Timber!!!!

Can you find Buck in the picture below? :) That's his cherry tree selfie. My cherry tree selfie comes next! Buck decided to get me some cherry trees for Mother's Day. IDK if cherry trees will grow here or not, but I've wanted fruit-bearing something for years (the blueberries haven't grown an inch, but do offer a tiny crop of super sour berries once each summer).





On our prairie hill, we have noticed the ever-creeping Redcedar trees taking over the landscape (they're actually Juniper trees, but called Redcedar because apparently horticulturists think it's funny to confuse people who are not). What's worse . . . these little creeps can ruin our fruit trees! 

Do you remember a few years ago I posted the weird, orange, alien-looking, virus-shaped growths on our Redcedar tree branches? Well, that fungus is called cedar apple rust. You aren't supposed to have any rusty fungus within 500 feet of your fruit. That means we have some work to do :)







A few things we learned . . . these stinkers are incredibly prickly! Sharp slivers straight through jeans and gloves! Also, our hill has really deep trenches--hip deep sometimes, that you just might fall into with one leg or the other. And finally, Brennen needs to learn how to use a chainsaw. His offer of, "It's probably not that hard," did not fly on the mama safety scale. Handsaw it is!



We cleared 50 trees of various sizes in one afternoon. There are so many 100s left! We dragged all the cut ones down to the former garden and the pile grew to impressive heights and breadths! We worked so hard we have a busted shovel to show for it . . . and itchy rashes from contact with those creepy trees, whose roots are miles long in every direction (okay, not really, but way longer than they should be in my opinion :). If they were fun and pretty like Christmas trees, we could be friends. But I'm pretty sure, scrubby trees, we are not friends ;)





Just a few more to go to get it back to the way it looked when we arrived . . . and then our neighbor's trees within the dreaded footage. Oh it's going to be some work!



My title just reminded me, there were a few times when Brennen would say hold the tree this way or that, but would forget to tell us when he was almost through the cut. Then we would find ourselves covered by/underneath the freshly downed tree. I mean they invented the word "TIMBERRRR" for a reason. Now would be an appropriate, and might I add, useful, time to use it :)