LEGACY PROJECT

In my fever to get things done around the property, I hit upon the idea of putting in an orchard. Not a massive orchard, you understand, but a domestic sized orchard with a few apple trees, a pear tree or two, maybe a peach tree, and a specialty tree: I wanted to plant a crabapple tree in memory of my friend Natalka's mother, Daria Husar Struk, who died in 2020, at age 100. Daria was a marvel. She even picked her time to die very well: just before the advent of Covid-19, which she would have enjoyed even less than the rest of us. Daria loved the pink blossoms of a crabapple tree, and I discussed with Natalka my wish to plant a tree in her memory. The first summer I moved here, an excellent young guy named Mark built four raised vegetable beds for me. Mark has a business called Gourmet Greens Organics, and he's a wealth of knowledge about planting vegetables. I sent Mark an email, asking if he'd come and inspect a flat area on my south lawn for its suitability as the site of a dwarf orchard. This flat area had previously been a large gravel children's play area with swings and slides and a climbing apparatus. I'd removed most of the gravel, depositing much of it on my neighbours' driveway, whereupon goldenrod plants took over, rooting very lightly amidst the gravel. Mark agreed that we could plant a drawf orchard of about eleven trees, but first we'd have to cut down about a dozen old pines that were casting too much shadow on the lawn. (Notice I refer to "we". In truth, the only "we" part of this operation has been the sunny afternoon that I pulled up lots of dead goldenrod.) Mark chainsawed down the pines and a dead spruce or two, plus one maple which will make excellent firewood a few years from now. Yesterday he brought in a wood chipper and - you know how it is when you steam spinach? You put a mountain of spinach in the steamer and four minutes later you have one small helping of steamed spinach. That's what the wood chipper was like. There's maybe a few bushels of wood chips on the south lawn, but those chips will be like steamed spinach at the base of my fruit trees early this spring. However, I know very well that this will be a legacy orchard, for I might not be here by the time the first apple is picked. Stand by for photos.

HOME IMPROVEMENTS, PART TWO

Last year I decided I wanted to replace the heavy wooden gates at the south entrance to the property. Each gate was an impenetrable 8 feet by 8 feet and they weighed a ton. Because of their weight, they had started to drag on the ground, making them very hard to open when a service truck needed to drive onto the property. Also, they looked formidable, as though they should come with their own moat and drawbridge. I liked the more open, friendly look of a set of metal farm gates. Happily, steel farm gates come prepainted in green, and I'm a fan of colour, especially when I don't have to apply it. I ordered a set of farm gates and the corresponding bolts from a nearby farm supply business, and they promptly delivered them. I figured I'd install them myself....till I picked up one of the gates and found I could only move it about a foot at a time. In my nearby little village, finding a handyman would be harder than finding a hardware store and, believe me, there's no hardware store here. You want hardware? You're probably driving to Orangeville, whether you like it or not. Now, oddly enough, the Home Hardware store in Orangeville is well equipped, and it even has a notice board in the front entrance, with the services of several handymen advertised. I took some cards, and the first one to call me back was Casey. I asked if he could install farm gates. He could. He did, and very efficiently, too. Here's my farm gates. They sure look nice and level, just the way I'd hoped. Now I won't have to dig a moat and install a drawbridge. Thank you, Casey!

HOME IMPROVEMENTS, PART ONE

Winter has set in. It's not my favourite season. It doesn't even get fourth prize in the My Favourite Season contest. I flat-out dislike winter. So my strategy to avoid winter is to take up home improvements to beguile the weary days till it's warm again. It's embarrassing to remember how many years ago it was that I removed the very damaged roof on the well shed. I'm thinking it was maybe August of 2019. I removed the entire roof, which was no mean feat, putting a claw hammer through my forehead in the process, then covered the entire shed with a layer of heavy duty vapour barrier. That was a brilliant move, because it enabled sunshine to come into the shed but kept the rain out. I definitely intended to put a proper roof on it before that first winter, but it didn't happen. And as time went by, I really liked being inside the well shed. I built a new wooden cover for the well, cleaned out the interior of the shed, painted the exterior, and I was pretty happy with it. But with a property like this, you always have to look ahead to a time when someone else will own it, and it's unlikely that person will appreciate vapour barrier as a roofing material. So I went to see Trevor, who works at McKinnon's Timber Mart in the nearby village of Hillsburgh, and asked if he could recommend someone to put a metal roof on the well shed. And that's how I met Rod. Trevor gave me Rod's number, I chose my preferred style of red metal roof, and Rod brought over a buddy about ten days ago. So here I am with a lovely red metal roof, which looks exactly like I laid an open book down on top of the vapour barrier. Even better, Rod built the new roof on top of my vapour barrier, making me feel that I had been part of the process all along. Isn't it handsome?

AN EXTRAORDINARY BIRTHDAY GIFT

On my last birthday, I saw the little red flag on my rural mailbox was raised, so I headed across the street to bring in the mail. Inside the mailbox was a soft package, and my sister's handwriting was on the package. My sister, who lives in Kingston, has developed an interest in needlework in recent years. A couple of years back, she quilted a set of placemats for me depicting a row of Newfoundland jellybean houses: those brightly-coloured rowhouses that line some of the streets of St. John's. I love the placemats, use them often, and they never fail to attract admiration from guests, especially because while the colours are the same, each of them is unique. I got back to the house, opened the package, and was amazed to see a piece of textile art inside. It was a landscape, and while it had a familiar appearance, I couldn't quite place it. She had sewn pieces of brown patterned fabric in the shape of tree trunks, against a background of pearl-white satin. You know how they say a picture is worth a thousand words? Here's the piece of textile art.

Once I had marvelled over the piece, I recognized a spot of yellow on the piece, which instantly located the scene: it was an image of my little yellow boathouse on the edge of a pond, as seen through the trees. I was transfixed to realize she had even added the reflection of the boathouse in the pond water. Inside the package was a note from her, explaining that she had found a photograph on this blog, and decided to render it in fabric as a gift for me. It took me a while to find the photograph, and I'm not going to make it easy for you, either. You'll have to scroll back to a blog post entitled Spring Forward, dated March 6, 2022, when I'd gone down to the island for my first visit of the year, after an unbearably long winter, and had my first presentiment that winter might actually end. It's odd that I should choose today to write this blog post, as it snowed again for the first time this afternoon. Once I'd gotten familiar with this new piece of art for my home, I had to decide how to display it. I'd been saving a beautiful piece of board, and I mounted the piece of textile art on it, and decided to title it Boathouse. I photographed it for my sister; she also liked the board backdrop, but suggested I add some text underneath, to anchor it. I read through the blog post, found a few lines of text which I felt captured the mood of the textile art, and wrote that text underneath. Then I sent a photograph of it to my sister. "Perfect', she said. And that is how I come to have this remarkable piece of art hanging on the wall of one of the guestrooms. Our great-nephew, Benjamin, was recently visiting for a few days. He immediately recognized the scene, as the island is one of his favourite places to visit, and he was just amazed that Auntie Lesley had made such a beautiful work of art. He has since claimed that room for his own, and given me a colour scheme for the walls. Here's how it looks. I can't begin to tell you how delighted I am with it. This is a gift that has made getting older feel worthwhile.

THE RETURN OF KAT AND JOSH

If you've been reading this blog for a while ('a while' being last October), you'll recall that I sold my beloved motorcycle, Clyde, to a fabulous young woman named Katarina. Her partner, Josh, was already a motorcyclist and Kat was just about to take her test. It had been a stressful time for me, worrying about giving up Clyde and therefore, my youth. I didn't want him to go to the wrong owner. I wanted him to go to another female rider, one who would care for him and love him like I did. Well, when I met Kat, I suddenly lost all my stress, because she was so right for Clyde, and Clyde seemed to feel the same about her. I was really thrilled to have a text from Kat to say she'd passed the motorcycle test and when spring came, she and Josh would be out getting used to riding the open road together...but apart, on two separate bikes. We planned that once she was comfortable, they'd ride up here for a visit, so I could see Clyde - and them - again. A couple of weeks ago, Kat and Josh made good on their promise. I was pretty thrilled!

I took them on a walk around the property, nonchalantly swinging my chainsaw, because Josh and I had joked last year that we were going to see if Kat also wanted to add "lumberjack" to her resume. Now, Kat had never taken down a tree with a chainsaw before, but she was definitely not intimidated, listened carefully to the instructions, and promptly took down two trees. I didn't measure, but they were at least 15 feet high. I was out on the land today and was amused to see that a third tree, very near Kat's trees, had come down all on its own. It was probably thinking, "If Kat comes back, I'm a goner. Might as well call it a day right now." Well, I definitely hope they'll both come up for a longer visit. It's funny: you occasionally meet new people and instantly realize you like them uncommonly well. That is the case with Kat and Josh. Somehow it feels like they belong here. A word on Clyde: Kat has made some excellent improvements to Clyde: removed the windscreen and the logos on the gas tank, installed new mirrors and repositioned the licence plate. Clyde looks so handsome. I'm looking forward to seeing them all again soon.

LOGGING ON (THE ISLAND)

There are a fair number of tall, skinny trees on the island, but the tree I'm here to tell you about today is a tall, skinny, diseased, dead maple with a distinct tilt southwest. It looks like an accident waiting to happen. When I say tall, I estimated this one at around 70 feet. It's one of the taller trees on the island, and because it's so high up there, it looks much skinnier than it is.

I decided last fall that one of my first spring projects would be to bring it down and cut it up. It wasn't until I headed down there with my larger chainsaw that I realized how much thicker it was than the capacity of my chain saw. However, since the lower trunk is bifurcated, I figured I could tackle each fork of the trunk individually. I had a new chain on the chainsaw, and I'd charged up two batteries. The eastern fork of the trunk was really no problem. Clearly all the strength of the tree was on the west side. I'm a patient person, so I worked on it carefully until the bar and chain of the saw got pinched by the weight of the tree leaning down on it. This happens frequently in my experience, so I didn't waste time trying to pull it free. After all, this tree was maple, not balsa wood. I opened up the side door of the chainsaw, disconnected the bar and chain from the sprockets, and left them in the tree. In the worst case scenario, I figured I could buy a new bar and chain. It was starting to rain, so I came home with only the body of the chainsaw, charged up the batteries and decided to wait overnight, because it occasionally happens that a partially cut tree that is leaning will be overcome by gravity and come down on its own. This morning it was still standing, but the cut through the east fork of the trunk was considerably wider. That seemed encouraging. The previous day I'd been emailing with my friend Neil, whose farm is 20 times the size of mine and who knows all too well that I was working far above my pay grade. He strongly recommended I get a professional to finish the job. As I was thinking of heading back up to the house and calling up a tree company, I heard a distinct sound that I recognize: it's not really a cracking sound but it's half way between a woodpecker and a gunshot if one were wearing ear protection. It's a sound that says, "Lady, you need to be over 70 feet away from the scene of this crime in a hurry, and you'd better get there the long way around." Did I mention I was wearing my new dressing gown? I often wear it over my clothes when I'm at home. So I walked the long way around the edge of the island, crossed the bridge, and I was standing on the bank of the river, at least 100 feet from the tree, gazing up at it. I really did not want to miss seeing its descent. I stood there for about 15 minutes, and noticed every time there was a gust of wind, I heard the woodpecker/gunshot sound again. As the wind picked up, the sound came more frequently, and all of a sudden, the tree started to fall straight in my direction. It landed exactly as I'd hoped it would land - and there on top of the stump I could see my bar and chain, just lying there doing nothing. Postscript: I went home to retrieve my phone and a tape measure. The tree turned out to be only 60 feet high, as the crow flies, but the trunk wasn't completely straight. If it had been, I'd have exceeded my maximum tree height by an impressive amount.

The thing is, the whole endeavour felt a little too risky. A tree can suddenly torque when it's being sawn through, and come down in an unpredictable way. I'm comfortable with a fair amount of risk, but I don't like unmanageable risk. So I think I may take Neil's good advice and confine my lumberjacking to things like cutting up tree stumps.

FUN WITH A CHAINSAW

There's an ancient apple tree overhanging the sloping roof of the garden shed. It's like a hen that's too old to lay eggs. I was planning to climb onto the roof of the shed with the chainsaw and take it down, one piece at a time, before a storm takes it down for me. Today it's the first really warm day of spring and I'm out doing heavy work, so I figured, why not have a go at doing it from ground level? In my mind, it was of smaller diameter than it is in real life. I nearly changed my mind when I saw how thick it was and how many knots the trunk has. Knots are really tough to saw through. I sharpened the large chainsaw, oiled it up and started cutting.

I knew which way I wanted it to land. As I could see my cut widening, I knew the thickest part would land near the edge of the sloping roof. I was worried it might go right through the roof. What to do? What to do? In the shed there are some thick foam cushions for the big deck chairs. I positioned them on the roof right under the main pressure point. Then I got a twelve-foot aluminum ladder and lay it on the roof beside the cushions. I figured it would act as a giant snowshoe. Then I got a length of rope and tied the upper trunk off, tying the other end to a pine tree. I figured if it started to crack, I'd guide it in the right direction by pulling on the rope. Let me tell you, it worked like a charm.

The tree came gently down onto the roof and balanced on the foam cushions. I didn't even need the rope. I just stood behind the tree trunk and wished I had my iPad with me to film the descent. There I was, telling myself I'd chosen a poor angle to cut and wondering if I should start over with a brand new cut (never a good idea because multiple cuts greatly increase the unpredictability of the descent) but it was like that apple tree was skydiving. Apple wood is wonderful for burning in a wood stove. It's fragrant, burns hot, and - at least in this case - it's free. And now, if you will excuse me, I'll go and retrieve the ladder from the roof.