#Willows

I will never plant willows again. Last night we had a thunderstorm with hail. We were not at home, but the evidence was obvious. My wife’s Hosta didn’t look as good as it did when we left home in the afternoon. The leaves (they are quite large) had holes and rips. There were other plants that had similar damage. My garden was not left unscathed, either. Many of my pepper plants had holes, so did some of the zucchini leaves. I just bought a rain gauge and it showed we had 7/8 inch rain. That is a lot. We’ve had so much rain this last week, our lawn is water soaked. There are a couple of small ‘lakes’ on one side. It'll take days for it to dry. If it doesn't rain again in the meantime.

However, the worst damage were all the branches from the willows that I’ve planted around the perimeter of our property. The branches are so brittle, even a soft breeze breaks them. So I spent an hour picking up the larger ones. The small ones I will have to rake. I use my lawn tractor for that. I have an attachment that I actually use in the Spring to rake the dead grass left from the winter. It works quite well raking up the smaller branches and much easier than raking them with a hand rake.

I pile the branches up in one corner of the lot, and in the Fall we burn them after the garden is finished. We usually have a couple of huge piles of branches to burn. In the Fall I also cut down the willows that have died over the Summer. The willows all have more than one trunk, and new branches keep on growing. Most of the time I have enough wood to last me through the Winter to burn in our wood stove. I don’t use them in the fire place. So there is one positive side to having the willows die off. The branches I collect during the Summer are not thick enough to be used for firewood.

In the Winter we lose a lot of branches to the storms also. Once the snow is gone comes the work of gathering all the fallen willow branches. Our lawn usually looks like a disaster area. So we have another large fire in the Spring before I get my garden ready. The garden is the only place I can burn.

If I could do it all over again, I would never ever plant willows. They are a nuisance and cause us more grief and work than they’re worth.

With all the rain everything grows. I cut our grass last Wednesday and it is already tall enough to be cut again. The plants in the garden are growing well and so do the inevitable weeds. The soil is too wet to work. Hopefully next week it will be dry enough to pull them. At that time I also collect the dill. The plants are green and succulent. Even with pulling the dill plants there will still be plenty left for the Fall when it comes to making dill pickles. Dill is a weed and it comes back every year. It can also become a nuisance.

And let’s not forget the pesky #mosquitoes. They love this wet weather. So do the #canker worms. I found a few of them on our fruit trees. They are not as bad as they are in Winnipeg. I hope it stays that way. If you have only a few they are easily controlled by hand. When they appear in masses then they become a problem. I remember some years when I walked around the property every day with a sprayer. There used to be large masses on many of our #Green Ash trees. And also on the fruit trees. Those critters can eat the leaves of a tree in no time and leave only a skeleton behind.

As I write this (4 p.m.) it is 27 C outside and 28.5 C in our sun-room. This morning when the sun hit the sun-room it was 34 C in the room. We have 3 fans going to keep the air moving. Isn’t Summer wonderful. Of course, so is Winter when the temperature drops to minus 40 C outside.

I’m not really complaining. We are still lucky. Watching the news on TV we see nothing but disasters everywhere. So many States in the US are hit by tornadoes and by great floods. People lose all their possessions. So a little bit of raking dead branches isn’t so much work. Like my wife said, “At least we still have a roof over our heads.”

I’m looking for a planet where the weather is always nice and the temperature even the whole year through. Anyone know such a place?