Kansas Ice Storm

Our Red Bud Tree

The weekend of January 13-14 we had a wonderful trip planned to see the showing of Home on the Range, a newly released docudrama about our Kansas treasure near Smith Center--the cabin where the lyrics to our state song were written.  Instead, the Smith Center Premier was postponed one week by the ice storm that hit Western Kansas.  We did attend the premier the following weekend, and next week's blog will share that wonderful weekend, but this week is devoted to our epic Kansas ice storm and reflections on nature's hardships for our early settlers.

At the front corner of our home is a red bud tree that has been there as long as I can remember.  As is their nature, this red bud has continuously recreated itself by sending up new trunks as its elders die.  It survived through more than a quarter century when the old house was vacant.  But, the ice storm was a fierce opponent in comparison to drought and neglect.  We may try to shape up what is left of the tree, but it really suffered.  (See "Emulating Isaac," 8-14-2014 in the blog archives, about transplanting seedlings, including a red bed seedling.)

Our ancient cottonwood

The blog I posted about cottonwood trees has been one of readers' favorites, many of you sending comments admitting how you love these old trees.  Isaac B. Werner wrote in his journal exactly how he started his cottonwood trees from 15" cuttings, which from his arrival in 1878 to 1885 had resulted in 3,400 trees on his 320 acres, with plans that year to add 2,000 more cuttings.  (See "Cottonwood Trees, posted 12-2-2011, to read my original post.)  Since publishing that post, many of the giant cottonwoods in our area have died, their silver trunks lying on the ground like fallen soldiers, and many more are likely to have fallen victim to the recent ice storm.

We have very few left on our home place, and this old beauty lost most of her limbs, what remains looking more like a giant slingshot than the arching shade tree that it was before the storm.!

In 1944, my parents returned to the farm following my grandfather's stroke, and they planted three rows of elm trees south of the house to block the hot, south winds.  They probably chose elms because they are fast growing, but they are also susceptible to broken branches in Kansas winds, and very susceptible to ice damage.

My parents planted the elm tree rows too close together and they tended to reach for the sky in an ongoing competition with their neighbors for canopy space.  The result was tall, naked trunks and crowded crowns.  The ice collected on the upper branches and the weight brought them down, leaving trees that look more like poles than shade trees.

Limbs litter the ground

Elm trees are trashy by nature, and a stroll across the yard nearly always involves picking up fallen branches along the way.  However, the litter on the ground after the ice storm was monumental.  I dragged branches into piles that my husband could pick up with the front-end loader of the tractor, trip after trip (both for me dragging the limbs and for him carrying them away.)  We had hired professional tree trimmers last summer to help clean up our trees, and we were so pleased with how they looked.  Not so much right now!

Limbs covering the garden

Some of you will remember my blog about our vegetable garden in the old chicken house foundation.  Since posting that blog, we have moved the vegetable garden to a sunnier location, but the foundation continues to hold my herb and flower garden.  In the photograph at right you can see part of the foundation, as well as the orange water hydrant, and somewhere beneath that litter are my herbs and perennials.  It was one of the first areas I cleared.

As I worked, I thought of the early settlers, using manpower and horses, mules, and oxen to remove the dense prairie sod to clear fields.  I recalled Isaac's pride as he watched his cottonwood cuttings take root and grow, representing countless hours bent over sticking the cuttings in the ground, followed by constant weeding sand burrs and stickers, as well as sunflowers competing for the water he hand carried to the young trees.  I remembered his labor hand picking potato bugs off his plants and his joy when his carefully tended peaches were in season.

Elm trees stripped of limbs

Perhaps thinking of Isaac and my ancestors as they worked this prairie soil is some explanation for why I grieved for the loss of favorite trees that we had loved, but I also felt a kinship with the land.  I know that many of these trees will never be beautiful, but they will struggle to survive.  They will send out new branches in the spring, and already branches bent by the weight of the ice have arched upward determinedly, looking better than I had dared to hope they would.  Many of them can't be saved, but next spring the seeds they released in the summer will sprout.

Mother Nature gave us an ice storm, but she followed it with calm, sunny days and milder temperatures than are usual for January.  It was actually pleasant when I was working.  It's looking better now--but I was very grateful to see David Wood and his crew arrive to help us pick up the debris we hadn't reached.  Thank you so much, guys!  We are on the waiting list for the crew that worked at the farm this summer with their tall-armed buckets, this visit needed to reach the limbs hanging overhead dangerously.  Mother Nature will surely send winds to bring down some of them, but we are among the lucky ones who suffered no damage to buildings from falling limbs--thanks to the tree trimming last summer.

Next week I will begin sharing our wonderful visit to Smith Center for the premier of a movie you will want to see and more about the history of our state song!

Emulating Isaac

A man doesn't plant a tree for himself.  He plants it for posterity.  Alexander Smith  

Isaac Werner planted many trees on his homestead and timber claim, using cuttings, seeds, and plants bought from growers.  (See "Isaac Plants Cottonwood Trees," 12-2-2011 in the blog archives.) He also sold some of the small trees he had grown.  This summer I emulated Isaac by transplanting some volunteer seedlings that had grown where they were not wanted.

My transplanted redbud tree

For two seasons I had watched small silver maples growing in my vegetable garden, hiding alongside veggies that I did not want to disturb by digging up the little trees.  There were also two volunteer maples and a redbud tree in an ivy bed next to the house.  Because they were a foot or two tall, my husband suggested that he should probably be the one to dig them up. At that time, neither of us knew that maples are surface feeders with shallow roots.  Redbuds, however, are a different matter.

My husband forgot his offer to dig up the seedlings, and the following spring, I decided I would dig them up myself and find a place to transplant them.  The maples were surprisingly easy, but I had no idea when I began digging that redbud roots are so deep.  The little volunteer was only about 16" tall, but its root was longer than my arm, more like a pig tail than a typical root. I was determined not to cut the main root, and I stubbornly dug for most of the morning.  After a break to eat lunch while water soaked into the hard soil at the bottom of the hole I had dug, I returned to dig some more in the muddy bottom of the hole until I finally reached the end of the root!  In the photograph above, notice that the root begins at about elbow height and the end lays out slightly on the ground by my foot.

A red bud branch covered with seed pods

I know that redbuds thrive in the shade of taller trees, yet I foolishly planted my little tree in a place shaded during the morning but in the hot afternoon sun.  Its leaves turned brown and became as crisp as potato chips before falling off, leaving nothing but naked branches.  

Much to the amusement of my husband and his friends, I refused to give up on the naked redbud, continuing to water it.  I trusted in the long root to save the tree, but after many days of seeing what appeared to be a dead tree, I was about ready to concede defeat.  Just in time, I spotted a tiny speck of green--too small to be identified as a sprouting leaf, but worth continuing to water for a few more days.  Eventually I could determine that it was a leaf, and soon a few more green specks appeared.  It was then that I clipped a white towel to the west side of the wire cage around the little tree, providing it with afternoon shade.  It rewarded me with more leaves.

The row of silver maples in their new cages

I am told that it is uncommon for the seeds from a redbud tree in a cultivated landscape to root naturally, but apparently one little seed found a perfect spot in the moist shade of our ivy bed on the north side of the house.  I have never paid much attention to the redbud seed pods, but they are forming now, and I think I may try planting some of them.  I will choose the planting location more carefully, providing the shade of taller trees to protect the seedlings from the hot afternoon sun, and maybe I can grow more redbuds to join the brave little transplant that I planted in the sun.

Isaac could not have been more proud of his sprouting cottonwood cuttings than I am of my little redbud tree and the five transplanted silver maples.  Because deer rubbed the cottonwoods my husband transplanted last year to death, we put tomato cages with mesh around the little trees to protect them, and this week my husband made proper cages for the growing maples.  My little redbud is still in its tomato cage, but we think all six of the transplanted trees are thriving and will mature along with the new bald cypress trees we bought from the nursery.

Bald Cypress with Hedge Apple tree row

My great grandmother and her son, my grandfather Beck, planted cottonwoods and hedge apples; my parents planted elms.  Their trees are aging, and even the self-seeded elms growing all around the farm are getting old.  We have enjoyed the shade of trees planted two generations ago, so now my husband and I are planting trees for others to enjoy after we are gone.

As long as people plant trees, there is hope for the future in their hearts.  As Albert Schweitzer believed:  Never say there is nothing beautiful in the world anymore.  There is always something to make you wonder in the shape of a tree, the trembling of a leaf.