Hawthorn thorns

The hawthorn thorns are nasty, as you can see.  This is mostly new growth from this Spring.  Look at how long the thorns already are.

The hawthorn trees are very pretty in the Spring when they bloom.   They produce berries for the wildlife.  Here are berries on a branch I had cut.

The cattle aren't interested in the berries, but they are interested in the leaves. With all the green grass back then, some cattle insisted on eating some of the hawthorn branch leaves.  How the cattle didn't get stabbed by the thorns is a mystery.

After I had finished cutting and removing the hawthorn branches and removing the tree stumps, the next up was to get rid of (cutting) some odd-and-ends of branches on a few trees, then the small pieces of branches on the ground that were left.  I didn't want to step on the thorns or have the cattle avoid the ground and grass due to the thorns.

While the hawthorn wood is strong and doesn't like to be cut or broken off, I then found on the ground all over quite a few small branch pieces that had broken off the larger branches.  Really?!  Just to be annoying to me?!

I got a rake and raked to gather the pieces.  The less I had to touch the branches the better.  That was because I keep getting stabbed when touching the branches, even when I wore leather gloves.  I raked up over a half dozen wheelbarrow loads of pieces. 

The hawthorns were hard on my rake and I had to fix my rake when the branches and grass took the rake head off the handle.  I wasn't thinking clearly.  I just wanted to be done with the hawthorn work.  Using a wheelbarrow?  Not the best thing.  The wheelbarrow's wheel is filled with air.  And... the wheelbarrow tire went flat after the first day of work.  Most of my wheelbarrow loads was on a flat tire. Not the easiest way to move a fully loaded wheelbarrow.  I didn't bother fixing or replacing the tire as it would get flat again.

After I had finished the hawthorn work, in between other work items I found some time to work on my wheelbarrow tire.  My neighbor Curtis thought I could fix the tire like I do with my bicycle tires.  I gave it a try.  After I got the tire off the rim I looked for thorns.  I found 10 or so that I had to pull out of the tire.  Days later I worked on patching the tire.  Where were all those punctures again?

Once I thought I had patched all the punctures I inflated the tire.  After a while the tire started to feel softer.  I put the tire in a water trough and found four air leaks.  This time I marked the spots.   Now too find the time to re-fix the tire.