The End of the Elm Tree

Today Ron decided it was time to cut down the old elm tree that died earlier this year from Dutch Elm Disease.

The tree was over 100 years old when we purchased the property in 1978.

It continued to flourish and provide a look out post for the male North American Kestrel while his mate first nested under the eaves and then once we closed the hole, in the hawk box on the side of the house.

During the winter a wide variety of birds would pause in its branches to rest between trips to the feeders or be there in the morning waiting for me to fill the feeders.

Last year, in the early summer I was saddened to see the leaves on the western side of the tree wither and drop to the ground and it continued until by the fall the branches were completely bare.

In the spring only a few of the branches on the east side of the tree had leaves and by the summer they too, had withered and fallen to the ground leaving nothing but bare branches.

He first mowed the hay in the area where he was going to drop the tree to make it easier to cut the wood and load it onto the trailer.

Then he started by making the beginning cuts to the tree so it would fall where he wanted it to land.

It took some time to do as elm is a hardwood and this tree had a fairly wide base.

At this point I went down into the front field to take photographs of the elm as it would fall to the ground.

It didn't take very long for the once majestic tree to make its downward descent to the ground.

Now it was time to start the labour intensive work of cutting the branches into manageable lengths and loading them onto the trailer to be unloaded and then stacked along the fence line behind the barn to age for next year's firewood.

This will be our project for the rest of the day and probably continue until the end of the weekend.

But by that point we should also have the trunk cut up into manageable chunks and stacked to be split next year when it has dried.

My job while he is working on the larger pieces will be to clear the area of all the smaller branches and bundle them together for kindling.

One thing I do know is that I am going to miss seeing the elm tree each time I look out the living room window.

Elegant Elm and Elegant Elm I - Two Works in Progress

Today I pulled out a box containing various leaves that I had pressed and dried earlier this month.

I started by picking out all the elm leaves that had been dried so I could decide how I would like to place them on a canvas for a mixed media painting.

I had two different sized canvases that I was planning to use for a series of paintings of different kinds of leaves.

On the larger one I hadn't painted the background colour onto the canvas, but on the smaller one I used a mixture of black and iridescent acrylic paint.

Next I placed the leaves onto the canvases and moved them around.

Elegant Elm

It took quite a while, but I finally found how I wanted them placed

I put the rest of the leaves away and I will have to decide what colour or colours I will paint the leaves before attaching them to the canvas.

I will post these pieces at a later date as more work on them is completed.

Thank you for coming to look at my artwork.


Elegant Elm I

Long Shadows 1-3 - Three Works in Progress

It is cold day 18F (-8C) with the wind chill making it feel like 3F (-16C) and we are expected to receive another 2" (5cm) of snow.

I thought it fitting to work on a couple of snow scenes that I had started a few years ago (see post on 30 November 2013).















Long Shadows 1

I decided to work on all three of these pieces at the same time, beginning with the sky.















Long Shadows 2

I used various mixes of Antwerp blue and French ultramarine blue to brush in the sky, keeping it darker at the top and gradually lightening it toward the bottom.















Long Shadows 2

Before I could start putting in some of the shadows on the snow I had unexpected company drop by to visit.

I will post each of these paintings at a later date as more work on them is completed.

Rock Shadows - A Work in Progress

Today is a little colder than yesterday with the temperature in the morning at 14F (-10C) and as I walked down to do the barn chores the wind chill made it feel like 1F (-17C) compounded by snow flurries blowing around.

I pulled out this painting to work on that I have been picking away at for a while (see posts on 30 January 2011 and 12 March 2013).

I started with the centre section behind the birch trees and completed that first before taking a break to have a cup of tea and lunch before taking the dog out for a walk.

















The nice thing was that it had warmed up a little with the temperature at 19F (-7C) and the wind chill was 3F (-7C), but the not so nice thing was that the flurries had changed to snow and now there was another 6" (15cm) on the ground and according to the weather report I can expect another 2-1/2" (6cm) overnight.

I continued to work on the trees in the background until I completed those on the right side of the painting before calling it a day.

I will post this painting at a later date once I have painted the large birch trees behind the rocks.