Life On The Hill

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Re: Life On The Hill

Postby pa_friendly_guy » Sat Sep 01, 2012 1:25 pm

Yes Boo I do plan on contacting them. At this point I do not plan on complaining, the damage is done and there is nothing I can do about it. I want to know what spray they used and how long it will last in the ground. I also want to conferm that they did not spray the entire area but only the stumps. Sprays are expensive, I do not think they would waist them by spraying willey-nilley all around the place. I also want some more free wood chips, I got one large truck load [ all from trees off my place ] and I would love to have maybe 2 more for mulch. I am useing well rotted wood chips as mulch on my garden this year for the 1st time and I like it alot. It seems to really hold moisture well, and we have had little rain this summer. I have been given Lemmons here, so I plan on making Lemmon aid, ;) I will let the foreman know I am not happy, but that I want more mulch. He might just want to keep me quiet and not complaining to the Power Company by bringing me some. They sometimes have trouble getting rid of the chips, sometimes people really want them and fight for them You just never know. Maybe I can make a new friend and help him out in the bargin by giving him a place to dump, I love a win/win relationship. These guys will be back at my place to trim again at some point, I do not want them pissed off at me, I would rather have them as friends and allies. If I can let them know I would have rather kept the privacy barrior while still letting them trim the trouble spots I come across as more reasonable and sensible fellow and not as some tree hugging looney that never wants to see a tree cut. They might be able to relate to a reasonable fellow with a reasonable request, but a looney tree hugger will not get very far in their world, they cut trees for a living. :lol: You have to relate to them where they live. Besides, when I flick the switch I still expect the Lights to come on, :lol: and I know they have to maintain the lines and cut down problem trees to make that happen. I also know that they have the RIGHT to trim thier rights of way. If I had been home I would have helped guide them a bit is all and their lines would be clear, and my privacy would be the same. Unfortunately I was not here when they trimmed. :roll:
Last edited by pa_friendly_guy on Sun Sep 02, 2012 4:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Life On The Hill

Postby pa_friendly_guy » Sat Sep 01, 2012 9:39 pm

I had bought some stuff from Geurnies this spring, now every couple of days they send me an email about what must be their best sale ever and I have to respond with in 2 days or I will miss out. Surprisingly though 3 days later they send me a better deal than the last one, :lol: I have been deleting all of these email for awhile now, but today I decided to check it out, Turns out most stuff in their store is sold out by this time of year. But I did look at several bushes that could be used as a hedge along my new clear cut area. A butterfly bush caught my eye. They would make a great hedge and they are beautiful, and they attract butterflys which I love. I had given away a bunch of small butterfly bushes that had grown up from seed in my garden this year on Freecycle. I have at least one good sized vol up there now. I am thinking about planting those Butterfly Bushes [ Hopfully I will have more vol next spring ] as well as the high decoritive grasses just above the line that the Twp mows along our road. Both the grass and the Butterfly bushes will not get higher than 8 feet, well below their wires which must be at least 14 feet above the ground. They grow fast, they are attractive, they produce beautiful flowers, they cant effect the power lines, and they are free. Hold your cards, I think we have a BINGO here. :lol: At Least as a 1st line of defense along the road, Fruit and or nuts maybe planted behind them, but they may be my 1st plantings next spring. The area that I am left with on the top of that bank is pretty crappy, I have been tossing any rocks that I find in the yard into that unmowed area for years. Now they are all there to greet me. It will be very hard to dig holes for planting, but I have dug out rocks befor, lol I think at least I have a plan, :D
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Re: Life On The Hill

Postby boo » Sun Sep 02, 2012 1:52 am

I can see your point about being reasonable with the tree trimmers....I hope they play nice with you and give you some more chips. I would have "done my nut" and yelled at them if it had been my trees :oops: but I'm kinda impulsive like that :oops:
I haven't planted near any lines here (too scared of bushfires).
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Re: Life On The Hill

Postby Lollykoko » Sun Sep 02, 2012 2:11 am

Guy, I really hate hearing what they did to your frontage.

The same sort of mentality took my 800+ feet of drainage ditch from pleasantly shaded with walnut trees interspersed along the whole length to naked soil and stacks of trees 10 feet high piled up waiting to be burnt off. I ran the county contractor off (once I found out what had happened) and will be turning the dead trees into hugelbeds as we dig ponds and need to move the soil.

Do you have paw-paw, persimmon or sassafras growing in your part of the country? Elderberry? Lilacs? Any of those might do well in your spot, assuming the chemical isn't terribly toxic.
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Re: Life On The Hill

Postby pa_friendly_guy » Sun Sep 02, 2012 3:05 am

I have a lillac bush growing on my place. I do not have any Paw Paw, but it will grow around here, although I have never seen any grown locally I know there is some growing in the Burgh. How high do the trees get? There is a ton of sassafras growing all over my property, it grows fast but will get very high under the wires. I love elderberry, I used to have some growing on the place but it died. It seems to be hard to keep growing since the roads have all been paved. We used to see it along the dirt roads all the time, now it is hard to find. The hight of elderberry would be good though, I like that idea. Thanks. I do not know anything about persimmons, how tall do they grow and what is their growth patteren? Are they more of a tree or shrub?
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Re: Life On The Hill

Postby Lollykoko » Sun Sep 02, 2012 3:10 pm

Here is a link to a website that sells persimmons. http://www.willisorchards.com/category/Persimmon+Trees

And another site that gives just general information. http://www.essortment.com/american-pers ... 54173.html

I thought that they were less than 30 feet tall, and I know they are an "exotic" since so few people grow them on purpose anymore. If they won't work along your frontage due to power lines (and who is going to want to prune them in 15 years?) they might be a welcome addition elsewhere on the hill.

I wish I could get some starts from that sassafras you have going on, since it is very hard to find in my areas. :( A couple of days ago I did find an elderberry bush hiding in one of my "volunteer woods". If it isn't going to rain today, I might have to make the drive back up to harvest the fruit. My friend made some syrup from the berries growing at her place and has offered to handle mine as well. Off to check the weather report...
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Re: Life On The Hill

Postby pa_friendly_guy » Sun Sep 02, 2012 3:36 pm

Thanks for the info about the persimmons, the American variety seems to grow way too tall for under the wires, but as you say maybe good some place else on the Hill. I will look for elderberrys, That is a very good idea. You are more than welcome to as many sassifrass starts as you can carry on the bike, as well as Babys breath, Hydranga, Hybiscus, maybe a tomato seed or two, what ever you want or what ever you can carry, ;) I think space will be your issue, The sassifras that I have growing here is the White variety, not the Red. The Red is what is normally used for the tea. I have been told that you can use the White for tea, but you need alot of it compaired to the Red. Not nearly as much flavor. There will be Red growing up in the Mountain near 7 springs, :D Around here sassifras is a 1st growth tree, it grows up quickly and starts to turn pasture into woods. Slower growing, but longer lived trees like Oak and Maple will eventually crowd it out and kill it off. It is a soft wood, fast growing, brittle, nice smell when the wood is burned or cut.
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Re: Life On The Hill

Postby Lollykoko » Mon Sep 03, 2012 2:06 am

I will keep the offer in mind, Guy. There is a back-up plan (in the event of potentially bad weather) that includes a four door Ram with an 8 foot bed. Not that I'm wishing for rain or windy conditions or anything, but I sure could bring back a lot of things!
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Re: Life On The Hill

Postby pa_friendly_guy » Sun Sep 09, 2012 9:52 pm

My Oldest son and his wife and 3 kids were home this weekend for a short visit, I let him read this thread and see what everyone posted. He was an English major in school, befor he became a Preacher, so he made alot of comments about my spelling and grammer, :lol: I told him that I was a functional illiterate, but he didn't buy it, ;) . He enjoyed the read as well as all of your comments and the pictures, then he asked me why I had not included any stories about building the house, or the landscape around the house, or the grapes or the pond or the,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,well, you get the idea. I told him that I was not finished with the story just yet. It was sort of on going. Today I walked down to check out the path to the pond. There had always been a wet weather spring that flowed from a rock out cropping in the middle of the path. Since we logged off some the spring has flowed all the time and my path has been a sea of mud. So mowing down around the pond has been a real problem. I have had the Alis Chalmers stuck several times and once I had to walk back up the hill to the garage and get the come along to winch myself up out of there. That was not a fun thing to do, the hill is very steep and it is a hike, but I am always proud of myself when I can get myself out of the trouble that I got myself into especially with out having to go and ask a friend or neighbor for their help. When I had a friend of mine brush hog the path down to the pond the 1st time, maybe 30 years ago [ the trees were alot smaller back then ] I had him go straight down the hill. I was thinking tobbogin run back then. Very steep, straight shot, lined with trees on both sides, ending up into the pond. What the heck was I thinking, you would kill yourself if you ever tried that run down the hill. Needless to say I have never tried it. I have made a new path down to the pond that loops around the property in sort of a horse shoe shape that hits the old pond trail about 40 yards above the pond. The spring in the middle of the trail started above where the horse shoe path comes in so it effected both ways down to the pond. When I had the equipment here to make the 2nd path and expand the hand dug pond that I had damned up myself I asked him to dig out that rock out cropping and see if we could divert the flow. He said he tried to dig it but the rock was too hard to dig. So for 25 years it has been a problem in the spring when things are wet, not so much of a problem in Aug when it gets dry. Now the water flow has been changed by the logging so it was a major problem all of the time. About 2 weeks ago I decided that if you have a problem, you have to eliminate the problem, so I swung the old mattox over my shoulder, got an old pair of gloves and walked down the steep hill to the rocks. Several hours later I had dug several ditches across the path to divert the water flow. I dug one above the rock out crop, 2 below the rocks to catch and divert the water off the path. Then I dug out the rock out crop by hand until I was down to the flow. It is not a large flow, but steady, so the pathway was always mud. I diverted the water coming out from under the rocks and got it off the path. I now have a 10 inch drop off in the middle of the steep path, [ which could be a problem for the mower ] but the water flow seems to be diverted. I walked down there today to see how it was working, and it seems to be working well. I think if I get some 3 inch flexible pipe I can put it in there to catch the flow and back fill with gravel and make the path level enough to mow it again. One ditch below the rocks also has some water flowing, so maybe I did not get deep enough through the rock ledge to catch 100% of the flow. I think 2 pipes will be easier than trying to get any deeper through the solid rocks. I am guessing a day of diging, hauling gravel, back filling should solve a problem that I have lived with for a very long time. It is now a fairly low priority for me because I can get to the pond to mow by the horse shoe path. The pond it a mess right now, its been awhile since I have been able to mow around it, and the loggers dropped several trees into it, and a very large cherry tree has fallen onto it as well now. I walked around it today and thought to myself about what has to happen, and how it has to happen for me to clear the trees and brush out of there. It is a very large project that requires alot of very hard work, I think I will have to sit and think about it some more befor I do anything, ;) it is not a high priority either, lol. I did play in the water enough to get muddy. I pulled out some sticks that I could reach from the edge with out boots on. There was alot of very black, very smelly muck that came out with the logs that I was able to pull out. I think the term for that stuff is Glee, it helps to seal the pond from leaking. Anyway I felt like a little kid again playing in the mud and getting dirty. It was great. :D
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Re: Life On The Hill

Postby matt walker » Mon Sep 10, 2012 12:54 am

Great continuing story Guy. I'm glad you can at least get your mower down to the pond, and playing in the mud and water is always great. I bet those trees in there will make a great habitat for any fishes or other pond dwellers. You can say you did it on purpose to create more diversity and a healthy ecosystem. Sounds easier than hauling them out, anyway!
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