Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Trees


Today my honeylocust trees and siberian pea shrubs arrived from the Kansas Forest Service.
They look really really good--so there's my recommendation. They were actually a better price and are a bit bigger than the seedlings I ordered last year. Hopefully these will be a bit more successful than those were. We will fence these in better --no lambs eating them through the fence or cows knocking over the fence. We also now have the 30 gallon sprayer to pull along with the John Deere to water with if we have another drought like last years. I am looking forward to planting them but I might wait just a few days and see if it rains as they say it might. We didn't get rain the other day that they called for so---it's not looking promising here yet. Another dry spring will really be a booger. Especially since I have peas and kale etc that would probably all like a drink of rain water, not that nasty ole tap water they may end up with.
One thing I have always enjoyed doing no matter where we have lived is to plant trees. I love trees. I know I should enjoy grass more since I have livestock but trees are just so beautiful and offer so much. Besides---I have lived most my life in the south and trees are welcome respite in the summer. We have a gorgeous black maple here that is a dream to climb---each branch is practically laid out like a ladder so you can get really high into it. When I was a child in New York there was a huge weeping willow in my friend's yard. We would use it as a fort since it was so thick with branches that touched the ground and bent over---no one knew you where in there. Except they probably heard us---since no playing child is quiet :-)
When we lived in Texas our older neighbor told us that to plant the 3 large pecans that shaded both of our yards, they had had to dynamite the holes in. That was in the early 40's and our neighborhood was on an old limestone "lake". How many times I wished I could dynamite a hole for projects we did there! I guess the theme of my post is memorable trees. I am sure most people have at least one tree---good or bad---that they remember well from their past.
Here's to all the trees that have shaded us, fed us and let us play in them. Also to those yet to come to do the same thing.

SmallMeadow Farm Icelandic sheep, Irish Dexters and heritage chickens

4 comments:

Robbyn said...

Don't you love those favorite trees? There was an oak right beside (over) the back porch at my grandparents' house that was so grand...there is nothing like its shade and sounds, and the rustling of the wind at night with the whippoorwill's song...ahhh :) There was also a favorite hardwood on an acreage where I once lived that was my "secret place" tree...it had been bowed over in its early life and grew in an arc all the way back to the ground like a rainbow. Except for the winter months, it was a canopy of green, like an umbrella, with a little circle underneath where you could sit and look out, but no one could see in. LOVED that "umbrella tree" ! :) And the climbing trees...and the crabapple...and the wisteria so old and thick it had been formed into a trunk like a tree and buzzed with bees through the hanging pannicles of flowers...and the mimosa that we'd climb and sit among the pink fluff..and the sweet gum with the hollow trunk where we'd play house...

(I'm shutting up now...there are a LOT of trees to love!) :)

Dancingfarmer said...

I know Robbyn! I could go on and on about them too. There is nothing like the sound and enjoyment of trees is there? Makes you think of lazy summer days (not too hot summer days hahaha!)with nothing to do but sit and listed to the leaves and the birds :-)
Get better soon!
Monica

El said...

How in the world did you find trees from Kansas of all places? I'd'a thunk you would find something, you know, Georgian or something.

I have seriously begun to think I should not be an animal husbander and instead be an orchardist. We're in serious fruit country here; feel like I should go with the flow.

Who doesn't love trees, especially ones you can climb?

Dancingfarmer said...

Well El:
Trees ARE easier to care for. Well, most of them are anyways :-) And you don't need a "sitter" to go on vacation when you only raise trees.