Giving the Live Oaks a Haircut

As our high temperatures aren't in the 90's anymore, it's opened up some items on my to-do list that I didn't want to attempt in the sweltering heat.  One of those chores is trimming the live oaks.  I like to clean up the suckers that grow off of the horizontal limbs.  Doing so gives the tree a cleaner look.  The goats really like when I do this as I throw the branches into the pasture where they make quick work of the leaves.  

The main tool I use for this is a 10 foot extendable electric chainsaw with an 8 inch blade.  The hard part is getting up to the branches to trim, but that's accessible with a tall ladder.  Being that the chainsaw is electric, you don't have to worry about it not starting or the carburetor being gummed up.  The main thing is to keep the chain sharpened and I do that with a 'rat-tail' file.  It gets the job done on smaller branches.  This electric chainsaw cost me $69, and it has paid for itself time and again.  I can't say enough about how faithfully this saw has performed.

Once I got the smaller suckers removed, I began to look for the next low hanging fruit.  There was a big dead branch.  We have a concrete bench directly underneath it that seemed like a bad place to be sitting for when that big branch gave way.  Time to cut that down.  This branch is too big in diameter to do with a chainsaw with an 8 inch bar.  I precariously set a ladder so that I climb up and lean over and get in position to cut it off.  I try to do this type thing when Tricia is inside as she gets nervous when I'm up in the tree.

You can see the fresh, clean cut way up there.  I moved the bench and flowers so that I wouldn't crush them when the limb was felled.

Since this limb was bigger, it requires a bigger saw.  This is a Greenworks 80 volt battery powered saw with an 18 inch bar.  This thing cuts beautifully.  It's quiet and efficient.  The battery might last 20 minutes, but I have another battery inside charging as I drain the first one.  It keeps me cutting.  I've been pleased with this saw as well.  I had been sharpening each chain for years, but it was finally time to put new chains on both of the saws.  Wow!  What a difference it makes to have a new chain on it!

With a loud thud, the big dead branch landed on the ground.  It did crush Tricia's plant hanger and a decorative flag, but I did my best to straighten them up.

I recharged the 80 volt battery and quickly cut up the live oak logs into fireplace sized pieces.  I'll also give the logs time to season and then I'll split them.  These logs went into a wagon and were pulled back by the fire pit.

Coupling this with a ton of firewood leftover from last year and we're pretty much set for the fireplace this winter.

First Grass Cutting This Spring

Since we have mostly live oak trees in our yard, our "fall" actually happens in the spring.  I'll explain.  Live oaks lose their leaves in the spring and are quickly filled out with fresh green growth along with pollen tassels.  There is a brief moment when there are so few leaves left on the tree, you can see the limbs within the crown and see through the canopy to the sky.  That is not possible in summer time.

All of those leaves hit the ground.  It past years I would rake all those leaves up, put them in a wagon or drag them on tarps and bring them to the garden.  There I would dig a trench between the rows and bury the leaves.  With the soil amended with plenty of organic matter, earthworms would be attracted and go to work.  Over time the soil quality improves, compaction goes down, and it becomes a more fertile growing medium.

Now that we have more wood chips and mulch than you could shake a stick at, I don't need to do that anymore.  This year I'll simply mow the leaves until they are ground into little pieces that fall between the blades of grass.  I do have to either blow them or rake them into the grass in areas so that I can mow them into the yard.

Lots of leaves

Right before I mow, there's one more thing I do.  The yard, at this time, is filled with white Dutch clover.  It fills the yard, and their white flowers attract a plethora of honey bees.

The white Dutch clover also attracts hungry cows.  Before I mow, I allow the cows to circulate through the yard, eating the clover and winter grasses.  Talk about some happy cows!!

I don't just let them roam, however.  I have a solar power fence charger that charges up a temporary fence that I put up around the yard.  You can see the electric fence against Clarabelle's body in the photo below.

Many passersby always stop to ask if the cows are loose or what kind of cows they are.  I always stop to visit with them.  Sunday afternoon after coffee, we put all three cows in the yard - Rosie, Clarabelle, and Luna.  They accomplished their mission of mowing down the clover and grasses (pre-mowing, I call it.)  I have a small issue I discovered that I would rather you not tell the cows about.  The solar charger isn't charging the wire.  I think the battery is not holding the charge.  For now the cows don't know it.  They have been trained that the wire will shock them.  They remember this... for a while.  After a bit, they'll test it, though.  When it doesn't shock them, they'll walk right through it and then they are loose!  It is like a rodeo to get them back in the pasture.

For now, they respect the fence, but I'll have to get it fixed.  When they moved off of the portion of the yard that they were grazing Sunday afternoon, there was nothing left except the fallen live oak leaves on the lawn.  You go, girls! 

Gifts From Above

Our preacher was giving a sermon in which he was making the point that often times we don't look UP to give God thanks for the many blessings we have in our lives.  He told the story about some hogs that he has in a pen under some oak trees.  He said he was watching them and as a fat acorn fell out of the tree, they would run over and gobble it up, never looking up to see where it came from.  Many times we're like that old hog.  When we are showered with blessings, we don't look up and thank God.

Today Tricia and I walked outside underneath the live oak trees.  There was a constant crunching under our feet from stepping on gazillions of acorns.

We don't have hogs, but we do have goats - four of them, to be precise.  The majority of the live oaks don't stretch above the pasture, so the goats don't have access to most of the acorns hitting the ground.

Tricia got a rake and a #10 can and filled it up several times, pouring hundreds of acorns over the fence.  The cows and goats came a running.  The cows sniffed around curiously, but they don't eat acorns.

The goats, however, were a different story.  They feasted.  All we saw is their lips moving rapidly and heard the crunching of hundreds of acorns being devoured.

Unfortunately, like the hogs in the preacher's sermon, the goats didn't look up and give thanks for the 'showers of blessing' in the form of acorns.

A Living Souvenir

When my Dad got his undergraduate degree from USL (University of Southwestern Louisiana) in Lafayette, Louisiana, if I'm remembering the story correctly, USL gave the graduates an acorn from one of the live oak trees on campus.  My dad gave it to his grandmother and she put it in a coffee can and later planted it in her yard right smack dab in the middle of Kinder, Louisiana.  There it grew and grew and grew and now is a big live oak.

I like things like that - growing things that have some significance and have sentimental value.  I've posted in the past about doing the same thing by planting an acorn from an Alamo Oak when Tricia and I were engaged in San Antonio, Texas.  I also have an 8 foot tall oak tree that I grew from an acorn I picked up in Tallahassee, Florida during a difficult time in our lives.  In a time where many things are disposable and are here today - gone tomorrow, I like the idea of being able to look at a tree and tell kids and/or grandkids stories about memories surrounding the planting of that tree.  It gives some semblance of permanence or a living legacy or heritage.

Since LSU's alma mater begins with the words: "Where stately oaks and broad magnolias shade inspiring halls," I thought it would be a good idea to replicate USL's oak tree tradition and give my daughter a live oak tree grown from an acorn picked up from campus to commemorate her graduation from LSU in the spring of 2016.  The only problem was that I couldn't find any acorns in May.  I remedied that on a recent trip to LSU for a football game.  As we walked around campus, I picked up acorns from several oak trees around campus and put them in my pocket.

Future "Stately" Oaks

Last weekend I planted the eight live oak acorns in a terra cotta pot on the back patio and I keep the soil moist by watering them every other day.

Two acorns about to be covered with soil and watered

I'll keep checking on them and hopefully will soon see sprouts emerging from the soil.  In a post from earlier this year that you can read by clicking HERE I told the story about a book called The Man Who Planted Trees.  That book was inspiring to me and reinforced the idea that you can make a difference by planting trees.  That's one of the reasons I came home with a pocket full of live oak acorns from a football game.  We'll see in a little while if any of the 8 acorns germinates.  If not, I'll fill my pockets on my next visit and we'll try this out again.