Sweet Local Farm

True signs of spring just around the corner.

Snowdrops in bloom on the south side of my house:

The fish pond has thawed and the fish have grown, multiplied, and are very active:

Forced Daffodil bulbs in bloom:

Pretty spring branches that I forced:

Tofu loves the flowers:

These dormant Winter months provide a great time to regroup, make repairs, plan out garden plots, and if you’ve got some invasive species, clear out sleeping plants.

Ever since the vegetation subsided for the season, I began noticing a thorny red vine that was taking over certain areas. It appears on the ground level as a raspberry-like vine, but when you turn your head to the tree-tops, you’ll see how it has the ability to take over the entire canvas.

I desired to remove this vine because of the way it was literally strangling trees and any other growth around it. Before doing so, I did a little research to learn more about this invader and found a number of articles on it such as this one in the Eagle Tribune: Is that an exotic invasive species in your holiday decoration?
(by Don Lyman)

“As you drive along New England roadways this time of year you can frequently spot tangles of long vines adorned with bright yellowish-red berries. Many people don’t realize these plants, which are commonly used in Thanksgiving wreaths and decorations, are actually an exotic invasive species known as oriental bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus).”

There was the culprit…Oriental Bittersweet. To Karen’s credit, she knew this already.

This past weekend, Michael and I began the arduous task of removing a sizable area of the Bittersweet. Since there are many different facets of this plant: thick trunks at the root, long vines, etc; we armed ourselves with hatchets, saws, titanium tree branch clippers, a machete and garden shears.

Michael with hatchet

Where is he in this photo?

Some of the longer vines stretched up so high that they reached 30 ft up into the tree-tops. When pulling out these stranglers, they seemed to be aware of what we were doing because both Michael and I swear they were fighting back. I managed to get multiple thorn wounds to the face…good thing I had safety goggles on.

A pile of Bittersweet

We’ll be burning this brush in the next month to avoid it’s attempts to re-root. This batch had been growing uninhibited for the past 5 or so years. Hopefully we’ll be able to combat it much easier in the future through regular removal. Although, I have read that it can grow up to 12 feet in one year!

Contemplating the future of Bittersweet removal

We got quite a bit of snow yesterday. Much more than the “epic blizzard that wasn’t” from last week. We got home late last night, around 8pm. It was still snowing at the time and as I walked into the house what struck me was how completely quiet the world was. The snow dampens all the everyday noises like traffic and people. We live on a long stretch of country road. There are a handful of small farms, some newer developments, but overall even the suburban style homes have at least an acre of land. Our street is very pretty in every season and all of the houses are unique and well kept. I’m grateful for my little slice of heaven.

I had forgotten how beautiful the flower gardens that were here when we moved in are. I was looking through photos from last Spring and Summer and came across these. Please enjoy:

The Forsythia is now in full bloom:

What a hopeful sign of spring just around the corner:

Take a tour of our farm in the winter.

Or should I say, once every two and a half years? Tomorrow night we will witness a true blue moon. A blue moon is the second full moon in a month. Usually, there is only one full moon per month. What a rarity for New Years Eve.

The moon will be full tomorrow night, but I shot these photos tonight because I couldn’t help being drawn to the glowing moon hanging low in the sky.

The men of Piebald, Luke’s band, are on the farm rehearsing for an upcoming show. They took some time off from practicing to chop down some trees we have been meaning to clear from our berry patch.

Ryan took the lead and got to work:

Luke and Travis oversaw the cutting:

Later they got out the chainsaw but I was too nervous to watch.