KW Homestead

Pasture Raised Poultry & Edible Landscaping Plants Since 2013

Tag: trees (page 2 of 2)

The First Dandelions of 2014!

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Dandelions are here! One of the most useful and nutritious plants you can find.

Spring has officially arrived at Kuska Wiñasun Homestead! The very first dandelion flower has sprung onto our land and I couldn’t be happier. It came up in the first place we housed our portable chicken coop. I’ve seen dandelions popping up in Greensboro for the last week, mainly in parking lots and sidewalk nature strips, and I couldn’t wait for them to start blooming in our lawn, sending their deep tap roots down deep into the soil to pull up all sorts of minerals and nutrients.

Because our homestead is some 30 miles north of Greensboro and is at a higher elevation too, our climate is slightly cooler than the sprawling NC Piedmont city. All that concrete also has an effect on temperatures, and so we generally lag a few days behind in Spring, but we never gave up hope!

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The chickens checking out a newly planted “William’s Favorite” apple tree in our front yard.

But the dandelions are back, and that means spring. Spring is a busy time for any homesteading family, and we are no exception. We’ve planted 16 new fruit trees so far (more on that soon), and between our off farm jobs and planning our wedding, we’ve been keeping busy. Emma and I are out almost every day until it’s just too dark to see, taking advantage of the long days and perfect weather, and planting everything from cabbage and broccoli to comfrey and clover.

Spring is a busy time, but it’s a welcome change to the short days of winter. The solstice approaches, and soon summer will come, bringing with it the humid nights, open windows, and chorus of pond frogs we almost forgot about. But for now, we’ll focus on spring and the delicious and nutritious treat of dandelion greens.

walking dodger’s way: a perimeter path around our land!

yesterday jason and i did something that i have been fantasizing about for months… we finally chose, marked, and pruned a path around the perimeter of our land! even though it was raining a cold drizzle during most of the adventure, it was excellent fun. some of the reasons i have been chomping at the bit to get my new trail marked:

  • spring is about to hit and i really wanted to have the trail marked and somewhat cleared before all of the foliage came back in and obscured the best path options. jason carried the bush ax and i carried the long-handled nippers and green marking tape. we pruned small tree limbs out of the way and pushed some dead wood out of the the path as we went, and i marked trees that were directly to the left side of the trail. this was so that i can remember the path until i get more used to it and so that visitors know where they are going if they decide to strike out on their own!
  • i recently started running again and unlike my other attempts over the last decade to get motivated and stick with it, i really feel excited about it this time. i thought that getting my trail marked and thoroughly “beaten down” before the undergrowth threatens to block the way would really keep me excited about running. i can also imagine how much cooler exercising will be in the summer under the shade of my very own canopy!
  • as i discovered this weekend, the ticks have arrived (tick spring break ’14! what, what!). they have not shown up in mass yet, and i only found 2 crawling on me because i was sitting down in the leaves at the edge of our yard. but before they show up in numbers, i wanted to do all of the limb bumping and leaf shaking that i could (ticks like to wait in bushes and smaller trees for an animal to bump it… then they jump off onto the animal).
  • for the wedding, of course. we really wanted to have some developed walking trails available for the wedding guests to be able to explore the different portions of our land. we tried to make it a scenic and not-too-strenuous route so that everyone (even running emma) could enjoy it!

first we started by the house and marked the path through what we call open woods, a portion of our land that has large hardwoods and very few pines. There is very little undergrowth here and it has nice open spaces for walking and looking down towards the pond.

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walking in open woods with jason’s family in early 2014

then the path goes down to the pond, curves up the hill slightly, and takes you right by the longest side of the pond where the mimosas will be blooming and where the frogs can already be heard singing lovely songs!

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the pond–the site where jason officially asked me to be his life partner

the path then leads into an already existing path that is framed by pine trees and littered with pine needles (this is the small portion of our land that always reminds me of a traveling scene in the lord of the rings films). this path is actually the top of the dam.

it goes out into a small clearing and then cuts back into our largest portion of woods that borders an even larger pond. it goes in the gulley for a while, through stove cove (named for the old rusting stove sitting in the middle of it) and starts to climb up the side of our largest hill towards areas that overlook the larger pond below. during this portion of the path, you can see other landmarks that we’ve named: the hanging tree, a pine that has snapped off from it’s base but is weirdly held in its place by adjacent pines and looks like it is floating vertically in air 12 feet off the ground; finger tree–also called hand tree–that has 5 trunks coming out of one stump with one trunk emerging from the stump closer to the ground (and thus looking like a thumb and 4 fingers), and bo bo tree, a large, fallen tree that we originally thought was struck by lightning and so we named it after bolt.

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hanging tree–what a crazy site!

bo bo tree is at the highest point in our land, and after going past this tree, the path curves back a bit in the direction of the house and tours the plateau, an interesting flat and wooded area that would be great for building a little cabin one day.

from there, the path goes downhill into a gully (that in another direction eventually connects to stove cove) and starts to climb uphill through running cedar, a lovely portion of forest that is blanketed with running cedar vines year-round. the path follows a natural deer trail through this area and eventually spits out into a very shady pine forest.

as you travel through this pine forest, the trees begin to get larger and less are standing. i’ve given this section of our land the name drunken pines, named after a pablo neruda poem and since so many of the pine trees have fallen or are leaning (i would say maybe half of the trees!). this part of the trail emerges at the edge of  a large area on our land that was a tobacco field about 7 years ago, and has since hosted small pines and blackberry vines.

the trail leads around this old field and right beside the old tobacco dryer and drying racks that still sit and wait for a better purpose…

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our old tobacco dryer… maybe a future tiny winery?

by this time those on the trial have sight of the house and yard and the path cuts down bridey’s run for a little while and right past the spot where we are about to plant a lot of fruit trees and where we are thinking of getting married. from there, the path leads right up to the house!

and… a little history about bridey’s run: it is an old road (wide path) that goes from our paved road down our property until the beginning of our pond’s dam, where it dead ends. this straight run down has been titled bridey’s run because bridey, our 15-year-old dog likes to run down this path. the only (comical) problem with this is that once she gets going, her old legs can’t stop and she “bunny hops” all the way down to the pond! so hilarious.

so this is what we did this weekend, and it was great fun! we’ve named this perimeter trail around our land dodger’s way because the first time we ever walked the entire property our cat dodger came with us, meowing all the way. he even came with us again this weekend, despite the fact it was raining! that’s a sign for sure; that dodger’s way is going to be a “good luck” path for many years to come.

.:.

creating new space for great things: cutting down a big oak tree

as jason mentioned in his post yesterday, this weekend we enlisted my father’s help to clear a dying oak tree in our yard. i’m hoping that we’ll decide to use most of the new-found space for garden beds and a small orchard! we both really love the idea of cutting the stumps (there were 4 large “fingers” that made up this tree) to make them into seats, a table, and perhaps even a foot rest! we’re also thinking about somehow incorporating the space into our wedding… perhaps where the ceremony itself takes place… but we’re not sure yet.

starting to work in this area around the tree, we weren’t totally sure what the final product would be. we had originally thought to start cleaning up around the barn by clearing and pruning, thereby opening up that spot for wedding antics–but jason and i couldn’t agree on how to approach it.

sometimes we have similar visions of what we’d like to do with our land/yard and other times we can’t agree at all–this was one of those times. that’s just the nature of love and partnership! we did both agree, however, that we wanted to clear the barn area but we couldn’t come to a consensus about what to do with the cut trees and the empty space we would end up with afterwards…

and so we dropped that idea and dove head first into working on the area around the oak!

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before: the many trunks of the oak tree (back and center, covered in snow)

there were a lot of pines and scrubby trees to cut and tons of green briar to rip out. as jason mentioned, poison oak abounds in that area, and although we killed a lot of it, we’ll certainly have to weed eat (or pig eat) in the near future.

we also found broken glass, tires, decaying lumber, metal (grates, tool boxes, cans, screws), plastic, and even a truck’s large tool rack. most items were trash but some were treasure!

after clearing all of the junk and the smaller growths under the large oak “fingers,” the chainsawing began. jason and i do not own our own chainsaw yet, and it is a big help to have a trusted family member willing to help! my dad has also helped out by cutting oak logs for this year’s mushroom crop. even though chainsaws are super useful, they still make me somewhat nervous (even though i’ve been around them my whole life) so i’m glad to have my dad help. he cut all four trunks of the tree about 4 feet off the ground, notching each of the trunks first so they would fall the way we wanted… except one of them. as soon as this one trunk (that he didn’t notch) started to go down, we could tell that the not-notching approach was not the best idea. the tree did fall the way we had hoped, but it bent upon itself and stayed partly attached to the stump. just looking at the result made me nervous!

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the aftermath of felling the oak trunk without the pre-cut notch. note the size of the tree and how much pressure is sure to be on the bent pieces.

jason and i stayed far away while my dad slowly tried out a couple options for bringing the tree the rest of the way down. first he cut off some larger limbs that appeared to be holding up the trunk. that made the tree shift but did not bring it down. then he tried to cut at the taught pieces of wood that were still attached at the location of the cut (keep in mind that all of the weight of the tree was bowing down these pieces, and it was a surprise that they had not already snapped when the tree fell). needless to say, during this time i yelled at my dad not to make the cuts into the taught, flexed, “wooden slingshots,” but he only grinned at me and went for it anyway. uggghhh… fathers! they can be such punks!

despite my anxiety, his cuts to this part of the tree did not result in injury, and he stopped cutting in that area once the tree shifted a little bit more. then he cut the rest of the limbs off that might have been holding the trunk in the air and we discovered that the tree was actually balancing on a single pine pole coming out of the ground. annoyingly, my dad decided that kicking the pine pole would knock the heavy trunk off and make the tree finally hit the ground. he did this, and in my mind, barely got his leg out of the way before the heavy trunk hit the dirt.

i was horrified by what i perceived to be an exercise in idiotic risk-taking, but he simply laughed at me and said “i knew what the tree was going to do… and my leg was out from under it well before it hit the ground. it didn’t even come near me!” yeah, right!

anyway, we all escaped without injury (which is not surprising for jason and i since we were well away from the action the entire time).

this video shows my father notching one of the trunks and then sawing through it… a much safer tree-cutting practice than the other!

once the portions of the tree were laying on the ground, my dad cut them into manageable rounds and jason and i stacked them “tipi style” so that they would dry better… and now we have two great mounds of firewood that we will need to process, split, and store in the near future.

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after: jason and bolt posing with the oak stumps n the background. what a changed view of our land!

so, not only did we clear the area of a dying tree and make way for future gardening and livestock practices, we also gained a lot of wood for next winter’s woodstove heating adventure! and although i hate to admit it, sometimes it is ridiculously fun to watch my dad act like a stupid teenager!

.:.

cutting mushroom logs: the magic begins!

i’m excited to report that we’ve officially begun our magical, mushroom adventure! this weekend my father and i cut 50 oak logs to serve as mushroom homes for the next 5 years!

we cut both white and red oak logs, to compare them as growing mediums and for the visual variety. the mushrooms that we are growing this year love oaks the best! we made both 3-foot and 4-foot logs, based on diameter of the limb/trunks (i have to be able to lift each of them for soaking in the future!). as luck would have it, 24 of the logs ended up as 3-footers and 26 as 4-footers. talk about balance!

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a red oak (leaning in the foreground) that we cut, only using the bottom portion that was alive at time

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my dad cutting an oak!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

when selecting trees, we picked ones closer to the road and ones that we could use most, if not all of, once felled. one of the trees we picked was broken off and hanging about 15 feet above the ground, so we cleared the area of the danger of the hanging wood while also getting our logs. we did not use the hanging portion of the tree, though, because that part had been dead for some time. we left that behind for future firewood and selected the green portions of the tree. choosing green wood is important because you don’t want to give bugs or molds and other fungi time to move into the dead wood before you inoculate. bugs might eat your spores and other fungi might compete with your own mushrooms!

my dad felled the tress with his chainsaw. ever since i was a kid he has impressed upon me the importance of chainsaw safety. the approach to felling these trees was no different than other times i have done tree work with him: i stood well away and was “ready to run” even though the trees were certainly on the small side!

after each tree hit the ground, i walked a wide circle around him (never walk up behind a chainsawing person!) and pulled the measuring tape to 3- or 4-foot lengths, depending. dad made a shallow cut at each measured length and once the entire tree was sectioned he cut the logs into individual pieces. some of the white oaks we chose were dead at the top (one of the reasons for choosing them), and this dead wood was also left behind for firewood or perhaps adding to hugelkulture beds soon.

after finishing each tree, we carried the logs to the road, taking careful not to scratch the bark too badly (the bark is important here, folks!)

in all, we cut 6 trees, half in the red oak family and half in the white oak family. our mushroom logs’ diameters range from 3-inches to 8-inches. once all the trees were done we loaded our trucks and drove them to the house.

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mushroom logs loaded in our truck

when we unloaded we were once again careful with each log, and i pruned the logs of any small limb nubs with a hand saw and held the logs still while dad chainsawed larger knots off. the purpose of this is to make sure that we can drill holes uniformly over the log before inoculation, as knots can be tough on drill bits.

our drying oak logs (with emma)!

our drying oak logs (with emma)!

now that we’re done “cleaning up” the wood, the logs have been stacked against the back of the house to dry for about 3 weeks until the wood’s natural anti-fungal defenses have mostly broken down (this decay generally gets into full swing about 2 weeks after cutting).

and there the logs will sit until we inoculate them in 3 weeks. now it’s time for stage 2: ordering our spores and other related gear (wax, drill bits, etc)!

.:.

 

maple syrup icicles: an unexpected surprise

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our maple tree, showing its foliage in fall 2013

when we moved our chickens a few weeks ago, we decided to put their mobile pen and house underneath a small maple tree that we have in our front yard. in order to do this, i had to prune some of the smaller branches that came lower than my height, so that we could attach the bird netting to the top of the pen (keeping chickens in and swooping hawks out). without removing some of the smaller, downward growing limbs and twigs, the netting would have been tangled and ridiculously hard to hang up.

the pruning of the lovely maple and the hanging of the netting went off without a hitch, but i noticed something interesting the next morning…

the weather had been below freezing the night we pruned the tree and there were many little (and some not-so-little) icicles formed where we had cut off small limbs and twigs. some of these icicles were 6 or 7 inches long and remained all day. i broke off one and sampled it! and behold… nature’s first popsicle! i certainly tasted a faint sweetness in the frozen sap.

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a delicious maple popsicle, formed at the end of a trimmed twig

i’ve recently learned that one of the legends about how the native americans first discovered the sweet sap of the maple was by stumbling across icicles formed at the end of broken twigs, just like me!

whether or not this legend is true, i certainly learned a lesson that day: discovering things accidentally by doing and by experimenting (as we adapted our netting to work around the tree) is often the best way to learn new things. because while researching and just already knowing things is valuable, sometimes you just need a new “ah ha!” moment to get your gears turning.

now our gears are turning and we’re thinking… “what about harvesting sap from some of our maples to supply us with the delicious maple syrup that we love?”

and now the seed of a new idea has sprouted, watered by the experience of trying that maple tree popsicle!

.:.

Permaculture Plants for the Homestead: Paulownia

Paulownia is a genus of fast growing deciduous trees native to the forests of China. Also known as the Royal Empress Tree, Paulownia tormentosa is often called the fastest growing hardwood tree in the world. Capable of growing 10-20 ft. in 1 year, and of being harvested for timber in 5-7 years, Paulownia trees are a useful tree for permaculturists who are seeking sustainable designs for their gardens, homesteads, and communities.

Paulownia, Royal Empress Tree

Paulownia tree blooming in early spring. Courtesy anja

Paulownia trees provide more than wood, though. In early spring, they are covered in numerous, beautiful bundles of purple flowers. These flowers provide nectar and pollen for honey bees and produce a marketable monofloral honey as well.

Paulownia can be coppiced as well as pollarded, and would make a great pioneer support species to use in food forest development. Their quick growth and large nitrogen rich leaves can enrich the surrounding area by building hummus and deepening soils.

Paulownia leaves and fodder

Large Paulownia leaves make excellent mulch, compost, and animal forage

These large leaves, up to 20% protein, also make good animal forage for cattle, goats, and other livestock as well.

Paulownia lumber is resistant to rot, though not as much as locust. It is very strong, and also very light. Its quick growth and high insulative value make it an ideal wood for a log cabin or roundwood timber building.

Royal Empress wood is sought after by woodworkers because of its strength, weight, and ease of carving. Guitar makers are especially fond of Paulownia wood.

Because of these attributes and the resulting demand, Paulownia trees demand a high price at timber markets, and offer an opportunity for small farmers to diversify their income streams by using marginable land to produce high quality, quick growing timber.

In a permaculture setting or food forest, Paulownia would guild well with other coppice grove species such as chestnut, hazelnut, and black locust. Its rapid growth and quick rotting leaves make it an excellent choice as a support species to other fruit and nut trees. It would also make fine hugelkulture wood. I envision using Pawlonia trees as both a pioneer species for soil growth, and in a coppice grove area along with smaller fruiting bushes, herbs, and long lived standard trees.

Empress tree,Paulownia

Paulownia tormentosa growing in NY. Courtesy Goosefriend

All of these attributes: rapid growth, high quality timber, prolific flowers, ability to coppice and regrow, along with being able to grow in depleted soils, and a natural resistance to insect and disease pressures, make Paulownia trees (tormentosa, elongata etc.) an extremely useful and valuable plant in the permaculture toolbox.

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