25 maj 2023

 "Just Do It."

 Several months ago, Marion Solom gave me her late husband Jerry's  Harley-Davidson coffee cup that I had given him 14 years ago as he suffered with leukemia. He was a close friend of mine and as a result, every time I pull the cup from our cupboard, of course I think of him. I think it's imbued with his mechanical genius a little bit because afterward I get ideas about how to do some task I've been pondering over for weeks.

Imbued with mechanical genius

 

    As I looked at the huge collection of potted cedar trees and the various bundled, bagged, and boxed evergreen seedlings in the refrigerated trailer parked outside the Soil & Water Conservation District office in Roseau last Tuesday, I was reminded somewhat of the tree planting quantities similar to those, in 2012, when Chairman Joe, his wife Teresa, and my wife Jackie, helped me plant 16,500 trees using my tractor and pull-behind tree planter.

    Jackie helped sort stock; Joe and Teresa served as logistic coordinators, sorters and root trimmers. I did the planting. Even though I was merely sixty years old at the time, I admit I wasn’t as rigorously conscientious toward the very end of the project as I was when I began. So soon afterward, Jackie’s son Craig Helms, walked the many tree rows to stand up and tamp-in seedlings that needed it, adding much to their survival.

    I went through four tractor drivers before that project was over. The first tractor driver backed out of his previously long-assured participation due to other issues, not involving me, to commit suicide instead. My next suddenly-needed replacement tractor driver lasted four hours due to a different life-changing event, having to do with their immigration application to Israel the next day. 

    Tractor driver No. 3 was available only for a four-day weekend, prior to his voluntary termination from the toy factory. And tractor driver No. 4, who finished things out despite suffering a severe sunburn post-arrival, because he didn’t take his mother’s skin care advice, was my stepson John Helms, from Wisconsin who I helped this spring during sugar bush. https://wannaskanalmanac.blogspot.com/2023/04/13-april-2023-adventures-at-sugarbush.html

    So it was this year, Chairman Joe agreed to be my tractor driver when I assured him that it might take all of but an hour and a half at the most to plant the virtual handful of 'trees' I had purchased this year, for I had learned my lesson. I was planting no more than 125 Villosa lilacs this time because I just wanted to create a good field screen along the north side of an old CRP woodland planting. https://ttseeds.com/product/hedging-villosa-lilac/

    Spruce and pines trees were planted there in the early 1990s, but their growth and survival rates proved slow over these past years for one reason or another; deer depredation being a big one. I thought of planting tamarack (larch) before I decided on lilacs, for I was amazed at their rapid growth in addition to not being eaten by deer, but have since read of the impending larch beetle invasion that may affect our region of Minnesota in the near future and didn’t want to invite disaster down the line. https://northernwilds.com/native-beetle-devastating-minnesota-tamaracks/ . 

    Although native poplar, willow, green ash and Balm of Gilead (Balsam Poplar) trees are filling in around them I wanted something that provided a good long-lasting screening effect throughout the winter too so I purchased a variety of lilac bushes that do not spread; their colorful and fragrant late season blossoms not at all important to my choice. A larger factor was cost as we didn’t have a lot of money to spend on such things so I purchased just as many I thought would get me by.

    I learned I could rent a tree planter from the Wannaska Forestry station for twenty bucks a day dependent on the small number of trees I was planting. Spacing my epic tree planting events far enough apart I forgot the real labor involved (similar to spacing child-births, I’m told) and naively re-embraced the romanticism of planting forests one tree at a time until I unloaded the planter from the trailer and hooked it to my tractor. I think I saw the tractor shudder.

"Noooo, not again!!!"

 

 

 

 

Re-embracing the romanticism of planting forests one tree or shrub at a time.

  

     I know for sure it was Jerry’s cup that inspired me to modify an old 200-gallon field sprayer I had into a tree watering device. I had thought long about removing 25-feet of its 30-foot spray boom I didn’t need, and replacing its rickety PTO-driven pump with a 12-volt sprayer pump, so I could pump water from the creek to water the lilacs in the field, and other needy trees in our yard, if the weather didn’t cooperate. 

I could pump water from the creek to water the lilacs in the field

 

A set-up using submersible sump pump bolted to an old metal milk bottle case that I didn’t throw away for some mysterious reason.

A sump pit made from half of a fifty-gallon plastic barrel tied to a hundred-foot length of halter rope.

    Sketching a set-up using submersible sump pump bolted to an old metal milk bottle case that I didn’t throw away for some mysterious reason and setting that into a sump pit made from half of a fifty-gallon plastic barrel tied to a hundred-foot length of halter rope. And, 75-plus feet of 3/4 inch garden hose; and a whole-house portable generator that I have chained on a trailer, the project all came together after a walk through Jerry’s old shop where all his memorabilia lingers yet. 

I removed 25-feet of its 30-foot spray boom I didn’t need and added new nozzles and water lines, then 'duh' realized I needed to concentrate the flow to the center than dribble it to either side. 

Voilà!

    I had hoped to pull the tank to the field with my four-wheeler, but considering 200 gallons of water weighs 1669-pounds, the aluminum tank weighs maybe 150 lbs, and two-wheeled support frame and solid steel tongue is at least about 350 pounds ... a little over 2100 pounds total, I quickly nixed that idea and used the tractor instead. 

“Thanks for the ideas, Jerry.”