Rite of spring

When you have acres of land covered in thousands of silver maples, it means that a major spring task is going around picking up all the branches that have fallen over the winter. It may feel like acres of thousands of trees, but in reality is probably closer to one acre and dozens of trees. Either way, it's a lot of branches. Silver maples are just messy trees.

I don't know if you can tell, but there are two big branches hung up in this one just waiting for a strong wind to knock them down. 

Around the base of each tree are lots of sticks and branches. These aren't good for the mower, so they need to be picked up. Plus it just looks better and less like an abandoned property. 

We spent a good chunk of the morning collecting sticks and branches and carrying them to the burn pile. There were three wheelbarrow loads full. 

And there are still random piles of sticks and branches scattered around the yard.

The burn pile

This is a job that needs to be done after every storm during the summer, but it's the spring cleanup that feels never ending. But it does mean that spring is working on arriving, so I can't complain too much.