It was good to escape the Midwestern heat wave and return to the relatively cool, dry air of the Colorado Front Range. Intermittent snow and rain during the spring has spawned a healthy amount of greenery on our Littleton farm but strong storms, associated with high winds, damaged a large number of trees.
Combined with the prolonged drought of last summer and fall, the storms left our property looking like a war zone with some dead shrubs and trees and numerous large limbs scattered about the pastures and "lawns." It will take some time to cut them up and haul them to the brush piles but such exercise is easier to take in the drier, cooler air.
On the other hand, most of our native trees and shrubs, including locusts, mulberries and chokecherries have come through nature's wrath in good shape, able to tolerate the drought and strong winds that regularly occur in this region. Planting such species (or allowing them spread naturally) reduces demand on our dwindling water supply, retains natural beauty on the farm and insures that our wild residents will have plenty of food under all weather conditions.
