Star of the foliage season

This sugar maple might be the biggest star of Hardwood Hermitage's foliage season.  Today's sun makes the giant tree especially radiant.

Latest wood pictures

All ready for a quite winter in two separate storage locations, recently processed wood looks great. Two years will pass before this lovely biomass goes into the stove.

A great morning for work

The latest cutting and splitting project started over the weekend with the bowsaw drop of a red maple with some dieback in the crown. The little saw cut a path through a small softwood grove, then made the V on the east side of the trunk.  About 25 minutes of bowsaw cutting then dropped the tree.

This a.m. cutting of the trunk proceeded well using both saws. Then, some of the unsplit wood moved down the hill by the house, with bigger pieces staying at the cutting site for some splitting first.

Best month in forest

No month beats October for forest beauty.

Birch work

A dead paper birch west of the house was cut down today.  Prone to rapid rotting due to the amount of water in the trunk, we'll get excellent burning out of the tree after processing and about two years os seasoning.  Crown pieces were still solid, so these will also eventually go into the stove.

This project is still a work in progress, with a good chunk of the tree still needing to be split.  A few more images from the morning's action:

Morning harvest

Working down the hill for three hours this morning led to a wonderful harvest.  The potatoes are especially beautiful on this very sunny and pleasant day.

First fire

 At 4:32 p.m. today, with inside temp at 66 and overnight low of 44 expected, a match was struck to light the first fire of the season. Decorative birch comes in over the spring to make for a lovely arrangement by the stove.  This is the first wood to burn, along with the pictured kindling and shards.

The firebox was quickly ready for the match.

Twelve minutes after the initial flame, extra wood increased the stack temp to 580 degrees.