Cleaning Up

We're still working on clearing the future pasture and pond area, sorting through the limbs of the multiple trees that were felled into the natural basin.  The timber was taken away, but the tangle of branches remains - some the worse for wear as they were ground into the mud by the heavy machinery.  Some of the twisted branches pierced the earth by several feet under the trees' own weight coming down.  We're racing to beat the wild blackberry brambles, whose new growth is twining through the boughs and under the mass of pine needle litter, making clearing a frustrating procedure at times.  The piles of salvageable lumber are growing, and the piles of waste wood and twigs are getting smaller as we burn what we won't be able to use.

We've been lucky enough to have several friends come and pitch in for a day, and the neighbor has dropped by more than once to lend a hand tending the fires, so we just keep moving forward bit by bit.  Next, we'll clear the loop around back of the outbuildings and kitchen garden.  We might just get that 6-foot fencing in before the deer can do too much damage to the new growth in the orchard or eat any seedlings I plant out in the garden.  The tomatoes are starting to put out their second set of leaves.

 The before picture, These trees where throwing vast shadows and dropping a lot of needles and branches. Moss, weeds, blackberry brambles and patchy grass were all that was growing for about 30 feet in any direction. In order to have more garden area and to let the light reach a smaller secondary orchard, they had to go.

Which left us with quite a bit of work.

We're getting the hang of burning the brush that can't be used, and the wood we're salvaging from just the limbs of those huge trees will fill our (future) woodshed.

Some Rather Large Changes

I was going to write a post on boiling down maple sap for sugar, but since the sap is still sitting in the freezer in a couple of rather large blocks, I don't have anything to report on that front right yet.  We'll leave that for another time....

Instead, I thought I should document the changing face of the property.  As the days warmed enough to start doing some work outside while being able to see the lay of the land (before spring kicks all the weeds and underbrush into high gear), I got to talking with a neighbor about taking down a few trees.

Those few trees quickly became more than a few, and as the discussion progressed it became clear that we had a major undertaking ahead of us.  If we were going to commit to taking down multiple trees, it made sense to look at taking down what was necessary for our future fencing as we cleared those trees which were shading out the orchard and vegetable garden. It also made sense to take down the few that were looming over our only outbuilding and blocking the sun from what I envision to be a future planting area, pond, and pasture. If you're going to do it, do it right.  Go big or go home.... something like that.

The next step was for me to apply for a timbermark from the provincial government, allowing us to sell the timber we were clearing.  Not a very difficult process.

Things progressed very quickly after that, since the same neighbor has a friend who's a professional tree faller, they both knew who to call in to assess the trees, and wouldn't you know, they're friends with a guy who owns a self-loading lumber truck.

After the contract was signed, our neighbor and his friend took down more than 25 trees in one day, with big smiles on their faces the whole time.  A couple of days later, all the marketable timber was trucked off the property, and now 'all' we have to do is clean up, and wait for the cheque.

The second tree down, this massive hulk had some very worrisome branches hanging over the driveway, compost and firewood area.  A friend studying forestry advised us that parasitic mistletoe has made several of our larger trees become badly malformed, and therefore potentially dangerous.

Once the tree was down, the sun could reach into the wet, ferny dell along the front of the property.  I hope to be able to run pigs and goats through this area in the future.  Below, Adrian is standing at the far end of *part* of the tree, as the skidder hauls it to the loading site.

There was a ragged line of large trees splitting the property in half, shading a small secondary orchard while casting shade on the majority of the cleared area available and encouraging the growth of weeds and brambles at their bases.  After a windstorm, branches would litter the property.  Now, we can plan on adding more fruits and nuts, and hopefully a pond for water catchment and wildlife in the future.

 Below, we had enough logs to send three truckloads off to the scale.  There were a few logs that couldn't fit on the last load, and along with all of the bits and pieces left over, we have several weeks' work, and several years' firewood to cut and stack.