Tree Planting

We started tree planting while I was at Paia in April.  After five years of cutting down things that didn't really belong where they were, it was good to start putting other things back in the right places.  Jüri found some black alder and birch from southern Estonia, as well as some pine and a few rowan, elm and maple.  The first tree we actually planted was a birch we put in front of the main house as part of a small stand.

Then we moved on and planted a little over twenty black alders and eleven red willows along our side of the river bank.

Our neighbor Hendrik very kindly let us plant this little triangle of his land across the stream with another 29 black alders.  He did warn us that cars sometimes miss the curve before the bridge and end up here.  Assuming they survive the traffic, these will start to screen the Ojakalda house from the highway in a few years.

The photos all look like we're planting sticks instead of trees, but they're really there next to the stakes.  This is a black alder we planted in April, leafed out a couple weeks later.  We had a worrisome moment when we noticed that the black alders we were planting looked exactly like the younger version of the white alders we spent last Summer cutting down.  It was good to see these really did have the heart-shaped black alder leaf.  

We put a few black alder up in the meadow on the Paia side as well.  Some of the older elm and maple that Jüri had brought were planted here as well.

On the Ojakalda side of the meadow we planted the rest of the elm and maple, and some rowan, as well as one white elm (künnapuu in Estonian, Russian elm in North America).  We put ten small pines on the hill in the foreground.  Hopefully the needles will help suppress the goutweed that grows here.

Along the highway we planted some lime or linden trees.  I liked this shot of a spider having her lunch in one of them.

We bought some of the larger trees at a local nursery, including five plum and five pear trees.

Eight of the fruit trees went into the Paia orchard, the remaining two into the little orchard by the Ojakalda house.  Once they get going in a year or two, we'll cut the rest of these ash out of the Paia orchard for firewood and it will start to look hopelessly cultivated.

One of the plums was already blooming in mid-May.  I'll be interested to see how the others are doing when we get there in early June.  The tulips and daffodils and some of the other old perennials still come back every year.  We've started making an effort to mark these better in the hopes of creating more attractive beds around them in the coming years.

We also transplanted some lilacs to make a hedge next to the fields.  There were large hedges of overgrown lilacs on both places when we bought them.  They make a good barrier against any pesticides or herbicides the neighbors need to spray, and they're really quite pretty in the Spring.  Unfortunately many of the existing bushes are not in the best locations for our purposes.  I think they were planted around buildings and spaces that no longer exist.  Fortunately they're extremely hardy and grow quickly.

Altogether we (mostlyJüri) planted about 130 new trees plus the lilacs.

Greenhouse

This greenhouse has stood in the corner of the old Paia garden since sometime in the Soviet era. It was built and repaired over the years with an ingenious mixture of scrap lumber and tree branches. You can see small greenhouses a lot like this all over the country side, though increasingly they're built of more regular and modern materials. They're a necessity for a nation of gardeners living this close to the Arctic circle.

We've torn down and burned dozens of similar constructions over the years - rabbit hutches, garden beds, berry bush supports - but kept this one around because we liked the look of it.


But it was also difficult to cut around and inside it, and in the last year or two it was really beginning to lean forward as the wood in the lower part began to completely rot out. Yesterday it was time to go.


It only took an hour to take apart and haul away.


I spent the rest of the day hauling dirt and rock for a project Jüri refers to as "the Levelling". This involves moving large piles of sand, stone and soil left over from installing the Ojakalda septic tank to somewhere more useful.

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Location:Taadikvere küla, Estonia

Ojakalda Maja

I saw the inside of the finished guest cottage today. I think it turned out very well. It still has the doll's house look from the outside.


With the water in the river so high, the name "River bank" is very appropriate.


The main room looks much as we planned. With the shutters open it will be very light and airy.


The sink for the kitchen area is a lot like the one at Paia.


The front porch is sunny and cheerful. We kept the old windows here, since we don't plan to heat it during the Winter. The boys as always kept the horseshoe someone had tucked away behind the panelling during the Soviet times, and reinstalled it in its proper place.


I also like how the bathroom turned out. A much better blend of old and new than we managed at Paia.





All and all I'm quite pleased. Now all we need is some furniture.

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Location:Taadikvere küla, Estonia

Storks 2012

The storks from last year have returned.  The male was busy preparing the nest when Jüri and Teet came to start the cleanup on 17 April.

He was joined the next day by the female, presumably the same one from last year. I'll have to take some photos and look at pictures from last year to be sure.  The males come back to the same nest every year, but much like people they sometimes switch mates. 

It's a good omen to start the year.

Pruning and Clean Up

The apple tree and berry bush pruning is done for the year.  The old tree with the broken branch had a rotten top as well and need to be pruned back quite a bit.  We'll see how it does over the next couple of years.

The other Paia trees were in better shape and should be fine.  There are also a lot of berry bushes in this area that Jüri was able to prune back into something more bush-shaped.

The Ojakalda trees were in the best condition, having been taken care of most recently.

 And of course there's a nice pile of brush to burn when I get up there next week.

What we won't have is quite so much old garbage underfoot to trip over and snag string trimmers.  We've been picking up the place for all the time we've been there, but this is the first time we were able to have someone go over the grounds before the grass and other plants grew up around it.  It took Jüri and his friend Teet a couple days to go over all the ground, starting at Ojakalda and working their way over to Paia.

They bagged an impressive amount of just ordinary garbage, like the plastic from old greenhouses,  inappropriately disposed of food containers, and all the stuff people seem to have to drop when walking across a semi-abandoned farm yard.

They also accumulated a large pile of old metal for the scrap dealers, and yet more asbestos shingle from Soviet roofs for disposal at the landfill.

And of course those staples of the Estonian countryside, old glass bottles and broken windows.

But probably the biggest achievement was cutting the last piece of metal fencing out of the rose bushes in the Paia garden.  Old metal fencing is the mortal enemy of string trimmers.  Andrew and I have been fighting with this particular fence for three or four years, so it's good to see the last of it go.

Aside from making the place look better, getting all the surface garbage really well cleaned up will make the the grass easier and safer to mow.  All in all a good week of work at Paia, with much progress toward putting the land back in order.

Winter Casualties, Spring Floods

While we've been working here in Sharjah, work has continued at Paia.  Jüri came in February to cut the dead spruces and found one of the ancient willows had collapsed.  We've tried to be polite and leave most of trees to live out their days, and so far they've returned the courtesy by not falling on anything important like the sauna or the boardwalk.  This willow was no exception, choosing the best possible place to come down.

Jüri cut it up, but most of the trunk was too rotten or too hard to split for firewood, so we'll probably just have a very nice bonfire for Jaanipäev.

The dead spruce are also gone.  One of the neighbors came to help Jüri transport the logs.

 The logs from the spruce made some very nice benches to replace the ones we lost during the renovation work at Paia.

The Navesti is a real river at the moment.  I've seen photos from past Springs, but it's not been this high before.  Usually in the Summer we sit on this bench and the water is a meter or two away.

The old river bed almost has a river again.

The Ojakalda house is still well above the flood.  Work on this was finished back in December.  I need to post the photos of the finished work.  It turned out very well.  The grass we planted on the bank is coming in very nicely, and the first Spring flowers are just coming up.

 I'm not really sure what these are.

 Jüri started pruning the apple trees in the old orchards this week.  They've been neglected for many years.  This one had a broken branch that someone had built a support for, but this had rotted out and collapsed before we cleared the brush around it.  The branch was still bearing apples last year, but it probably can't be saved.

 The other trees are in better shape.

This old ash stub in the meadow was also kind enough to miss the nearby power line when it fell, sometime in the last few weeks.

I'm going to go up at the end of April to talk to Jüri about tree planting and maybe do some more cleanup in the Ojakalda garden.  Di has this Summer off and is planning to stay at Paia from early June until September.

Location:University City Rd,Sharjah,United Arab Emirates

Matsalu

When we come back to Sharjah it always takes me a while to get organized again. We left Estonia on September 2nd, and I'm here on the 1st of October still working on photos I took in July.

I took this batch on a day trip with Andrew to Matsalu National Park in western Estonia. The park has many different landscape types, but we were mostly interested in looking at wooded meadows. Jüri arranged for us to meet some friends of his, Mart and Aveliina, who teach biology at University in Tartu and spend time at Matsalu for research We met them at a place belonging to their family inside the park area. There is a small wooded meadow on the property that they've restored from deciduous forest.

Wooded meadows are important as an example of a semi-natural landscape where people actually do something that encourages species diversity. They were formed when people began to cut cleared areas every year to gather hay. This stopped any woody succession from occurring and allowed lower-growing species of wildflowers, grasses and other herbs to get enough sunlight to establish themselves. Trees and shrubs were also left standing on anything from 10 - 50% of the area of such meadows, from which firewood, twigs for animal forage, berries, etc., were harvested at different times of the year. Wooded meadows have a park-like feeling, but the vegetation is all natural-growing rather than planted. The wide variety of vegetation types provides a wide range of ecological niches for wildlife.

They're very hard to photograph. They're quite interesting to see in person, but in photos they tend to look like parks or neglected farmyards. This is the restored meadow. The shrubby looking trees are clusters of hazelnuts.

The restored meadow is quite near some alvar grasslands. Alvars exist on areas with thin soil that is unable to support woody growth. Not being suitable for any form of intensive agriculture, they were used for grazing, principally of sheep.

This leaves a low herb layer and scattered junipers and other plants that can survive the sheep. The stone ring here is an old farm fence.

The landscape on these meadows looks a little alien to me, with the oddly shaped junipers, the scattered glacial boulders, and the odd little mounds. I couldn't figure out if the mounds were stones that hadn't come up to the surface or the result of mole or ant activity.

The sheep seem to be quite at home. I suppose sheep look a little alien themselves.

This wooded meadow is also nearby. The soil here is deeper, which allows for trees to grow naturally.

This is Allika wooded meadow, a little further on. These were both very park-like when we were there, since the hay had been recently mowed and the hay removed. Removing the hay is critical to getting a higher number of species in a meadow. If the hay is left, the soil improves, which encourages the growth of goat weed and dandelions as well as trees. Soil with fewer nutrients provides an opportunity for plants that don't compete well with these.

I'd like to come back next Summer, in late June or early July, to see the wildflowers and grasses before they cut them.

This is another place, not far away, called Suitsu, which has both wooded meadow and forest areas. I think these are boathouses rather than hay barns, but they look much the same.

We met a boatman and his dog, Dollar next to the river here. The boatman was waiting for some Finnish tourists to take them on a river cruise.

The forest features an observation tower that you should not look up at before you try to climb the stairs. If you look closely, you can see that it's supported by cables. I really prefer structures that can stand on their own.

We stopped at a couple meadows on the way home. This is Nedremaa wooded meadow in Pärnu County. I liked the birch at this particular spot.

Matsalu attracts a lot of nature tourism, especially people who come to bird watch and see the wildflowers in the Spring and early Summer. It was very useful to see some of the last natural wooded meadows. It gave me a much better idea of what species and kinds of vegetation are lacking in our proposed Paia wooded meadow. Jüri will do a round of tree and shrub planting in the Spring, and then I think we'll need to go seed shopping to increase the diversity of grasses and wildflowers. There are supposed to be companies in southern Estonia who sell meadow seed.

Location:University City Rd,Sharjah,United Arab Emirates