Great Basin Rye Grass Planting

Beware holes in the cattle guard

I rode my bicycle up to White Pine this morning before starting work.  A very muscular buck antelope ran next to me for a bit until he sprinted across the road in front of me.  We were doing about 40 mph.  I didn't see another animals on this trip.  The road was in significantly worse condition than the last time I rode here, though there is very fresh blacktop to the Fremont Lake overlook.  There is a large hole in one of the pipes on the cattle guard just before half moon lake turn off.  It has enough jagged metal to puncture a car tire, I think.



Completed Pergola

My mother and niece were working when I got back, putting new chicken wire around the trees to prevent the deer from devouring them and rubbing velvet off their antlers against them.  I ate a quick second breakfast and then my niece and I put up the lath for trellis.  Irregularities in post height and bowing in the lath provided several challenges in achieving uniformity in the trellis.  About halfway through this project, my brother and nephew arrived from Hawaii.  While my brother was napping, my nephew pounded all the protruding nail ends flat.  The pergola is now fully completed, though we are likely to add accoutrements like a flagstone floor and some sitting benches.  Of course, the most important part is the function of the pergola, so we will be transporting and planting some of the thriving hops plants just below the trellis.
 


Kian and Lilly add potting soil to the rye grass

After we finished the pergola, it was time to plant some Great Basin Rye Grass in front of the South Porch.  My niece, my nephew, and I took the truck to a spot where my mother had scouted out some wild rye grass, and we dug up several.  This grass should receive a lot of water as it is in the direct drip line off the steel roof.  Lilly transported the grass to the planting zone with TomTom and pulled out all the dirt we dug out.  Kian dug one of the grasses and planted it himself.  We took 2 trips to get grasses today, and we still need 1 more truckload.

Proper tree planting

Beavers don't flush cut their stumps.  I would have charged $350 for this removal

I ran up to the CCC ponds on the Pinedale bike trail from our house this morning before we started work.  I saw a red winged blackbird, a northern flicker, a mountain blue bird, and a magpie.  My mother took some pictures of a red breasted sap sucker right outside the window, but I haven't seen them yet.  I heard some boreal chorus frogs but they are notoriously difficult to spot.  I also saw that the beavers at the ponds are busily engaged in their own summer landscaping projects.  I feel a special kinship with beavers as they are nature's apex tree workers.

This is a new favorite run in the Pinedale area for me with a view of the Wind River and Gros Ventre mountain ranges on the way out and a view of the Wyoming Range on the way back.

Wyoming Range

Gros Ventre Range

The Gros Ventre range is mostly sedimentary and thus of very different composition than the fold and fault-block granite of the nearby Wind River range.  I remember seeing many petrified sea shells at the top of the range many years ago.  We skied most of the way on July 4, perhaps in 1997.

After the run and a bit of lunch it was time to get to work.  I noticed a flat tire on the trailer, so I jacked it up using the rear jack stand and front trailer jack my friend and I fabricated.  This method requires no additional jacks and stands and I had the trailer jacked and the tire off in 2-3 minutes (with the help of my hand held impact wrench).

After dropping off the tire and picking up additional lath for the pergola trellis at the lumber store, my niece and I started on the most important work of the day: purchasing, transporting, and planting the narrow leaf poplars.  We bought 4 trees that looked to be close to 10 feet tall and 1.5 inches in diameter.  I tried to pull the previous stumps and wire baskets out of the ground with TomTom, but was unsuccessful so I dug holes nearby and rerouted the irrigation to the new holes.  I know what the hell I am doing when it comes to tree planting since I have planted thousands... ahem...  I have planted numerous trees.

 

Tree Planting 101:

1. Dig a hole at twice the diameter of the bucket holding the tree, sloped in at the sides at 30-45 degrees.  The hole should be an inch less deep than the bucket.

 

2. Cut the bucket away from the tree and untangle and tease out the roots.

 

3. Put the tree in the hole and gradually mix in compost and native earth in 50/50 mix.  The addition of compost has never been proven to improve the health of planted saplings but I think additional nutrients and structure are probably warranted in our heavy clay soil.

 

4.  Thoroughly soak the ground where the tree is planted, but do not compact the soil as the roots need to breathe.

 

5. Remove all stakes and ties to prevent the tree from being girdled.  Staking also prevents saplings from building stability roots due to wind stress. Staking should only be performed after a sapling has been blown over and then for as short a period as possible.

 

While I was planting the trees, my niece was transporting a few hundred pounds of flagstone that my mother dug up and stacked earlier in the day.  Tomorrow, my brother and nephew from Hawaii arrive to assist on the landscaping project.  We still have a lot of work to do!

Improper tree planting and refinishing the driveway

I got up and rode my bicycle most of the way to White Pine before starting any projects this morning.  It was sprinkling and cool, but I was sweating from exertion.  I saw a robin, magpie, and raven and I heard a meadowlark but could not see it.  Riding next to Fremont lake reminds me of when my brother swam the nine mile length a few years ago.  Jackson, Fremont, and Sacagawea peaks are the first three distinct peaks from right to left in the picture below.  The short ride this morning was a very enjoyable part of my break from city life.

Fremont Lake from the overlook.

After returning, I started prepping some holes for trees my mother would like me to plant.  She decided she would like to put them in place of a couple of trees that had died several years ago because irrigation is already installed for them.  Unfortunately, digging up the old trees revealed that the wire baskets originally containing them had not been removed before planting.  This is a terrible mistake in planting which can cause a tree to girdle itself or become root bound.  Either of these will eventually kill the tree.  Unfortunately I have seen many examples of this as well as girdling due to staking wire, fence wire, and nylon rope.  My mother recalled the landscaper so I called them and left a message explaining the problem, but they have not called me back.  Though they were planted over a decade ago, this was a very expensive and heartbreaking mistake.  I hope the other thriving trees planted at the same time don't face their eventual demise due to the same oversight.  If I don't hear back from the landscaper in a timely manner, we will drop the matter and I will pull up the old trees and wire prior to properly planting new ones. 

Tree stump and wire basket circled in red

We will be planting P. angustifolia (narrow leaf poplars) around the property.  Though there are a wealth of conifers growing in this region, there are few deciduous and most of them, at least by total number of trees,  belong to the genus Populus (like cottonwoods and aspens).  The willow trees that grow here look quite similar to the narrow leaf poplar and may be an example of convergent evolution to live in such a high, dry, and cold environment.


Mom taking a break from raking

Lilly spreading out the load

The driveway to the house had developed a dip that was accumulating water, and the driveway itself was frequently getting muddy.  My mother ordered 5 yards of road base, which my niece and I spread out and compacted using TomTom.

The last project of the day was putting a few more touches on the pergola.  I drilled and ran the last 6 bolts and nailed the rest of the ties.  Then I sawed off the top of each post with a chainsaw from the top of an unstable ladder. Deja vu to removing trees in Denver!  I also pounded cedar shims into the concrete footers between the footers and posts with a mallet to reduce structure movement.  Lilly removed and cleaned up all the bracing, bent nails, lumber ends, and scrap and then staged the lathe for trellis building tomorrow.

Pergola

I attempted to drive to Elkhart Park this morning, but was stopped at the overlook just before it by snowdrifts.  The snow is still quite deep in the high country.  Instead of hiking there, I ran out to the Half Moon Lake inlet.  I saw an osprey, deer, and antelope on the trip.  I snacked on wild onions on the way out and the water was very high.

This afternoon I put up the last 2 posts on the pergola and ran 6 joists (2 on either side of each post) with bolts through the posts.  Then I mounted 9 cross members at 10 feet each with strong ties.  The last steps will be building trellis on the sides.  I will keep the cross bracing on the base until I run additional bolts and ties on the whole structure.  The sawhorses in the foreground of this picture were used by my Father and the three eldest siblings used to build the house the year I was born.

Almost finished Pergola

Beginning the project



Getting ready to leave from Denver

My mother asked me to come up and do some landscaping in Pinedale last year and I was able to get off work recently to do it.  On Monday, I loaded up tools in Denver like circular saws, drills, a bunch of hand tools, and my Thomas 25g mini skid steer affectionately called TomTom.  I drove 8 hours from Denver to Pinedale.

Getting ready to unload the pergola lumber

On Tuesday, Mom and I put together a lumber manifest from some schematics that my brother Michael wrote down for a Pergola.  We went down to Pinedale Lumber and picked everything up, but I had forgotten a ratchet strap to secure the load.  Instead I had to use a tow strap with a hitch tied in it.  We drove pretty slowly back from the yard and I was watching the 14 foot 2x6s anxiously from the cab.




The building site is on the East side of the house and there was a beautiful view of the Wind River Mountain Range with Fremont Peak prominent in the background as I was working.  I used TomTom to transport the six prepoured concrete post footers to the work site.  I got all of the footers laid out and set and I got 4 posts up and leveled, but then it was dinner time.  I will be back at it later today!

Fresh Job Site

First post erected