Now that spring has a firm hold on us around here we get to take stock of the situation left by Old Man Winter. The aftermath of the December ice storm has required a fair amount of cleanup; downed branches and debris litter the yard everywhere. Conveniently enough, however, winter also took its toll on our wood pile! The two go hand-in-hand, of course, requiring only a little (considerable) effort from us.The damage was not pretty. It was interesting to see how different trees sustained it. All the gray birches out back were bent over by the ice, and, as Robert Frost knows, they're still like that. One could do worse than be a swinger of birches!
Most other trees, however, lost limbs. Pines took it the hardest, but maples lost their fair share as well. Our old, overgrown apple tree also lost a major limb--quite a loss. The tricky part was that most of those maple branches were hung up 30-40 feet in the air, and not very securely. This was where my parents saved the day. As an anniversary gift, they hired an arborist to do some quality pruning for us. He brought his climbing harness and chainsaw, and within a couple hours had cleaned up the canopy and our diminutive orchard. Thanks, M + D!
So the rest is up to us, transforming all the fallout to either a huge brush pile or a stylish wood pile. What could be a better way to spend April break?
