oh whoops

[dragonlady7]

via https://ift.tt/HfKJqZx

well instead of finishing the thing i was going to post today i spent four hours over at my mom’s house mostly spectating but occasionally doing extremely physically challenging labor while my sister cut down a tree for us.

[image description: a woman (my sister) in orange chainsaw chaps and an orange chainsaw helmet with face shield and ear protectors is using an orange Husqvarna chainsaw to cut a fallen apple tree up into logs. Wood chips are flying dramatically. In the foreground is a single branch showing black walnut leaves, hanging down from the tree I’m standing under.]

It was a tree we’d climbed a lot as kids, and had many fond memories of– right at the curve of the road to the barn, and we’d sit in it and throw the apples to the horses, and whatnot– but it was mostly dead, partly falling down, and Mom’s having a guy bring a roll-off Dumpster for us to clear out the barn, and the truck couldn’t get through with that tree there. So it was time. We said goodbye to it and thanked it.

Anyway it’s all stacked not very neatly but out of the way, and we’ll tidy up later.

The entire area is absolutely carpeted in black walnut trees. Dad was obsessed with planting them, and did so for our entire childhood, and now suddenly they’re all out of saplinghood and there are just. It’s a whole grove, around the barn, back where the old garden used to be, where the apple orchard used to be, all along the pathways– just black walnut trees everywhere you look.

I planted about 50 nuts at the farm last year, and I plan to collect another batch and do that again this year. The deer eat the seedlings, but if there are enough, we can hope the deer might miss a couple. That’s how Dad did it, just keep planting more of them.

Anyway. I do have a thing nearly ready to post but it’s going to be days before I have time to polish it I think. Alas. We’ll have to see if I can’t steal a couple of hours somewhere. (Your picture was not posted)