Simply Norma

It’s “only” September 14th and the weather has taken a turn — it’s cold! I walked outside and it was 45 with what must be a north wind.

The weatherman warned us about the change for the next couple of days so I went to my winter pile of clothes and pulled out a sweater. I needed more than a sweater this morning.

Yesterday I quickly finished planting the rest of the hyacinth and daffodil bulbs. Our dirt is mostly clay and sand so I’ve had to make several runs to the local Menard’s store to get topsoil. This morning I bought 5 more bags and will mix them in with the current dirt, put a weed cover on top and then add a layer of mulch over the weed cover. All this has to be completed before the first frost which  may be tomorrow.

I’ll be using the cool weather to work in our backyard and do some clean-up. There are quite a few large twigs that I’d like to have removed before winter sets in.

The autumn colors haven’t set in yet although I expect by next week we should see a bit of a change. Our neighbor told us that we don’t have to go to the “north shore” to see colors. (The north shore is the area around Lake Superior which we hear is beautiful all year around.) She explained that since there are so many trees in our neighborhood, the colors are just as brilliant.

It’s our first autumn in Minnesota. Once it’s over, we would have experienced every season here. And, even though last year we broke winter records, I think that so far, I like winter the best. Perhaps autumn will change my mind as that has always been my favorite season.

With at least 5 dead trees and large broken branches on our property, we had to hire a company to come and fell them. The company’s name was All Seasons Tree Service.

They arrived exactly when they said they would. There were 5 of them and it took 3 hours for them to complete their work.

The first project was to remove a large black cherry tree. Although this tree was dead, a large branch was ripped to the ground from it during one of our summer storms.

It didn’t take long for the worker to saw this tree down.

Since moving to Minnesota from Seattle last November, I am constantly fascinated by the different lifestyle that I am living. From urban to rural.  I couldn’t help but take a video of the worker cutting down our black cherry tree. It was simply delightful to me. I am enjoying all the “newness” of life.

These new experiences really tickle me inside and make me feel happy. I can’t explain it. Watching a worker (see below) sawing down a tree is pretty cool.

Worker Felling A Tree

Behind the black cherry tree, 2 dead oak trees were taken down — project 2. In Minnesota, the oak trees sometimes get a disease called oak wilt which causes the leaves to turn a bronze color. Oak wilt is a fungus and can be spread from one tree to another via grafted root systems as far away as 50 feet.

The fungus can also be transmitted via a beetle.

If an oak tree is diagnosed with oak wilt, most arborists recommend that the tree be removed immediately. As far as I can tell, there is no treatment for oak wilt so the tree will not recover.

We currently have an oak tree that is looking sickly — the leaves are starting to turn brown although all the other oak trees on our property are not yet changing colors. The arborist told us we should keep an eye on it and see what happens next spring.

Oak trees are very sensitive. They should not be disturbed, i.e. pruned, removed or worked around during the months of January – August. A rule of thumb I was given by an arborist was: Every month that ends in R is a good month to prune an oak tree. I hope the arborists in this area know what they are talking about.

Our third project was having the trees cut into smaller pieces so we can use them as firewood. The pieces aren’t quite small enough yet — we need to either buy a wood splitter or hire someone to do the work for us. Another thing to learn.

The old wood pile that the previous owner made needs some work.

With the cooler weather soon heading our way, this is a project I will be working on very soon so we can have all the logs “cured.” Curing means the logs have to dry out and this can take about a year. We don’t want any critters entering our house when we bring the wood in.