Spring will bring more ground cover and everything will look very different. And this isn’t what anyone would call “pretty” woods. Lots of scrub cedar and rocks. And more rocks. But the birds love it, and so do I.
This week we burned the last of our two year supply of firewood so today we went to see the Firewood Man for another load. Props to Barb for the exceptional job of stacking (bottom photo).
Okay, that’s a little much. For a while I’ve been thinking about cutting some walking paths through some of our heavily wooded property. Nothing fancy, maybe four foot wide. Just to make it easier to take a little nature walk. Barb and I did a little scouting over the weekend.
My original thought was to map out a path and try to follow that on the ground…
but I’ve changed my mind. I’m going to just start walking and cutting (with my handy little electric chainsaw), making it up as I go. Truth be told, it’s pretty unlikely this will get much use by anyone except Barb and I. To launch the project –which will take a long time to complete– I picked a starting point.
Which this space for progress reports.
It’s been about 14 months since I cut the ivy vines that were slowly killing the big oak trees on the property next to ours. The first thing I did following the purchase. The leaves are slowing falling and I hope the vines do in time.
Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water; after enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. — Zen proverb.
The first clip shows my progress on clearing brush and junk trees away from the big oaks. The second is an example of the massive vines that are everywhere on this acreage.
A month or so back a limb broke off a big tree and blocked the road leading into our neighborhood of fifteen homes. The homeowner cleared the limb quickly but it was obvious there would be more falling he decided to have the tree taken down and today was the day.
The work was done by Korte Tree Care (the guys I use) and the crew made short work of this big ass tree, thanks to one amazing piece of equipment. I’m told the big truck cost about half a million bucks. Easy to believe watching it work. The operator appeared to be controlling it via Bluetooth unit at his waist so he could move around and see what he was doing.
They hauled off the really big sections of the trunk and left what you see here for the homeowner to use as firewood. Gonna need a big splitter.
It’s been a few weeks since I showed you the other big rocks hidden on the north side of The Annex and I think it’s a little easier to appreciate the geology in the short (30 sec?) video below.
The other three sides of the house got more attention for some reason so I fired up my chainsaws and started cleaning some of the brush (Mostly wild Honeysuckle, brambles and dead cedar trees). The short clip below is a before/after look and not one tree was felled during this clean-up.
