A Touch of Frost

The weather report says that it's 6 degrees outside, but the deck is seeming a bit frosty - as in, I slipped walking to the door. Why have I been outside after 11 at night in the pitch black and cold you ask? Well, Joe the wood guy - the one who said it was too wet, then called back to make sure we still wanted the wood - after I called several times with no answers - who then called after another period of silence to explain he had been in bed with the flu for a week.... well, he called at 9:30 this morning, to verify our location and tell me he would be by with wood. Today. And we would be very happy. He had to pawn his computer for gas money to go and *get* the wood. Yeah. We didn't hear from him all day, and I had begun to assume there would be another call in a few days with another reason for delay. He just left a few minutes ago, calling at 10:15 when he was turning on to our rural road. He was a funny guy, but was trying to pawn off his pickup truck (maybe) 3/4 of a cord, as being worth $200 - when I could *show* him the 2 cords of already purchased and stacked wood right there beside the driveway (minus what we've used over a few cold weeks). Really. It's. Right. There. That makes me feel a bit frosty myself. A cord of wood is supposed to measure 4x4x8, and I guarantee by the time we stack it, it will be sorely lacking. He did bring us a few stumps for splitting wood, so that will help us in our wood pile management.

Our neighbor has fairly simply said he will fell whatever trees we would like, because 'it's the neighborly thing to do,' so hopefully we will somehow barter with him to help us stock up with our own wood for next year's fire season, and get some better sun exposure on the property while we're at it. It's hard to know who to take at face value, when you've been getting the runaround. I don't like confrontation and I don't want to snub a neighbor, but I also come from a background where labor has value, and I'm willing to pay or trade with someone I like and can trust to do the work. What to do? It will be interesting to see how we manage to deal with actually getting things done and feeling like everyone was well-treated in the bargain. How many dozen eggs can you trade for felling 20 trees? In reality, I hope to ask for his help in getting the trees down, and his patience in teaching us proper handling techniques to manage cutting lengths with our own chainsaw before splitting. I see a hydraulic splitter rental in our future.

Our other neighbor actually came by to borrow milk in the dark (which is relative, when the sun is setting at 5 p.m.), and we've advised him to check back regarding the rabbits we will be butchering, and told him we'd like to have him and his family for dinner sometime. Hopefully, a 'test' rabbit will encourage them to buy or barter for rabbit meat in the future, and no real harm done if they don't like working with it.

While we were considering what trees to take down, some of them were happily shedding branches in a heavy windstorm we had this past week. Power was out all over the Island, and we just missed losing ours by a block or two. Hydro was out working on lines just down the road.

We're also preparing to *add* some trees. 2 new plums and 2 cherries, to offer better cross pollination for the existing trees in the orchard. The nursery is due to have the bare root stock in by the end of the month, so we've been digging our holes in case the ground freezes and makes that a problem. Planting fruit trees in the fall means that Mother Nature takes care of watering them in, and we just have to protect them from hungry deer and elk wandering through.

Our location options are somewhat limited, but taking down some of the evergreen trees along the property line will benefit the orchard, and so we're adding them to the existing fruit tree plantings to the southeast of the house. Adrian started a couple of the holes last weekend, hitting a layer of heavy clay. With a bit of exposure during the week, we were able to complete digging the first 2 holes as well as completing our second set of holes this past weekend. The average size is 2 1/2 feet deep, by 3 feet wide, and it took longer than you would think. At least we know if we want to work on a pond in our future, there should be enough clay soil on site to help fashion the bottom of the basin! We continued laying cardboard around the trees, in preparation for dumps of soil and alder chips. We can take our time during breaks in the winter weather, transferring that to the areas under the trees. I have daffodil and snowdrop bulbs just waiting to go into the ground as soon as some of the hugel berms are ready.

Dig!