at his house, and he likes them! A better picture of my feelings . . . a t-shirt I once saw that said "I don't just hug trees, I kiss them too!" They are wonderful in so many ways: shade, erosion control, nuts & berries, habitat, beauty, leaning on, climbing, hugging, etc. etc. I can't think of one native tree that I don't have a good word for . . . just don't get me started on invasive exotics. I have obviously digressed.
But on the very bright side this walnut tree won't be slowly poisoning our garden anymore, which is a very good thing. Walnut trees have this substance called juglone in most parts of their tissue, which while not really a problem for people, can cause a problem for some plants. If these plants are grown anywhere near a walnut tree, they will at least fail to flourish and sometimes will even die. And it just so happens that most of the nightshade family, tomatoes, peppers, potates, etc don't really tolerate juglone. We have learned this the hard way over the past few years. So it was either move the garden or cut down the tree. You can see who won. Now hopefully the small roots near the garden will rot into the soil in the next couple of years, and we'll be happily juglone free.
The other upside of cutting down a walnut tree on your property. Beautiful lumber. I can't wait to see what this looks like when we get it milled. I am visioning a small piece of walnut furniture somewhere in my house in the future.
In the end, cutting down this tree only took about 15 minutes at the most. The rest of this weekend was spent doing things like turning and organizing the compost pile, cleaning the chicken house, finishing the last of the maple syrup. Plus Ryan worked on getting the fence for the pig's area put up, and putting a partition in our outdoor feed trough, so we can start feeding the calves outside and not have to worry about them pushing grain down the big hole in one end.
The feeling of spring busyness is in the air as the temperature climbs, and all these projects start calling our names. In the next post, I promise I'll talk about the end of maple sugaring for 2011, and other fun stuff.
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