Cleaning up the Jungle
Some folks may not know that there are jungles in southwest Missouri but there are. I have spent several days in the last two weeks cleaning up a jungle right here at Way Haven. Truth be told, I have several days’ work still ahead to complete the project.
We sold our last pigs abut 20 years ago. Since then a jungle has been growing up in our hog lots. Wild grape vines, poison ivy, berry brambles and locust trees took over; slowly at first and then with amazing speed. I had thought that I would just put some feeder pigs in the lots and let them clean things up but “The best-laid plans of mice and men oft times go astray”.
Late in the summer of 2006, I thought to cut down a BIG red oak tree about 25 feet away from the smaller hog pen adjacent to the barn. I have cut down lots of trees without a hitch but this time something went wrong and the tree went east not west. The good news is it missed the barn. The bad news is it crushed parts of the fence on two sides of the aforementioned pen. That meant I couldn’t turn pigs in to clean up the jungle so, two years later, I have finally gotten around to cleaning it up.
Above is a picture of the blocks cut from the tree just above the main split in the trunk. You can see where the trunk splits in the photograph below.
When I was finally able to get the downed tree off of the hog panel fence, I found the damages were not as extensive as I had feared. On the end closest to the stump a complete hog panel was pretty much toast. Maybe I can cut a small gate out of it which would be great because on the other side of the pen, where the top of the tree hit the fence, it hit just about two feet from the end of a panel. It looks like I can put a gate cut from the other panel there. If you look closely at the picture below you can see the gap. You can sure see the jungle that remains.
I spoke to the man from whom we hope to buy feeder pigs. He projected they would be available in mid-February. So, I need to stay with this project to have the pen ready by then. By the way, if I were to re-take these pictures today, everything would be covered with snow and ice. That is winter in southwest Missouri!
Some folks may not know that there are jungles in southwest Missouri but there are. I have spent several days in the last two weeks cleaning up a jungle right here at Way Haven. Truth be told, I have several days’ work still ahead to complete the project.
We sold our last pigs abut 20 years ago. Since then a jungle has been growing up in our hog lots. Wild grape vines, poison ivy, berry brambles and locust trees took over; slowly at first and then with amazing speed. I had thought that I would just put some feeder pigs in the lots and let them clean things up but “The best-laid plans of mice and men oft times go astray”.
Late in the summer of 2006, I thought to cut down a BIG red oak tree about 25 feet away from the smaller hog pen adjacent to the barn. I have cut down lots of trees without a hitch but this time something went wrong and the tree went east not west. The good news is it missed the barn. The bad news is it crushed parts of the fence on two sides of the aforementioned pen. That meant I couldn’t turn pigs in to clean up the jungle so, two years later, I have finally gotten around to cleaning it up.
The picture below is taken from the stump of the fallen tree looking toward the barn. By the way, I owe a big thank you to former First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson for my barn but that’s another story.
Above is a picture of the blocks cut from the tree just above the main split in the trunk. You can see where the trunk splits in the photograph below.When I was finally able to get the downed tree off of the hog panel fence, I found the damages were not as extensive as I had feared. On the end closest to the stump a complete hog panel was pretty much toast. Maybe I can cut a small gate out of it which would be great because on the other side of the pen, where the top of the tree hit the fence, it hit just about two feet from the end of a panel. It looks like I can put a gate cut from the other panel there. If you look closely at the picture below you can see the gap. You can sure see the jungle that remains.
I spoke to the man from whom we hope to buy feeder pigs. He projected they would be available in mid-February. So, I need to stay with this project to have the pen ready by then. By the way, if I were to re-take these pictures today, everything would be covered with snow and ice. That is winter in southwest Missouri!
2 comments:
Thank God the tree didn't land on you! Falling a tree can be a risky, unpredictable business. How much ice and snow did you get? We picked up an inch of snow.
Hello Missouri Rev.
We were very blessed this time in that the ice track went south of us. At our place we got about 2 inches of sleet, very little freezing rain, and about 3 inches of snow.
Two years ago, as you may recall, our area was devistated by an ice storm similar to what has now hit the folks in AR, KY, and south eastern MO. We certainly empathize with them.
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