At it again!

By Skeeter Remember the 95 foot tall Oak tree the Saint and our neighbor/friend (Dee) took down in June, due to a lightening strike? (Click HERE to see). The trunk of the thing laid in our Georgia Yard until July 13 when the Saint found the time to cut it into smaller pieces. Sorry for the poor quality of the picture but I was snapping from behind a screened window upstairs.
Here you see the Saint hard at work cutting the massive tree trunk.
Here you see the cut up trunk still in place on July 27 as a spotted fawn comes into the yard to visit. Normally cut up trees in the yard would bother me but with the horrible heat we have had here in Georgia this summer, I did not mind the mess in the yard. I decided it would stay there until we got to it during the cooler days of Fall.
Here is another pile in the woods from another tree (not oak) we cut down way back in June also. With this mess scattered throughout our property, we had planned to cut down more trees this past weekend! We had the tall boom on order to rent for the weekend but around noon on Friday, the Rental store cancelled on us as the customer that currently had the machine, decided to keep it for an additional week. This customer was International Paper and a big client so we understood them canceling on us. They were to keep the machine a week beyond their normal rental contract when we would only be renting it for 2 days. Money does talk with such things...
Being flexible, we opt for "Plan B" and rented a wood splitter instead. This was an older model then we have rented in the past but it did the job and with lower motor noise then the newer model. Amazing how things use to be built in the past. Ha...
We have the wood shed full of oak wood which will smell great burning in our fireplace this winter. Not to mention, keep us warm and lower our gas and electric bills.
Dee (which gave us the free lilies back in spring) helped us split the wood. In return, he got a load of the wood. Plus, the Saint will help him cut down two trees some time this week. He and the Saint split while I loaded his trailer all by myself! Well, they did load about 20 pieces of wood while I was making us lunch!

We still have plenty of split wood after Dee took his share. We are giving some to our wonderful next door neighbor's and what they do not need, we plan to donate to a lady that Dee knows about. She uses wood to 100% heat her house in the winter months. Dee makes custom wood cabinets as a hobby and it was killing him inside to split this oak wood knowing it would be burn in our fireplaces. But since we do not have a $20,000 special piece of equipment or crane to lift the heavy trunk, (in order to process the wood) we had no choice but to use it as firewood. The stuff sure smelled great when splitting it. Sigh...

The process of lightening hitting this oak, us cutting it to the ground and cleaning up, has taken over 3 months to complete! I do believe this is a record yard task for us. We do plan to cut down more trees this coming weekend, if the boom is available. No, we are not glutton's for punishment but know these trees need to come down. They are interfering with the integrity of our asphalt driveway. Cheaper to remove the trees then to redo our long circular driveway. Don't worry, we are not loosing all of our trees. We have several hundred trees on our property so many more to enjoy our privacy and nature...

It has been super hot this year and even though the calendar says it is September, we are still having 90 degree temps. As we worked outside this weekend, it was 95 degrees on both days. Thank goodness for those sport drinks keeping us hydrated! We waited for cooler temps to split the wood but at 95 degrees, we were AT IT AGAIN, In the Garden...

Words and Photos Property of In the Garden Blog Team,In the Garden

Composting Trees

By Skeeter I recently found a great surprise in my Georgia Garden. See the wood from a cut tree stacked up against the fence? This wood was cut and put into place some time in the year 2005. This was before a Semi-Formal Flower Garden was in place. The wood sat there as you see it for a long time. Then Blogging came into my world. I found our Master Gardener Tina's Blog and then had inspiration. With all the talk of Composting, I decided it was time for me to have a compost bin of sorts. So the Saint and I took the logs down one by one and rearranged them to form 3 walls. It was as if we were children playing with our Lincoln Logs! Not really as these logs were still heavy and full of water although the bark was falling off most of the pieces. I snapped pictures of the project but I cannot find them on file anywhere. Just use your imagination today if you will. I have been putting tables scraps such as coffee grinds, egg shells, veggie & fruit peel, etc into this bin and growing worms like crazy! Without my pictures, I am not sure how long this compost bin has been in place but I am guessing 3 years. Today I go out to put in my bowl full of yummy for the worms and look what I found. With all the rains we have been receiving, the wood logs are now breaking down at an extreme rate. This stuff looks like something a Gardener would pay good money for at a Garden Center! I had my little hand shovel with me as I always cover my kitchen scraps with dirt. I took my hand shovel and hit the logs a bit and the stuff was falling into the compost pile!

Click on the Video to see how easy this was. I am right handed and was holding the camera with my right hand while chopping with my clumsy left hand. If I could have gotten to it with my right hand, I would have put a woodpecker to shame with my pecks! Once the weather gets nicer, the Saint and I will see what we can do to help the process along, maybe by using a larger shovel.

I hope this once tall tree will be gold for the Garden. This is a long process and I never knew I was COMPOSTING TREES, In the Garden...

Words and Photos Property of In the Garden Blog Team, In the Garden

Lightening Struck Tree Trunk and Seed Swap

From In the Garden

I posted about my 'problem trees' on Monday and spoke of a tree we thought got hit by lightening. I have been trying to figure out if that was indeed the problem with no luck. All the information I can find on lightening strikes says the liquid inside of trees is instantly heated to an extreme temperature that usually causes the tree to explode in some manner or form. This was not the case with this tree. No instantaneous loss of limbs or explosion or even loss of bark occurred in a sudden manner. The tree did lose limbs and bark over a period of about two years but the first thing that was noticeable was the sudden browning of the full canopy of leaves. I just assumed it died due to the drought of 2007.

When the tree was finally cut down though I noticed an awful lot of charring in the center of the tree. It would appear the tree did take a lightening hit that traveled down the core of the tree to its very roots. What do you all think?

in the garden....

Dirt Princess at Trials and Tribulations of a Southern Gardener is hosting a seed swap. She is asking us to post on the seeds we have to swap then link the post back to Mr. Linky on her blog. I have the following seeds available to swap: cleome, nicotiana, orange cosmos, purple columbine, tall maroon hollyhocks, pink 4 O'Clocks, annual red salvia, and perhaps a few more I am not sure of right now. Sorry. I really need to label better. So if you all want to participate-all are welcomed not only bloggers-go check out Mr. Linky. My email address is located on this blog if interested in these seeds.