Day 183

 Back in winter, I was finally able to coordinate the schedules or a few sawyer friends to come join me in starting to work on a stand of dead ash trees. Our first goal was to cut down as many as we could. Once we cleared the area of dead trees, we could treat the invasive grass and brush that had taken over once the trees died. We wanted to work in winter. No bugs. No humidity. No problems,

Wrong.

Up until about a few days before the scheduled work day, the temperatures were below freezing and we had a nice layer of crunchy snow to contend with as our workspace. While that may not sound like great working conditions, they were actually close to ideal. Mother Nature loves throwing us curve balls so she warmed up the temperatures to the point that every step we rook cracked through a layer of ice and created puddles for us to deal with while the trees came down.

Nowhere near ideal. 

Despite these frustrating conditions, we managed to take down a great amount of trees and had plans to start removing them once the snow and ice were gone for good. 

When spring came, I checked the land repeatedly, hoping to find a pocket of time where our schedules lined up and the land dried up.

Spring turned into late spring. Still wet.

Eventually, we came to the time where our restoration partner was ready to come treat the land. However, much of the land that was previously accessible was now covered by a maze of fallen trees.

While not the most convenient, he still had options to treat the area covered by trees in different ways.

Mowing the land was an entirely different issue.

Our restoration plan consists of a repeated pattern of treating and mowing over a period of time that allows us to let native plants establish themselves while we take steps to help them in that process. Any disruption to this pattern could setback the progress we had already made. 

Our restoration partner implored us to do everything we could to clear the trees strewn about the land. 

And the clock was ticking.