They're back...

Normally, I'd still be wrestling with the winter blahs about now, tired of the dead gray-brown landscape that seemingly lasts forever. This "winter", if you could call this a winter, has been a dud and I think it's great. The last days of winter have been in the 80's. The first few days of spring in the mid 80's and it continues on this unprecedented streak for the next week. Today's temperature forecast, Chicago 84. The weather seems to be the topic of discussion everywhere around here. Shorts, pasty white legs and sunscreen are in. Unbelievable for March.... key word unbelievable! Things however, like weather, have a way of averaging out so it remains to be seen how this early heat will play out for the rest of spring or maybe we'll just skip spring and dive right into summer. Anyway, I'm lovin' it and so is every bug and plant around here. Katherine and I have been bit by mosquitoes already, in mid-March!

Prep work continues in the orchard area. Scrub trees cut and removed, and a rough grade was made to knock down some high spots, fill in the low and eliminate some suckering honeysuckle and autumn olive. Unfortunately, the soil is very sandy, weak in loam, poor in nutrients. The rootstocks that Katherine ordered the trees on should take into account the poor soil conditions. We'll just ammend as needed. Our first group of trees have come in from a nursery in New York and have been planted and mulched. The remaining orders from other nurseries will be shipped out sometime in April. This time, the pace seems more manageable, compared to last year when we were inundated with hundreds of trees at once and poor timing with site prep.  All in all, I'm pleased with what we've got to work with, a cleared area approximately 200' x 120' and space layed out for about 50 fruit trees.

The weather has also brought about the growth spurt of the invasive plants. The multi-flora rose, honeysuckel and autumn olive have exploded. They're the last to die back and first to leaf out. What a scourge on this property! Another invasive is oriental bittersweet, a thick vine that has it's way throughout the forested area. It climbs up a tree and attatches to another tree and forms a twisted woody network high, wide and heavy to bring down mature trees. It just keeps on growing, getting larger and stronger. Since most of these vines are deeper into the woods, we're not too concerned. Eventually, we'll have to attack them lest we lose too many trees and have a forest of invasives. Soon the area will be thick, green, and difficult to penetrate. It is something to see and wonder at their gnarly, twisted growth.

Elsewhere, we're just enjoying this unseasonably summerlike warmth, breakout the barbeque, plan the next steps, sit on a stump, smell the freshness of spring. It's good to get winter behind us.