Tag: trees

Morning carnage

2 Jun 202628 May 2026 by Mike (tfb)

Weed tree, trash tree, table-eating tree, time to step back! Cutting back the invading box elder from the work table, using probably antique garden shears, the best tool at hand, seems kind of brutal, but this is tiny farming. The whole idea is to guide some space, some land, to your liking. It is kind of militaristic in nature, there’s no getting away from that! Take over, suppress what you don’t want, install what you do, and hunker down to maintain position. I’m kidding, of course, actually thinking about farming and gardening in those start terms is not helpful or enjoyable, IMHO, you layer on your framing and do what you have to do.

The garden shears only work well on the pencil-thick still-green upper stems, but that’ll do for now. Loppers—lopping shears, with long leveraging handles—would be perfect here, the tool for the job, though at the base this tree is probably a little past even them. So then, a pruning saw. I have neither, so a real saw, a sharp knife, and some bending and twisting may be involved for a proper cutback. Or, much as I don’t want to invest in a box elder battle, I’ll get ahold of a pruning saw. I wonder how much the roots can expand, year after year, without any leaves to feed them…

Weed tree

28 May 202627 May 2026 by Mike (tfb)

This volunteer tree started growing there maybe four or five years back, and is now almost literally trying to eat a table where I work on gear and put out seedlings, blocking the morning sun, getting in the way. Plus, what’s that dense little micro-environment hosting that might crawl or fly directly onto the veg plants?

It’s known as the box elder, a scrappy, scrawnier member of the maple family that’s described unaffectionately as a weed tree, or even a trash tree. That’s cold, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t know or wouldn’t care about what people call it. It’s too busy growing at an insane rate for a tree, at the same time spreading its multiple stems. In some countries, it’s officially classified as invasive, a menace to society.

Cut it off at the ground, which I’ve done every year since it appeared, and its resilient root system cheerfully sends up more. I don’t have time for a root excavation and eradication project at the moment. You’d think I’d have gotten to it earlier, but this growth snuck up in the last week or two, as the weight of the new leaves bent its weak and spindly stems over the table. Guess I’ll chop it back again for now. Carnage!

The tree at the end of the field

30 May 202623 May 2026 by Mike (tfb)

The sun’s almost set but the howling wind and bursts of heavy rain aren’t slowing down. It’s pretty wild out there, with ankle-deep marshy wet patches hidden in the grass. Stepped out for a last look around, and the tree at the end of the field caught my eye as it usually does. It stands in the middle of a large pasture, far from the woods, at the point where the main veggie beds end. It seems quite independent, holding back on the leaves when the other trees are already green, exactly the same shape year round, with leaves or without. Lots of big trees, sheltered in the surrounding forest, were snapped like twigs in the big wind and ice storms of the last four-five years, but this guy remains unbothered. I’m glad because it’s a central part of the tiny farming scenery here these last many years. Would be sad to see it snapped!

See through the trees

22 May 20267 Dec 2025 by Mike (tfb)

Say what you want about the harshness of the winter season, at least you can see through the trees! It changes things up. In summer, a dense deep green privacy wall across the little meadow that could be called a lawn. When the leaves are gone, you can look past to the hillside across the hidden pond. This slice of the view is dense with fallen branches snapped by wind and ice storms. There are also window-like gaps where in summer you can see cows grazing on the hill.

Buds on the trees

27 Apr 202417 Apr 2024 by Mike (tfb)

The birds and the bees and the buds on the trees… Gazing around the grey outdoors on this drizzly day. I know little about the ways of trees, so I’m not sure whether the buds are early, or late, or just when they’re supposed to be. What I do know is…there they are!

Looking for leaves

17 Mar 201617 Mar 2016 by Mike (tfb)

The snow’s gone, replaced by puddles and mud. You can still see the road through the trees—the only aerial green so far is evergreen. An overall browned-out scene, but what’s not in the pic is the vigorous twittering of birds, the tantalizing hint of real warmth in the still chilly air, the slightly musty dampness of winter earth waking up, as the outdoors steadily gets ready to…explode!

Today’s weather

7 Mar 20166 Mar 2016 by Mike (tfb)

Spring, soon! So far, though, still chilly and winterish. The photo describes it perfectly: not much snow, but cold enough for the thin layer to stick around (-10°C/14°F at night). And no signs of fresh new green growth just yet… It’s good to know, because it’s happened before, that it could suddenly turn into a startlingly warm T-shirt-optional March. Weather!