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blossom and new leaves

an eastern redbud in blossom, swarming with bees

What a difference two weeks make! Yesterday I made my first trip back to the land since we kidnapped the artist. In the intervening time, Winter had returned for a bit with cold and storms and icy rain. Perhaps we’ve finally moved on now… the temperature was back into the 80s today. Not quite so warm yesterday, thankfully. Pink blossom is now visible in my woodland, and the bright green of new leaves. I haven’t found any dogwoods or wisteria yet – perhaps they are there, waiting to be discovered. I’ll plant dogwoods anyhow. One of my favourite trees, and native here!

I arrived at about lunchtime, and ate a sandwich sitting on one of the breeze blocks of my fire circle, admiring all the new leaves. The ground is also now covered in a variety of plants – the wild garlic is rampant, but there’s something purple-flowered that could be from the mint family, and, here and there, blue violets. (I’m certain about the violets and the garlic; for the rest, if I tried to identify them with the book I have, this blog would never get written. More homework.) But I am happy to report that the bird feeder is still there, and needed replenishing! And how lush and green it is all starting to look (probably thanks in this picture, at least in part, to something invasive, but we’ll overlook that detail for now):

spring green

This week’s task was to plot out the perimeter of the deer fence.  I took along 600 ft of garden twine with the idea that I could stake that out, and leave it there till I’m ready to go back and dig holes for the fence posts. It took a couple of hours of unwinding, placing, calculating, recalculating, rewinding, replotting… My ideal boundaries (which would have included some of the old buildings within the fence, as well as the area I’m now fondly thinking of as my future orchard) had to be substantially redrawn. Half a dozen times. But in the end I got my pieces of twine to meet. I’ll have to take out one or two small saplings, and cut my way through (or move somehow) a couple of large fallen trees. But I think it’s doable.

No pictures of the twine boundary, but here is the Old Man bursting into new leaf. Good for him!

old man in spring green

 

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personality trees

blossom on the tree

The last two visits to the land have both been overnight stays. The first was undertaken with some planning and a lot of stuff; the second was a wild, last-minute decision to go supermoon-gazing (still with quite a lot of stuff, and an artist we kidnapped… well no, he came willingly, forsaking comfortable hotel bed and a decent breakfast, the poor man.)

No gardening happened on either occasion, but that’s OK. Well, actually, no gardening could have happened because someone has walked off with my fork and spade. My fault, I suppose, for not posting “No Trespassing” notices, but very annoying all the same. The bird feeder was still there, hanging from its tree, but no bird had been near it in a week by the looks of things. Which is odd, because it had been completely emptied out the week before. Perhaps the phantom, garden-tool-nicking goblins are into refilling bird feeders. Too, too helpful of them!

Anyway, I’ve done some research online for signs to post: No Hunting, No Trespassing, that sort of thing.  I think I’ll go with that, rather than the blair witch pentacles, skulls and dead crows solution suggested by one Twitter friend, very very tempting though that is. (But watch this space for some super-moonlit, blair-witch-inspired shots!) I’m also now attempting to convince any friend who’ll listen that deer fence installation is the new leisure activity du jour. Imagine it: lovely camping trip, all-you-can-eat BBQ on the Saturday night, and … er … 600 ft of fencing to assemble. No worries. Piece of cake, really. Practically puts itself up…

Let’s look at some nice pictures of trees.

All trees are lovely, of course, with unique stories and personalities, but here are three that grow close to the edge of my forest boundaries. They could be sentinels, guardians of the perimeter.

This silver-white tree, with one large bough growing almost parallel to the ground, is right in the SW corner of the property. Lying along the bough, you can keep watch over the creek, with its little bit of sandy beach (featured below), and look out over “enemy” terrain… just joking!

Tree Guardian 1
raccoon prints on the beach

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Walking back along the western(ish) boundary, you see these guys: hollow trees with a lot of character!

Tree Guardian 2
Tree Guardian 3

 

This one looks like a little horned sprite from certain angles!

 

 

mistletoe

We even saw a sprig of mistletoe lying on the forest floor, although we couldn’t work out where it had come from.

 

 

 

And finally, so much fun to put the kettle on after a woodland walk! (Note the luxurious, breeze block seating.)

putting the kettle on!