Tulips in a Day – Spring Break, 2024
Tulips in a day. Things are blooming in East Tennessee: the peach trees, redbuds, dogwoods, and more. Daffodils were whispering their farewells to the tulips, which opened in one day, from Tuesday to Wednesday. Leaves in the wilderness areas exploded from Thursday to Friday; a noticeable difference.
My sister Carol, her husband Kerry, and I went for a walk in the north woods, about six and a half acres on a hillside over the top fields, adjoining three neighboring properties. We found two corner markers from the survey done 3 years ago and some old fence lines that used to contain cattle. Several very large, old-growth oaks had fallen in the woods in the major storm last year, two stretching out from our property across the fence lines into our neighbor Virgil Patterson’s field. (Virgil's now 78 years old. I had known his dad from my time on the farm as a boy. His nickname was Balky, and he sold the 1952 Ford tractor to my grandfather, as well as did some maintenance on it.) We spent several hours over two days clearing the tops of two trees from Virgil's field. It was hard, heavy, exhausting work, but we agreed it was a good neighborly thing to do. Before long the underbrush will be leafed out making it very difficult to work there, so it was good to get something accomplished on it now. According to Tennessee law, it’s really HIS problem, but we felt an obligation to at least make an effort at the portions of the trees in his field. We stacked three huge brush piles, and Carol raked up things to the edge of the wilderness.
Happiness is a sharp chain. As of last August, I have two chainsaws on the farm: a Husqvarna XP550, with both an 18” and a 20” blade (0.325 pitch sprocket and chain), and a Husqvarna Rancher 455 with a 20" bar (larger ⅜" sprocket and chain). Parts are not interchangeable between saws; this was somewhat intentional on my part. It’s great having two; one can rest and cool off while the other works. The 455 is heftier; the 550 with the 18 bar is more efficient and in general, is the better of the two. For the large elm stump job in February, I set up the 455 with a ripping chain (made for cutting down the grain of the wood) and the 550 with a crosscut. That way I could make a cross-cut first in the large stump, not going all the way through, and section it off into safer, more manageable chunks with a vertical cut; much easier to control, and virtually eliminates the problem of pinching the saw with the weight of the wood.
The buzzards are back in the corn crib, even though it’s been blown off of its foundation and is slowly falling. Two of the 4 bays have been cleaned out, but I think they’re trying to nest in one of the two that still has old stuff in it. They are impressively large creatures at close range. Watchful, concerned; not friendly but not malevolent. Due to our interactions in a shared space, we have a relationship, more than with most of the farm birds.
An exception is a curious mockingbird. He would almost follow me around the other day as I was working in the yard, spreading straw over newly seeded grass. He’d sometimes come and sit on the edge or the handle of my wheelbarrow while I was working 30 feet away, surveying its contents, before flying over to the ground to check out the straw I’d placed, then to the post above the bank to observe from there. In all these closer spaces, he would never sing. But then he’d fly to the edge of the wilderness and go through his whole impressive repertoire. Pretty sure that his song wasn’t intended for MY benefit, but the vibrations came from his throat across the morning air to my inner ear, there to be transferred to nerve impulses sent to my brain, which in turn (by some process) compared this sound to something stored within it, and interpreted it as “this” and perceived it as happening “now.” Through the placement of two ears on the sides of my head, my brain would immediately compare the subtle difference in the time the sound takes to reach each ear, and then triangulate and pinpoint in space the origin of the sound. So I guess it really WAS for my benefit: I was invited back into presence, and into the deep appreciation of how it all came to be this way, by the almost-miraculous factors of fortune and natural selection. What more can you say but “thank you, little friend.”
“Everything in your life is there as a vehicle for your transformation. Use it!” – Ram Dass
