Correction and direction

The sharp-eyed Sam Venable informed me I had misidentified the hawk in my Feb. 27 post. What I purported to be a red-tailed hawk was actually a red-shouldered hawk. I checked a secondary bird book and Sam was spot on. The red-shouldered hawk is a mite smaller than the red-tailed and has a rust-colored breast instead of the red-tail's light-colored breast.

I was explaining my faux pas to a neighbor when he asked a tough question: Why do you write Deerfield Diary? A good question without a ready answer.

Ernest Hemingway said that you can only know something if you write it or paint it. Since I don't paint, writing is my outlet. I believe I was placed here on this scraggly but very-alive 10 acres in East Tennessee for a reason. It seems only fitting that I should pay close attention to what is likely to be the last chapter of my life.

When I swing a leg over the steering wheel of my tractor, I'm taken back to summers on my grandfather's farm in West Tennessee. When I plant something, I think about the miraculous cycles of life. I walk the woods in wonderment, mulling over how much I have to learn about the ground under my feet. I grow younger as I age.

This piece of earth teaches me. Where else would I have learned the difference between a red-tailed and a red-shouldered hawk and that the wood from the lowly locust tree is the prime wood in the manufacturing of xylophone keys?

Nice set for Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Just before sunrise when I go to the road to get the newspaper, I'm struck by the grove of locust trees at the side of our house. The crooked trunks and tangled limbs silhouetted against the sky have always reminded me of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," the famous short story by Washington Irving. I half expect to see the Headless Horseman galloping out of the woods.

Locust trees get their wild shapes because they have a growth spurt in their juvenile years which magnifies any bends or crooks. The most frequent uses for the extra hard wood, especially the black locust variety, are fence posts, railroad ties and xylophone keys. It once was the primary wood for pegs or dowels used in ship building.

Ichabod Crane signing out.

Locust Hill won today

Using a chain saw on a hill with a 60-degree slope is harder than I imagined. You have to balance and saw at the same time, putting an extra strain on the back and legs. After 7 hours of sawing, I retired to the house for a double round of ibuprofen.

Not sure I can work tomorrow, but I will live to saw another day.

Battle of Locust Hill begins tomorrow

The timber cutters who were here last fall had to leave behind some black locust trees. The pulp mill doesn't like black locust, plus it's too crooked and gnarled to load systematically on a log truck.

I have one hill that looks particularly bad (above) and that's what I'm going to tackle tomorrow. My plan is to cut the trees into proper firewood length, roll them down the hill and then split them.

It will take several days to clean up the hill. If I were feeling extra energetic I would say "that's no hill for a stepper," but I won't say it.

Giving Ember Days a shot

Sam Venable, columnist for the Knoxville News-Sentinel, makes a big deal out of reporting Ember Days, four sets of days each year on which you can cut brush and weeds and they won't grow back.

The first Ember Days of 2009 are March 4, 6 and 7. It's always a Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. The Farmer's Almanac lists the days, but the origin of the mysterious practice goes back to 400 A.D. in Rome. Ember Days apparently started as a religious period of fasting. How it made the transition to brush cutting escapes my research.

Folks today in the Ozarks are adamant about Ember Days. Ash and privet are two troublesome types of brush in the Ozarks and around East Tennessee. Any person who is in the know cuts those types of brush only on Ember Days.

So, tomorrow is the first Ember Day of the year. I have on my calendar to whack away at the brush all day. Sam, if the brush doesn't come back, I'll buy you a lunch. If it does return, bring your scythe over here next March and help me.

Wish books

The seed catalogs are coming in like dandelions on a suburban lawn. The printers must saturate the ink cylinders when they print the catalogs. The colors are so vibrant it's almost like the plants are growing right out of the box when I pick up the mail.

The catalogs make for nice bed-time reading when the overnight temperature is in the teens. I will overdo my garden in my dreams, but maybe I can come back to reality when the actual planting starts. Sweet dreams.

Now, it's up to the seeds

While we aren't going to get a snow pack to push the tiny fescue seeds deeper into the ground, the last two days have brought almost two inches of soaking rain. I did a spot check and the grass seeds have disappeared in all but the hardest and barest patches of ground. I'll try to sprinkle some organic matter over those in the next few days.

A neighbor and I attended a continuing education class yesterday on lawn maintenance at the University of Tennessee. The two hour session was primarily for those with established lawns, but I learned that I had done a few things right in trying to re-establish my grass.

Germination should take place in 10 to 14 days. Only thing I can do now is something I'm not good at -- waiting.