Home10/08

Tree

Autumn Architecture

Tree 10/08

Busy stuff!

I have really been contributing to greenhouses gases the last few days! More chainsaw duty-trying to get the girdled trees dropped in the goat pen so that they can finish stripping them and I can cut the wood up for firewood.

Whoever decided a bunch of goats should be called a herd, has never seen a bunch of goats in action when they hear a chainsaw running. Total pack mentality. First the dumber, slower ones place themselves where they think the prey (in this case, the falling tree) will head. The more aggressive ones try to help start the saw and stand near the intended victim. The ones that are already full from breakfast hang in the back and watch the fun.

I have only been brave enough to drop trees that I think won't kill the goats if it hits them. I have to have everything scoped out in advance-the whole area, because once a tree hits the ground, forget dropping another one in the same place safely, as the pack descends for the kill.

While the goats are eviscerating the first kill, I relocate with the running chainsaw in hand (it has gone back to cranky starts, so I don't shut it off until I'm done.) and try and get the next tree dropped before the more agressive ones realize I have moved with the Alpha-the saw-and follow.

I managed to work my way up to 5 or 6 inch diameter trunks, and finally decided to take out the 10 inch birch. I have been eyeballing that one for awhile, since it is a big tree for me. And, it is positoned poorly, right up against a boulder, and leaning in that direction. The only way to take it out was to cut it 3 feet up from the ground over the boulder.

The birch was definitely big enough to squish a goat.

I had distracted them with some smaller stuff elsewhere, and moved in for the kill. The birch was already girdled, due to die anyhow, and yet offered a few good pieces of almost ready to burn firewood. I started in cutting the wedge out the drop-side, and on the second cut the goats started to advance. *swears*.

Quickly I moved onto the back cut, and the saw, of course, started to bog down, wanting to stall in the cut. I pulled it back out of the cut and revved it up to bring it out of it, cursing and trying to hurry beofre the goats got into the drop zone. I did not want to leave it at that stage, in case a breeze came up-it might fall the wrong way.

Luck was on my side, the saw came back to life and I continued with the cut and dropped the beast -slowly, but right where I had wanted it to fall. The goats descended in their ravening pack. I moved back to where the goats had just been, and dropped a 5 inch diameter beech, girdled, but still with leaves. I nearly got the chain stuck in the back cut, and called it a day for dropping trees.

Later, after a bunch of other mundane chores, I drove over to a friends to borrow their lawnmower. I annihilated the meadow and reclaimed the lawn this afternoon. No way was I going to make last year's mistake and try and rake leaves in 6 inches of grass!

Looks pretty good for the first mow of the year. :)

I also asked my lawnmower-lending friend to adjust the loose chain on the chainsaw, so that is ready to get back to work for me soon. Rats, he showed me how to do it myself for next time. ;)
What an enabler...LOL.

I really needed to know, though, as the chain was quite loose and it is a safety issue.

That was enough gas exhaust for me for the day! I have started simmering a pot roast and need to go out into the garden and treasure-hunt some pototoes. I like to leave them in the ground as long as possible and dig them as we need them. I just finished off the end of a small row of lovely russets. Next up-not sure if I have reds or whites left? Could be more russets!

Number one: The Crow

Tree archives

I have been catching a lot of bird shots lately, and today I was reminded of my most favorite. Out of over 4,000 pix shot on the Sony, and out of the top 300 that I recently had developed, this one is my personal favorite. :)

I did crop it for this repost.

Wild Turkey Running

Tree 1008

Foliage Mountain

Tree 1008

Foliage Road

Tree 1008

Love Poem of the Calendar Alphabet

Birch-bright are these bodies,
cradling our newborn selves.

Like lightning you impale my heart's red berry;
I study the oracular entrails, still smoking
grey as a rowan fire.

Nursing each other with sweat clear as the snipe's song,
we would drown but for these egos--stout oars of ash;
We are left flooded, silt-fertile.

Fire spirals from us as from hewn alderwood,
whistling like a crimson gull.

Sifting apart, we fall, lost grains through wicker sieves;
the moon owns me, I grieve where the willow mourns,
and your is the hawk's trial: insight and despair.

Zygotic lover I labor, repeating you
as the thrush stutters the rainbow:
Behold my staff. Where I have struck
or leaned on you, you put forth leaves.

Hold me chastely as the night-crow rasps terror;
nothing has any value.

Desparate, we signal across two needfires; we are naive
midsummer wrens, battering the door between us.

Twin, which of us is sacrificed? I, the arch, the altar?
or you who cling there, blossoming?

Concentrate on each other in one shell, we solve
the crane's asymmetry.

Quince be your canopy, the garden your refuge,
the unasked question your tether.
I peck at the gleaned field.

Maenad that I am,
I thirst for your vintage self.

Gates open in me; now would I resurrect you
with that love which strikes the blue swan mute.

Gnostic geese, we who dwell empowered
under one roof.

Ripening well into winter, we may yet learn
how our roots entwine and drink at one source:
an elder wisdom, therapeutic, a mutual doom.

And yet , alone, each of us thrived in salt-charged sand;
I had no brother who sought me, as you did
your sister--or am I silvering through her mirror,
a lost Tamar myself, thinking I seek my son?

Our histories are being burnt away, like furze
singed to clear space for fresh sprouts' greening;
we sense our own preparedness for this buzz,
electricate, in our touch.

Uproarious
at last as mountain heather, we arrive;
you are drenched larkspur by this passion
and I am dry of wing-ready, now, to hive.

Entropy, we know, consumes all our consuming, will blaze us
and then bury us-- but upright in our graves
if we have earned it, like poplars
exuberant on a darkening autumn hill.

I will not love you then, nor will you care for me,
despite all our intentions--except as our dead mouths
may speak roots subtler than these tongues:
poems probing through the earth-dull ears of others,
gnarling into a single trunk, an utterance.

Joined at such a height,
we gaze at one another undisguised--
this risk dangerous as a fall
toward no certain ground;
this space massing white as distance
which shreds, powerless,
before the glance of
eagles such as we.

Robin Morgan

Autumn Maple

Tree 1008

AUTUMN

Thou comest, Autumn, heralded by the rain,
With banners, by great gales incessant fanned,
Brighter than brightest silks of Samarcand,
And stately oxen harnessed to thy wain!

Thou standest, like imperial Charlemagne,
Upon thy bridge of gold; thy royal hand
Outstretched with benedictions o'er the land,
Blessing the farms through all thy vast domain!

Thy shield is the red harvest moon, suspended
So long beneath the heaven's o'er-hanging eaves;
Thy steps are by the farmer's prayers attended;

Like flames upon an altar shine the sheaves;
And, following thee, in thy ovation splendid,
Thine almoner, the wind, scatters the golden leaves!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow