Well, it is officially done. All of the blueberry bushes are trimmed...at least the ones we could get to. There are two or three that are just in too much water for us to bother with. We noticed that the land around them has become even more wet, and I wondered if it was the bushes, and the land, responding to the situation and changes we have initiated.
As always, we swooped in to help, and now we must step back and let the land and its plants respond. I can almost envision the blueberry bushes stretching and enjoy their new-found freedom. They aren't perfectly trimmed, by any means, but I feel everything out there understands our intentions and responds in like energy and giving us a little grace in being less than professional in our understanding of how to handle all of the things out there that we do.
It was so warm and perfect on this trip out. No cold wind, and a warm, enveloping sun. I was able to take my long sleeves off, not caring that the thorns would attack.
I had just had two days of allergy testing (revealing no reactions, mind you) and was willing to add to the marks. I'm a girl who doesn't care about scratches anyway. To me, nature is like a cat when it lashes out a bit. They are just doing what they are designed to do, and it's nothing personal.
While Woodchuck worked on trimming the bushes, I worked on cutting down, and treating the stumps of the invasives and aggressive plants. Some times too a plant can be native, but volunteered to grow in a less than ideal location. When we say a plant "volunteers" that means it wasn't planted where it is growing. Carrying around a pole saw on dry, firm ground is a task for me. The saw is longer than I am tall, and it's heavier at one end. So I look like a clown on a high wire trying to balance it, with a bum shoulder. Trying to do that in wet and muddy conditions could be dangerous, so I had to go slow and deliberate. In those moment I always think of a friend of mine who I learned a lot about invasives from, and how she is so tiny but wielded a chain saw with strength, grace, and deliberately. I always remind myself that if she can, I can. I just have to be smart about it.
This river birch pictures above had a lot of crap growing around it. Brambles, crap tree starts, the red twig dogwood (that is native but FAST growing and takes over VERY easily and quickly!), etc. This is one of my favorite trees, with a colorful peeling bark of what looks like sheets of paper. I left a little oak tree next to it for now. When I don't know how natives will interact together, I leave it and watch. Soon enough their interactions and relationship will be revealed to me and I can make better, informed decisions.
The mud was up to my ankles again. I've had to learn the proper way of walking in mud this deep! It's all about releasing your heel first when you go to take a step! Don't twist your foot to change directions until the heel is released or you will sprain your ankle...or worse!
This tiny oak tree was being taken over by more brambles, and a grapevine that was twisting around it. I had to be very careful right here! The tree is on a little mound, surrounded by water on nearly all sides. I freed it from its captor and told it that we will be working on the pond this year and can hopefully save it from a watery grave.
Hang in there, little oak tree!
It is so open now that you can see the start of the watershed immediately on the other side of the bushes (pictures above). A tiny white sign to the upper right of each picture marks the boundary. Once the NRCS comes out this month I will talk to her about the amount of the red twig dogwood on that section. I don't want to clear so much out that I take away natural habitat and cover for the wildlife, but clearly these native are incredibly fast-growing trees and have not been kept on for the better part of ten years or more. I need a better understanding of what I should do with them.
We walked back to the front and I picked up garbage along the road while Woodchuck fired up the tractor. I am always observing the nature around me, watching and listening. I found many, many dead trees in this area that would be great to cut down now before everything on the understory wakes up and makes it difficult to get in. The goal is that once we have cleared out the non-natives and dead stuff, we can make a plan to then replace it with new, native stuff.
Old ear fungi on a dead tree.
Woodchuck has really been wanting to plant sunflowers up front, but is thinking they won't do well there because they wouldn't be in full sun all day. Honestly, where I had them here at our house, they weren't in full sun all day either, just many hours of it. I think it would be worth a try! Speaking of flowers....
The faery lillies and daffodils are coming up! I heard my first red-wing blackbird and the doves and robins are all over the place now. Once Spring gets here, I hope it slows down. I would love a long Spring, Summer, and Fall this year.
Now for the second update about the place that went up for sale next to the land. Woodchuck thought hard about what I was saying, and how I was feeling at the prospect of another infringing and less-than-neighborly-neighbor moving in so close to us at the land. I refuse to spend my retirement fighting the same battles that I have spent fighting here for the past 23 years. And the more he thought about it, he agreed and felt the same. So he contacted the land owner and asked if there was a way to work something out, only to find out that after just a few days on the market, he sold it already. Someone offered him cash, though a little less than he was asking for it.
So, we are moving forward on the land as planned, getting things back to native and healthy, while we wait to see how it goes with whomever moves in. We have to come to grips with the idea that we might eventually sell the land and start our search over again. It's not ideal in the least, it took us over 20 years to find the land, and with Woodchuck being four years away from retirement, time continues to tick away. But we are letting this unfold and be what it is. We will continue to love and care for the land in the meantime, and are blessed by it no matter how we have to move forward later on. 💚
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