Archive for April, 2008
April 2, 2008 – Old Silver Maple Makes Way for Wind Turbine
I got a call a few days ago from the wind turbine guy saying that dependent on weather, April 11 was the day to pour the foundation for the wind turbine. Amazing as it may seem for an Iowa farm, we had a difficult time siting the turbine on our property because of all the tall trees, the 70 foot buffer from the edge of the property, and needing it reasonably close to the house. We eventually chose a site with a full northern and eastern exposure, good western exposure and poor southern exposure. I later found out that the most common wind direction is from the south, although the N-NW quadrant is the most common quadrant. In order help out the southern winds, we opted to take out one old silver maple tree and to place the turbine in the path of the hole in the trees.
Here Martin plays on the trunks of the recently felled tree. I called in a professional to cut the tree down as one main trunk was leaning towards a building and I imagined three possible outcomes (presented in most likely order of possibility). 1) tree falls wrong way 2) chain saw gets stuck in tree 3) tree falls right way.
This shows the view of the tree before it was cut.
The view of the sky after the tree falls. Now it is my job to cut it up into firewood and haul the branches to a bonfire pile.
one year ago…”Willows in the Ground”
April 1, 2008 – Coppicing Willows
Last year we planted a number of varieties of ornamental willows. 
It’s now time to coppice (or prune) the willows back to the ground to prevent them from becoming trees and encourage the smaller stems we can use for floral arrangements.
Here’s the willows before coppicing.
When the job is complete it doesn’t look like much!
