Big weeds

[Smart Red]

So, if a weed is any plant growing where it is not wanted, I have a very weedy ridge above the gully out back. Son and friend have been working really hard in the heat to clear the area for me.

Here is one part of a long ridge that's been getting cleared for me.
Before:

Same shot close up. That's one mess of prickers, brush, trees, downed trunks, and stumps between all the growth.

So far:

Rotted oak tree in yard:
And another big weed bites the dust. We started a fire inside a dead and semi-hollow tree. After a short time, the tree started smoking.

Smoking and burning shoulder high.

Burning at least three hours before it fell over and continued to burn through the next day. Most of the tree trunk is ash. The rest was cut up and carried to the burn pile.

 

[so lucky]

That's pretty impressive. Did you see it fall?

 

[Smart Red]

Yup! It took so long because one branch caught on to a live tree so it tipped ever so slowly instead of falling with a crash.

 

[baymule]

Cleaning up is hard work and it takes awhile. Much improved view! I know you will be glad to get it cleared!

 

[Smart Red]

True, Baymule. Once the ridge is cleared there will be enough sun for the gully to regrow the tall grasses that were there when we bought the land. The grasses cleaned and slowed the rushing soil-filled waters from neighboring farms in the spring.

Right now, the gully is mostly weeds although grasses are starting to come back.

 

[journey11]

You are going to have a really nice view when they're done. Will you catch the sunset or sunrise over that hill?

Ash is one if the very best trees for firewood. Did the Emerald Ash Borers get it? I've really been seeing a lot of dead ash trees around here this year. I hope the bugs will balance out and the ash population can bounce back.

 

[Smart Red]

Like the once stately elms, I doubt that ash trees will ever bounce back from this devastation. The burning tree is actually a burr oak as are most of the trees on the property that was once a pig field.

Burr oak is one of the few tree varieties pigs won't kill with their rutting. It seems the fall treat of acorns keeps the pigs well behaved, or perhaps, the burr oak learned how to defend itself against their digging.

 

[Smart Red]

A-ha! I wondered, Journey11, where the "Ash is one if the very best trees for firewood" comment came from. I went back and read my first post. I should have said, "most of the trunk burned to ashes" rather than "the trunk was ash".

Oak makes a good firewood as well.

 

[journey11]

I see it now, oak.

 

[Smart Red]

You are going to have a really nice view when they're done. Will you catch the sunset or sunrise over that hill?

Neither, unfortunately. The field beyond the ridge faces due South. The neighbor's trees block the earliest of the sunrise and the trees in the old quarry to the West block the last of the sunset.

No problem with getting more Southern sun, IMHO, though, especially in the winter.