Tree trimming done

I finally finished the tree trimming on the box elder trees over the patio.  I earlier mentioned how windy it was the first day I started the trimming.  The second day I moved from standing on a ladder to standing in the tree. The wind picked up strong again just as I started the trimming.  So another slow day of trimming.

Every day when I started I thought I would finish the trimming that day.  Nope.  I found that I am more cautious now than when I last trimmed this tree back in May 2019.  So I went slower.   And I found when I went up in the tree I found more dead branches to cut.  And when walking around the tree at different angles I found more branches to be cut.  And each day I would notice more to cut.  Would it ever end?

I thought the trimming would take a day or two.  Today I finally finished the work.  I thought today I would be only hauling off the cut branches.  But then I decided to try to toss a rope over and around some higher dead branches I can't reach via ladder.  Donna didn't think I could throw so high.  I tied the end of the rope to an extra pipe fitting.  It took a number of attempts but I finally got the rope up and over a few branches.  I was able to break off a couple smaller dead branches.  But I found the slightly larger dead branches were not dead enough to break off by pulling on them.  Maybe if I attached the rope to the pickup and drove off the branch would break, but I had branches already on the ground to haul off.  I'll let those dead branches die a little more and try again some day.

I broke off only a small part of these branches.   The rest wouldn't break off, even though they look like they would break.

Here is some of my earlier work on the trimming.

The tree branches split here many years ago.  Now it is a place to stand when I am in the tree.

Don't know why, but the view in the photo is odd.  The branches are going out, and up, but in this view they look like they are going down.  I went up - very slowly and carefully - on the branches in the middle and upper parts of the photo, partially standing at times on the branch that goes down to the lower right corner, that is actually going mostly out.

The branch in the middle of the photo and going up the upper right corner, is starting to die at its end.  So I chain sawed and cut this branch close by the main tree trunk.

The cut branch.

Where I cut the branch near the tree trunk.  The branch was partially cut by the chain saw, then the branch fell.  That is why the rest of the branch is a lighter color.  The bark pulled off the remaining part of the branch as it fell.

Then back to ladder work another day as that was safer to do than try to move out on the branch way up high.

In the photo after this one, that was where the ladder was.  I had done some earlier trimming.  Then I decided to trim the end of the branch the ladder was against.  This branch was still good, but the section I cut off was just beyond the patio.  So it was easy to chainsaw.

Of the three branch ends, standing on the ladder I used a long pole saw to reach (barely) and trim the right most branch.  That branch was not so big but took me a long time to cut as I had to be careful as I moved and also had to take a number of breaks to rest.  I didn't want to get tired.  That is when mistakes are made.

To protect my patio roof I placed a crappy board on the patio roof.  The fiberglass patio roof is old and bad.  I plan to replace that roof but that is another day - and year if I can wait and do other projects first.  This board worked as it saved the fiberglass even if the board was slightly cracked from the impact.

I chain sawed this branch.  It is the middle branch of the tree cut branches in the previous photo.  I could just reach the branch using a chain saw.

You can see the cut when you look at the top of the ladder.  I didn't want to chance the branch would not fall straight down, so I moved the ladder over to continue the cut.  Even so, after cutting some more on the branch I didn't want to finish the cut when holding the chainsaw out when standing on the ladder.  Sometimes when cutting through a branch with your arms held way out it can be hard to stop the chainsaw movement after the cut is complete.   So I got a rope and tossed it over the branch.  Then I stood on the ground and pulled the cut part of the branch down.

The view after I removed the branch.

The cut branch.  And you can see how little of the branch held the branch onto the rest of the branch until I pulled on it.

Another chainsawed branch.  Again I used the board to protect the side part of the patio.   Initially I thought of standing on a ladder and using a pole saw to cut a small part of this branch that looked to be dying.   Then I thought, nah, make it easier for me and climb up the tree, trim some of a side branch so I could move out on this branch to then reach a side branch of the side branch I was on.  It was slow, but it worked.  In the two photos you can see how long this side-side branch was.

Some of my cut branches.   Plus the main pile of cut branches.  At the bottom of the second photo are the branches from the evergreen tree near this pile.  That tree was what started my tree trimming.  

So these box elder trees are about halfway trimmed.  I can't go any higher either by using ladders or climbing in the tree.  I remembered a tall Lombardi popular tree down the road that was cut to half its height last year.  That tree seemed to be as tall as my box elder trees.  So one evening I rode my bicycle over and talked to the people as to how they cut their tree.  I remember seeing a scissor lift there.  Maybe I can get higher if I rented and used one.  They got high but not high enough.  They then hired a person who cuts trees.  He also used a scissor lift to get up high, then still had to climb up the tree manually and cut smaller sections of the tree so the cut sections didn't fall on the house next to the tree.  I asked how much it cost him to rent a scissor lift.  A thousand dollars.  Okay.... maybe I'll think of another method to get high to trim my tree.  Another day.  Another year.

My trimmed trees.

I am happy to be finally done with my tree trimming.  Now on to my other projects.

Celtic Festival

I would have posted this blog post yesterday but I lost my camera for a while and then didn't have my Celtic Festival photos.  Late afternoon to sundown I was working on my tree trimming.  Occasionally I would take photos.  I switched from setting my camera on my house entryway area, to the back of my bicycle.  Some time ago earlier this year, when riding my bicycle in a rainstorm, on the shoulder of the road I found a plastic lid.  I used it then, and now, on my bicycle rack to stop my tire from throwing water on my back when riding in the rain.  

I had placed the camera on the plastic lid.  I worked until dark.  Then I rode my bicycle to check my mail and then a little way down the road.  I forgot about my camera.  Later I remembered my camera.  Where did I leave it?  On my bicycle?  I re-rode where I had ridden.  But it was getting dark and I couldn't find my camera.   This morning in the daylight I found my camera on my driveway.  Whew.

Saturday Donna and I went to the annual Celtic Festival west of Kalispell.  Music, games, clans.  We spent a little time there watching a few games, listening to a little music, and watching a parade.

Throwing a stone.

Tossing a straw bale over a bar that got higher and higher.

It was a nice day.

Tree trimming, wind, and more

I didn't get all my box elder tree trimming done today.  It got very windy.  20 mph to 40 mph.  I had to be careful the wind didn't blow me off a tall ladder.  And I had to be careful where the cut branch would fall as it often did not fall straight down, but sideways due to the wind.  I didn't want the branch to hit me. So the wind slowed my trimming down.

I think I may have PTSD about the wind.  I grew up on the Plains and lived half my life there.  It is almost always windy there. I was used to it as I thought everywhere was like that.  Here in the Flathead it usually is not windy.  I got used to not much wind.  Certain times of the year, due to the major weather pattern changes, it can be windy.  This year it seems to be much more windy than usual.  And this wind is now driving me crazy.

I haven't found my missing sunglasses.  I've looked and looked and now have given up.  Hopefully some day I will find them.  I still think I may have left them on a fence post.  But maybe not.  I've noticed since then when digging a deep hole and setting a trap to catch a pocket gopher, sometimes I take my sunglasses off as it is too dark in the deep hole.  Maybe I left my sunglasses somewhere in the hayfield where I was trapping pocket gophers.

I've trapped more pocket gophers this year than usual.  I cleared the hayfield of gophers before the first hay cutting.  Then after the hay cutting I worked on clearing the hayfield again.  I got sidetracked trapping the gophers in my neighbor Ruth's yard.  I got back to my hayfield but I was irrigating by then and the grass and alfalfa grew tall.  It was harder to find fresh dirt mounds.  And the irrigation lines slowed and stopped my trapping.  I got most, but not all, of the hayfield cleared before the second cutting.  During the second cutting I found more new dirt mounds, and once the second cutting was done, I went back to trapping.  For whatever reason, after the second cutting many more pocket gophers moved in.  And I trapped another gopher from Ruth's yard.  I am almost done clearing the hayfield again.  Slowing me down now is one or two pocket gophers that fill or cover the traps with dirt and don't go in the traps. Tonight the one gopher gave up.  He filled the trap with dirt, but then also filled the tunnel with dirt.  Usually most tunnels and traps are a few inches below the top of the ground.  This gopher's tunnel was a foot and a half below ground.  When making his tunnel he pushed all the dirt to the top of the ground.  A lot of work.   Since the tunnel is so far down, and the ground top is solid alfalfa, it is hard to find another tunnel.  I had to quit as it was getting dark.  Tomorrow morning I'll see if I can find the gopher's tunnel.

My pickup is still not fixed.  I stopped by when riding my bicycle this morning.   He said it is not the fuel pump that is the problem.  He thinks it is an electrical problem.

The walnut tree is doing fine.  I haven't picked the walnuts yet.  But the time is getting closer.  Here is photo of one walnut tree.  When I irrigated my fields I also extended one line to run a few sprinklers in my yard.  As you can see the walnut tree's leaves stopped some of the watering.  Green is where the water reached.  Brown, the tree stopped the water.

Some trimming on the box elder patio trees

I haven't hauled off the tree trimming branches I did a few days ago.  First I drove my tractor to the John Deere dealership south of town so they can work on and fix my tractor.  It will take a while.  I bungee corded my bicycle to the tractor's load arms so I could ride home afterwards.

Before hauling the branches I decided to trim a few branches off the box elder trees over my patio.  That way I can make a one trip to haul off the branches.

That wasn't my initial plan, but the end of one branch had died and I thought I would cut it off.  Initially I had the ladder on the ground.  Fully extended it just reached the branch.  I slowly climbed up to cut with my handsaw.  It was iffy.  At the top I had to hold on to parts of the branch with one hand and could only use one hand to cut on the branch.  It was going very slow.    The cattle in the north pasture must have seen me as they came to the corral gate and started mooing.   They wanted apples.  And they have eaten the north pasture grass down and wanted to go to the middle pasture. 

The ladder was almost straight up and down and had little lean to it.  I didn't want to go up and down the ladder, but between the cattle mooing and the slow cutting I gave up and headed down.  Going down was harder than going up.   I had a fear of the ladder falling backwards.  I made it safely.

After feeding two pails of apples to the cattle and then letting them into the middle pasture and then carrying their salt block to a feeder in the pasture, it was back to cutting that branch.  I decided to put the ladder in the pickup bed.  That way I can get more lean on the ladder and still reach the branch.   I bungie corded the ladder to the pickup bed so the ladder wouldn't slip when I was on the ladder.  The ladder was still steep, though the first photo doesn't capture the steepness or height.

I tried using the handsaw but it was still slow.  I was leery about using a chainsaw to cut the branch as I still held onto the branch with one arm.  But I tried the chainsaw.  It worked better than I expected and I was able to safely and quickly cut the branch.

These are big and tall trees.  You can see how some of the upper branches are dying.  I can't get that high though I'd like to trim those trees from the top.

The branch I chain sawed.

There are a few more branches to trim on those trees.  I'll see tomorrow how high and how many branches I can trim.

Cattle back to north pasture

This morning I got up early (for me) to let the cattle back to the north pasture. They had eaten down the grass in the NE pasture and fruit tree area pretty well.

This photo is of my rhubarb area.  The rhubarb was done growing for the year so there was nothing for the cattle to eat but some weeds I hadn't removed yet.  So I didn't put up fencing to protect the area.  I guess I should have.  The weeds are gone.  I didn't look but I think the rhubarb roots are still there.  Otherwise the cattle used the area for a dirt bath.

This is one of the cherry trees.  You can't see it but I wrapped the lower tree leaves with a small chicken wire type of fencing.  The cattle pushed under the outer fencing and then pushed up the small chicken wire fencing to eat what leaves they could get to.

I had a small section of wire on top of this wire and added a few pieces of wire to hold it in place.  It didn't work.  I found the small section of wire elsewhere and the leaves that stick out of this wire eaten.  The cattle tried to move the lower wire but the posts held it in place. 

I had a few other small trees with wire and posts.  I see the cattle tried to push and move those wires as the posts were tilted, but they held and protected the small trees.

The small pear tree survived.

I found this on the fencing around the large pear tree.

I had a few box elder trees in the fruit tree area.  I like when the cattle eat the lower leaves and new green branches as I then don't have to prune them.

The cattle pushed a temporary corral panel I am using as fence and bent it.

The protection I did in the NE pasture worked as the cattle didn't get to any of the trees there.  Now that the cattle are out of the NE pasture, this afternoon I removed the wire fencing on several of the trees.  For these trees I will expand the fencing as the trees were crowded inside the fencing.  I will do it later.  Most likely, though that is not the plan, it will be just before I let the cattle back into the NE pasture someday.

This is my old round baler.  It uses twine to wrap the bales.   Whenever the cattle are in the NE pasture they have access to the baler.  This time the cattle pulled as much of the twine as they could put of the baler.  I have the end of the twine tied to the baler grill.    That didn't stop the cattle.  They pulled and pulled on the twine, and the twine went through the placeholders and out of the bale of twine in the baler's side box.  I had twine wrapped around the end of the baler and then around the tractor bucket, and then out way across the NE pasture.   It took me over 10 minutes to pull the twine back into the bale of twine.   Those cattle!!!

I got 99% of the twine pulled back into the bale of twine.  I had to stop when I got to this chewed up knot of twine from the cattle chewing on the twine.

Here is another photo of the tree I trimmed yesterday.

Before... and after.

Trimming tree branches on tree in yard

The tree by the well for the house, the one that was damaged in June of 2020 (Life among the Tall Pines: Tree damage (tallpinesranch.blogspot.com)), had a few dead branches that needed trimming.

The tree is taller than it looks.  It's hard to see the dead branches in the photo taken back the beginning of August...

but since then, trimming those branches was on my to-do list.  Today I finally got around to the trimming.  I got the ladder out and climbed to the top of the tree.  I found more than the couple of dead branches.  I found other branches that were somehow still alive.  In the previous photo a dead branch is the curving branch at the top and going towards the left.  One "still alive" branch can be seen at the very top where the end of the branch is splitting away from the tree trunk.

The view at the top of the tree...  the part of the trunk splitting to the left is the same one seen in the previous photo.  

This is another "still alive" tree branch.  I have another photo of this branch once I got it down to the ground.

Yet another "still alive" tree branch after I cut it off the tree trunk.  So many branches, and the cut branches have side branches, so the cut branch can be difficult to get down off the tree.  It was chore to do so as I had to be careful not to fall while doing so.

Here are the 'down on the ground' photos.  The end view and the side view showing how long the branch was.  It is amazing the branch was so big and so alive as so little was attached to the tree trunk.

The tree after I removed the trimmed branches.  Still taller than it looks.

I ended up with three dead branches and four "still alive" branches.  Here are the branches after I trimmed the needles and side branches from them.  Later I will cut them up and use them for firewood in my wood stove.

Before working on the tree I had given the cattle a couple of pails of apples.  They wanted more and would moo at me on occasion when I was in the tree or later cutting the branches on the ground.  Speckles watching me and often she would moo.

Tomorrow I will load up the trimmings and haul them out to the pasture for them to decay in an out of the way low area.

Fruit tree area

This afternoon I prepared the fruit tree area for the cattle.  Not as much to do as I did in the NE pasture, but still some work.

This is a cherry tree.  I planted it over 15 years ago.  The cattle have abused it a few times over the years.  Mainly the tree would kind of die off a number of times and then come back from the ground.  I'm not sure why I keep putting up with this tree.  Since it again came from the ground this year, I took down the large fencing and put in place small fencing to protect the tree from the cattle.

This is the small pear tree.  If you remember, this Spring the cattle got around the fencing and ate many of the tree's leaves.  This time I put some small/narrow rolls of fencing around the tree in addition to the large fencing the cattle got around this Spring.

The large pear tree is producing many pears this year.  Unlike my apple trees which are producing no apples this year.  The apple trees of the neighbors are producing many apples for the cattle this year.

The large pear tree is odd.  It is more growing up and not out.

The pears are weighing some branches down.  I removed these pear as I don't want the cattle to reach them, or the branches.

Once I finished the protection I let the cattle in.  A few cows were nearby, and they came walking over when I opened the gate and would not reclose it.  The other cattle further away saw this and came over quickly.  They mooed and the cattle in the corral who couldn't see the fruit tree area heard and they came running.

I closed my driveway gate as I don't trust the cattle not breaking the old fence to the yard.  I started the rebuild of this fence to become a rail fence last Fall.  I thought I would have finished the rebuild this Spring, or at least by now.  But, of course, no.  Another project for this Fall once I get a few other things done.

NE pasture

Late this afternoon I let the cattle into the NE pasture.  First I had to do some work to protect some of the trees.  This Spring the cattle bent some metal posts and fencing in order to get to some of the caragana trees.  So I redid those posts and fencing to protect the caragana trees.

Then the posts and fencing around a few of the evergreen trees. Last year I had redid the posts and fencing around other evergreen trees in the NE pasture.  This year I redid and enlarged the fencing around two of the other three evergreen trees that were trying to outgrow the fencing and where the cattle tried to push through the fencing to reach these trees.  

The third tree's fencing I'll do another time.

After I let the cattle into the Ne pasture.

After I let the cattle into the NE pasture I noticed they had once again tried to break the wooden salt feeder.  They only had been in the north pasture where the salt feeder is located for a few days.  I had last fixed this salt feeder the end of July last year.  I had to fix the legs once again.  Two new legs and new end boards.

While I was nailing the end boards some of the nails would bend as I nailed them.  I had to go get a pair of pliers to straighten the nail and hold it as I nailed the nail.  Not everyone nail.  One of the last nails started to bend as I nailed it.   But I couldn't find the pliers. I looked for five to ten minutes and couldn't find the pliers.  I had not left the area since I last used the pliers, and it was only minutes since I last used the pliers.  Where are they?!!!  Finally I went and got a search magnet and another pair of pliers.  Using the magnet I couldn't find the pliers.  So I used the other pliers to finish nailing the boards.

After I had the tools and extra boards put away I searched for the pliers one last time.  I finally found the pliers in the grass and dirt away from where I had been working.  Why there?  I don't know.

The other 'lost' item is really annoying me right now.  Last week when riding my bicycle I found a pair of sunglass on the shoulder of the highway.  No lens scratch.  A great pair of sunglasses and ones that look great.  My favorite sunglasses now.  Well... today I took them off when working.  I then forgot about them.  When working on fixing the salt feeder I remembered I left the sunglasses somewhere.  All I can remember is leaving the sunglasses on a fence post somewhere.   Where?  I don't remember.   I had to set the sunglasses on a fence post as putting them in my pocket would most likely crack or break them.  I looked around this evening and can't find the sunglasses.  It is really annoying me.  I'll have to relook tomorrow.

Tree branch on my power line

Last week a small tree branch fell on the power line to my house.  Actually, on the wire cable that goes between the power poles on my place.  Initially the branch was on the wire over the road.

Then a few days later the branch moved down the cable and was over my property.  The wind must have blown it along the cable.   The way my luck had been recently I didn't want to chance something bad may happen.   If you look at the previous photos you see a short large "thing" on the power line and on the cable.  They are how the lines were put back together after a tree fell on the line and cable ten or so years ago.  There are a number of splices on each line as the line and cable broke in several places. I didn't want to trust the splices wouldn't come apart due to this small branch.  Today I got my orchard ladder and a long pole and got the branch off the cable.  Success.