the Walnut Diary

Whew! A rainy day at last. The last six weeks have been busy. Thirsty pine and spruce seedlings tend to grab one=s attention, and keeping the 1700 little conifers alive during the month of August took a couple of hours per day. I tried the one-man-bucket-brigade approach, hauling well water in seven plastic oil drums on one of the utility trailers. This grew old very quickly as my back couldn=t handle the strain of lifting several hundred buckets of water out of the oil drums. The golf cart again found itself pressed into service, towing the single oil drum on the little trailer, drained by gravity through a 50′ garden hose. This proved in most ways a very efficient watering method. The water could pre-heat a certain amount, the work wasn=t strenuous, especially when I discovered an abandoned ski pole could be used as a handle on the end of the hose, and little water went to waste because I could stop the flow at the first sign of run-off, wait for the ground to soften, and apply more a few minutes later. Unfortunately, this watering method took time, lots of it. I could deliver a gallon per minute, watering about eighty seedlings with a load. Then the old Ez-Go died. The gradual loss of compression of the motor from old age came as no surprise, so I quickly bought a replacement, another Ez-Go, but this one a little-used 2003 model. The trailer hitch I had improvised on the old model bolted right on to the new one. They have changed the chassis design to encourage the use of heavy hitches on carts now. I guess this is an indication of where the utility vehicle market is going: more and more of Textron=s products find themselves doing utility work around gardens and meadows, rather than golf courses.

After I replaced the stock tires with others designed to be run soft, numbing somewhat the cart=s rather savage suspension, the fuel bill for the cart shot up. Everyone seems to have something for it to do, and most of it involves pulling a trailer. August 25^th was a very big day at the farm. Gary Nielsen had called a meeting of the Conservation Group for an inspection of the plantings on the property. Needless to say I spent the previous week mowing around seedlings, even using the riding lawn mower to work between the little trees after clearing the rows with the tractor and bush hog. The 18 hp Simplicity hydraulic runs back and forth with its foot control very smoothly, so I put that to use. With the cut set at 5″, the same as the bush hog=s, I learned to make a diagonal cut between the trees, brushing the seedling on the left, then stopping just before the blade annihilates the one on the right. Back up. Repeat the process. Only 1/4 mile to go. Three rows, though. The technique proved remarkably effective and not too hard on the mower. The overall improvement in the looks of the plantation later put the inspectors in quite an expansive mood, which prompted them to overlook my navigational errors with the bush hog in the pine plantation. The trouble was when we laid out this stand of pines I had volunteers at the ends of a 220′, knotted cord. Two of us sprayed the ground wherever we found a knot. Trouble was that nine feet means different things to different people, and so the rows took off on some unexpected diagonals, occasionally trapping the driver of a 5′ 6″ wide tractor in a 5′ row. With the seedlings more or less under control, the time had come at last to tackle the maple orchard. Originally I had intended to have the hay guy harvest between the twenty-foot rows, but the fear of a large round bale taking out a row of maples left the task to the bush hog. It responded to the stress of the long, dry hay by throwing off its blade, again. This time the dealer had a nut for it in his shop within two days, a great improvement over the two-month wait last summer. Forced back into service after a gruelling morning of wrench work, the rotary mower returned to the orchard to slay the grass. Anticipating a holiday, I guess, it retaliated by turning a bearing into a siren, disturbing my reverie with a high-pitched grating sound. Back to the barn, siphon out the gear oil, add heavier stuff, return to the maples, armed with earmuffs. Let it howl. I=ll take the gearbox for a rebuild the next time it manages to throw the blade off. On came the inspectors. They started, of course, with the one plot I hadn=t worked on all summer, the wet area near the house where we had planted spruce and cranberry. It turns out spruce don=t enjoy a good drowning, though about half managed to find high points on the rough ground and survived. The cranberries seemed fine down under the vegetation with the frogs.

The tour along the shelter belt of spruces and pines produced rave reviews. AWhatever you=re doing, keep it up. These trees are great!@ I pointed out some slightly yellowing pines, the cause of much of my anxiety which in turn had produced many hours of watering. AHmm, looks like a bit of overspray from the roundup. They=ll be fine.@ Here I=d been trying all summer to keep them wet enough they wouldn=t die, and … anyway, the others flourished because of my bad information and worry. I remembered Gary clearly saying, ABy the time a pine shows you that it needs water, it=s usually too late, anyway.@ I=d spent a lot of time in August trying to prove him wrong. Then came the maple orchard. In the early spring it had been such a morale boost for everyone, taking a bare field and in two days producing this wonderful grid of head-high trees. Now all I could see were the bare sticks of the fatalities. Gary, Rob, Donna and Lloyd seemed more inclined to look to the bottom of the glass, the half-full part, instead of my more pessimistic view. Everyone took a row and inspected each tree for signs of life. They broke the dead ones off to avoid confusion later in the fall when replacements arrive. By a rather generous estimate, Gary figures 75% of the maples survived. I counted 232 living stems of the 381 with which we started. 61%. And they accuse teachers of mark inflation? Mind you, those 232 trees look pretty nice on the side hill. They just don=t like wet feet, and so we=ll have to remember not to transplant into holes full of water. No doubt planted as a joke on the property owner, the two young basswoods are doing just fine.

When the crew got to the silver maples I had carefully carved out of the 6′ orchard grass with the lawn mower, they were highly complimentary. I groused that no more will I allow tree planters loose without a pre-measured grid. The work crew planted in a stream-of consciousness pattern which looks great but doesn=t allow me access with the bush hog, producing severe wear and tear on the lawn mower. Rule: if you can’t mow around it, you’ll mow over it.

The butternut plantation is a triumph. The centrepiece of the conservation display, these 132 seedlings took off in late July with a growth spurt leaving them lush and tall in the centres of their plastic spirals and mulch mats.

The transplanted walnuts stubbornly cling to life, but they are tall and make for interesting pictures, more so than the walnut seedlings in the field, which by the time of the inspection had decided to recede into the grass and concentrate on putting down roots for next year. A year later I learned that they had needed water, and my time spent on the pines might better have gone to the needier walnuts. Who’s to know?

I insistently dragged the crew over to the field by the barn, my original walnut plantation, where things have gone quite well, by my estimation. In Gary=s mind, though, this plot is off the beaten path and of primary interest as a source of transplants to repair the broken grid of the other field. In fact there are a number of double hills in the field and a lot of squirrel-relocations and volunteers which should yield some good transplants. It remains to be seen how well my little proteges will enjoy a new location, but I guess it=s inevitable. I can=t have two, 60 foot walnuts growing within a foot of each other. They=d fight.

So the next steps for the plantation? More mowing, gravel for the trails through the woodlot, plans for a fall/winter work crew on the site. In all, a pleasing end to a harrowing month in the tree-hugging business.