by Spreading, or prostrate, junipers live up to their name. In fact, all junipers tend to spread as they are a very undisciplined species but spreading junipers raise it to an art form. It may be possible to plant one in the middle of a football field and, in time, have it cover sideline to sideline, end zone to end zone. After having my friend Doc help me clean up under and trim a juniper due east of 1911, a task in which we made use of Doc’s gas hedge trimmer, I decided it would be a good investment to have one of my own. I’ve done some trimming with a hand trimmer, a thankless task if there ever was one, and a corded electric hedge trimmer. Doc’s gas trimmer worked well when we could get it started and keep it running long enough to get something done. That experience gave me the idea of exploring a cordless electric trimmer since it will be used infrequently and gas engines really need to be run periodically. There are many cordless models on the market but I decided to stick with Stihl, which is the brand of most my other other equipment, such as edger, string trimmer and chainsaw.
Since I bought the trimmer I’ve gone to town on the spreading junipers of which there are three on the place. The trimmer met expectations and the junipers are now all trimmed. The battery on the trimmer is good for even the largest of the spreading junipers, which coincidentally is about all I’m good for as well.
Cookie the cat kept me company as I trimmed one of the junipers (non-prostrate) along the southeast perimeter. Hackberries were growing up underneath and dead limbs prevented me from eliminating them until I trimmed the tree. I’ve got two more along there to do and when I’m finished it will be much easier to control weeds, including undesirable seedlings. It is a lot of work to trim one of those junipers and haul the trimmings off to the chipper so I’ve been trying to do one a week. It only takes a day or two to complete one tree leaving the rest of the week to recover.
We have been enjoying some evenings by the fire with the neighbors the last few weeks. The firewood I harvested from the pear tree in front of 2005 which was blown down last winter, at least half of it anyway, has made excellent fires . And there is still a decent tree left. There are several trees around the place that will eventually find their way into the consuming flames of our fireplace as times go by.
Our weather vacillates. This is, it is really cold, then not to bad. So far this year we’ve had some really nice days. Since it is January, maybe it’s best just to be grateful for those and not gripe too much about the cold and wind. What I will gripe about is the lack of moisture. We’ve had two downpours this month, one of .02 and one of .01 inches, which isn’t even enough to wash the bird droppings out of the rain gauge with. The weatherman said recently we’ve gone 90 days without appreciable moisture. The drought of 2011 started out the same way. We learned from that to start watering and not wait until it rains or snows, since it might not. We have learned to plant moisture-loving trees where water is easily accessible so it is fairly easy to keep those watered. It has gotten to the point that I’m concerned about the more drought-tolerant trees. Drought-tolerant doesn’t mean they can go indefinitely without moisture. Problem is it takes a lot of time to water them but I think I’ll have to start doing so before things get too bad. The weather weenies say the current La Niña won’t be as bad as the 2011 version but the big mistake we made in 2011 was to not start watering soon enough. Last January we had a lot of rain but that’s not normal.
Joyce and I finally got all the Christmas decorations stowed in the attic. It always feels good to get that done. A look back at January 2015 shows a beautiful snow. We wish could get one like it soon. In January 2014 Joyce and I spent a few days in Galveston. That doesn’t sound bad now. It was 23 degrees last night.
