James,

Did your neighbor ever articulate *why* he wants to take down all the trees?

Dave

"JNJ" wrote in message
...
Well, it's official -- my ever so brainy neighbor is going to decimate the
trees that border our properties. He's already taken out every one that
had
trunk on his side of the property line and he hired a surveyor so he could
be clear on what others he can cut down. Sigh In the last few months,
I'll wager he's cleared 30 or more trees from a 50'x75' area. What a
shame -- some of those trees have been there for 50 to 100 years. :-( I
did some checking and there is no legal recourse per se, although he
should
have obtained a permit but pursuing that is just silly. Personally, I
think
he'll see the err of his ways this spring as the rains get heavy -- he
just
created a rather sizable drainage issue over there.

On the brighter side of things, most of the water runoff should go to HIS
property now instead of MINE and this will open my plot to quite a bit of
sunshine in the back (our plots are only on the 50'x200' range, so we're
not
talking terribly large mind you). Since he's been so kind as to add some
dappled sunlight back there, I'll be plotting a return of the great
forest -- yup, I'm looking for trees to plant along the edge of my
property.


Since we've entered into colder weather, he appears to have eased off on
his
chopping frenzy. We'll be watching over the next few months to see what
else he does back there then finalize a planting plan to rebuild. I
imagine
I'll look primarily towards trees with reasonably fast growth rates,
decent
spreads, and probably something that has extended wildlife value (such as
berries, fruits, or nuts). There's a limited number of trees that fit
that
bill and will grow here in Zone 6A (plus the soil is fairly clayish in
spite
of efforts to amend it) but we'll manage.

The bird feeding has been a hit -- probably running a couple hundred or
more
birds through a day here. We're seeing mostly the usual suspects --
sparrows, doves, cardinals, finches, and chickadees -- but a few others
flit
in and out, as do the tree rats of course. Big ole tree rat was on the
largest of the feeders this morning -- knocked himself silly trying to
bolt
when we opened the door to let the dogs out for the day.

The dogs have destroyed the lawn in the front but at the same time they've
also managed to fertilize the yard quite substantially. I'll be
heading
out tomorrow to take advantage of the warm weather (supposed to be 55!)
and
wash most of it into the soil. Although we've had some fairly cold
weather
(down into the 20s) it hasn't been sustained enough for the ground to
freeze
very deep and this little warming snap is just what we needed to give the
ground some saturation ability.

That's about it for the winter update here -- we do not do much gardening
when the season goes cold on us, preferring to hibernate a bit ourselves.
Now we'll take time to focus on the indoors and begin looking towards
spring planning.

James