spring 13

After an absence of more than two years, I am here to resume blogging for those family, friends and followers who might be interested in my life, and the lives of people and plants in my neighborhood.

Spring has come on strong where i live. Inexorably, it bites the browngray ashen eyes of winter in a few wistful in-between weeks. Wham! there's buds and grass, and calves, and birds- worms- chomping -gnashing- jungles of insects and ticks! lots of them, raking the air to catch a host on the tip of a wee-leafing yellowhorn bush, sticking just out the top of a blue tree shelter installed to protect from wind, predation, but mainly a flag for 'human-with-weedwhacker':) Yellowhorn (Xanthoceras sorbifolia) is a little known nut tree from china that is exceptionally ornamental. check it out, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xanthoceras 

I woke up one day and discovered blooms on quite a few of the trees ive planted. Apples, a cherry, two peaches, a mulberry and over 60 blueberries. Nature has a way of bursting and giving an impetus to stagnant energy, a boost to lazy minerals ready to go to town on the cation exchange. likewise, i was given a boost to take my farming a little more seriously and make a cozier home for those budding bushes and trees trying to give me a first taste of their nourishing products that promise to show up after a season of sun, rain and root sucking fun:)

Today, Sea came up we made a cooperative of the blueberry crop. Together we layered tree bark mulch ontop of well-composted manure from a goat dairy in the county, then sprinkled cottonseed meal and soil acifying pellets (not much) around all 60 or so blueberries. Finally, we walked around to all of them offering a personal blessing for massively optimal health and luxuriant growth of their eerie bright blue-green leaves and red shoots. This latter step included a diluted squirt of fish fertilizer poured about the roots;)

 mulberry tree with tiny squinty-eyed influorescent and frankly WEIRD looking blooms. Some trees leaf out first, some bloom first, this guy does it simultaneous

Most of these 47 bushes on a north facing slope were planted in 2009 in what was previously virginia pine. Notice the pine stumps, that's a perfect site for blueberries. The north slope is cooler to keep the blooms delayed in case of warm february/march temperatures. Special thanks to Beth Lomski, Josh Goran and others who know their names- helped clear and plant that year.

Part of being a tree geek---besides knowing nearly all the scientific names of the most the woody species inhabiting the mixed mesic hardwoods of the southern mountains and being able to identify them by bark, bud, leaf, growth form..., *hem, hem.* excuse me.

Part of being a tree geek is that i actually sell firewood, if you would like a load of firewood custom cut to length, split and stacked and you live near Asheville north carolina, call or text. (sixoneseven) 470-94threesix.

Part of selling firewood, is that while driving at moderate speeds on winding mountain roads and moderate to high speeds on the freeway [depending on distance] is that I can identify dead trees suitable for selling as firewood. Actually, i have come to identify the species of a dead, dry or fallen tree based on its rot pattern, the way it lays and loses its bark etc. Sourwood is particularly nice for its barkless, blotchy pink and gray rot.

So, while driving like a tree geek on a winding mountain road named Hooker's Gap, i discovered some quality wood laying around that I made part of my weekly load to Farm and Sparrow bakery. More interesting however, was the discovery of an orchard of ten or more large and living chestnut trees in a bend of road that i just had to stop by to inspect/adore. They seemed to be Chinese trees, Castanea mollisima, probably 50-70 years old in various forms of health and one near dead.

That brick ranch house in the back seemed uninhabited else i would have knocked and hoped to talk about their trees. Eerie property with a nice flat and shady orchard of chestnuts.

Thats enough for now, Goodnight.