Winter's damage

Today's 75-degree day was spent cleaning up ice and wind damage in the woods around the house. My neighbor and I felled about a dozen trees that were either dead or that had fallen and gotten hung up in the branches of other trees. When I pulled out a sassafras stump with my tractor, it smelled like I had knocked over a root beer stand. I brought part of the stump in to the back porch so the dogs could sniff it.

I roughed out on graph paper some possible planting scenarios for blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, muscadines and concord grapes. My books say these need to be in the ground by March 15. Just like the newspaper business, another deadline.