Snow scenes

South side of house

 North side of house (with double-trunked red oak)

Snowy conifers

Paper birch

Bobcat print!

First snow blowing adventure

We were expecting more than six inches of snow, but that's all we got.  That was enough to test out the tractor's snowblower.  It passed with flying colors.

The temperature was negative 9 on Saturday morning.  Time to get out some puzzles! Here's the first one we completed.  It's of "the Ugly House," located in the United Kingdom.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We would like to wish everyone a very happy and safe Thanksgiving!

Our Thanksgiving Day weather has been more wintry than fall-like with temps in the low 20s and wind blowing most of the day with gusts upwards of 25mph.  We had 1.5" of snow late yesterday/overnight.

Here is a photo of some wood we recently cut down from two 25' logs.  Our neighbor brought it down from the hill with his excavator so we could cut it to length on an even surface.  The orange glow in the upper left quadrant is a reflection from the wood stove (yes, it is a toasty 75 degrees in here at the moment!)

These logs won't be used for 2 years so there is plenty of time for them to cure (i.e., dry).

We've been busy!

Lots of wood work in the last few weeks:  cutting, splitting, moving.  Fires have kept us warm, especially on mornings where lows have been in the teens.

18 outside, 75 inside

We had a cold morning, but only outside.  Temps were in the high teens while brush cutting, but the fire kept the inside really toasty.  You can see a piece of red oak burning in the stove earlier today:

Birches don't mind the cold.  Some were looking lovely this a.m.

Happy Halloween!

Some pictures from Littleton's Harvest Festival, which took place on Saturday:

Cold temps are creeping in!

This morning we woke to near 20 degree temps and a heavy coating of frost on the back deck.

  Surprising that our wildflowers are still hanging in there!

Thermometer in the screened in porch around 6am today:

Sunday, in 50 degree temps with a nice breeze, we moved the logs below from up on the hill.  They are from the original cut done before the house was built to facilitate solar energy production.  The freshly split wood (about 1/2 cord - 4x4x4) was also split -- great weather for working on the wood pile!

Firewood and foliage

We did a lot of red maple log cutting today.  This will be future firewood after further cutting and splitting.  This is what a bunch of butchered logs look like.  We likely won't need to burn this for a few seasons.

Some trees are clinging to leaves.  This has prolonged the fall foliage season in certain spots.  Below are colors from a young oak, as well as mature maple and birch.

Daytime highs in the 60s, with lows in the 40s.  They'll be getting colder soon!

Mr. Shaggy

I don't think we'll make it a habit to name individual trees, but this yellow birch has been dubbed "Mr. Shaggy."  Got to love that bark!

Here are three extra recent pictures, including tonight's sunset.  Peak foliage is gone, with lots of trees having no leaves left.

October images

Timber!!!!

Wow! Lots of activity today.  As the picture shows, we had some trees cut down.  The guy who cleared our south hill last year was back today to take down a few more.  He does a great job felling trees because of his immense experience, and how fast he can run!  It was amazing watching him take two that were chained together.  One just yanked the other along with it.

Those far more afraid of cutting down big trees (us!) stuck to less intense cutting.  We cut up some of the south hill trees that had by in a pile for a year.  This will give us a lot of firewood down the road.

Tractor arrives

We've put a few hours on the tractor already.  This includes turning practice, moving wood, and -- as seen below - picking up some gravel.

The wood we moved included some stray pieces here or there, as well as remnants of a big blow down that blocked part of the driveway in a spring storm.  Yet more red maple to add to our collection.

We had the best five consecutive days of solar production from Tuesday through Saturday.  We logged 157 kilowatt/hours.  Clouds and rain today, but sun returns tomorrow.

Purple Majesty

Tuesday started out below freezing.  But that's OK.  Time for our first fire!

For all of its beauty, and the status as the state tree, I sometimes wonder if paper birch isn't as pretty as yellow birch.  This lovely double trunked yellow birch certainly makes the case for that species! Picture was taken during a.m. walk today.

Then there's the purple majesty of white ash.  They are just starting to change now.  Note the purple leaflets in several spots.  Maybe 10 days before leaf peak up here! And it's not even fall yet!

Foggy start

We had a few bits of frost Monday morning.  Today will be close to 85 degrees.  The fog was very thick this a.m., as you can see.

The warm sun burned through the fog.  This white ash, already showing a few bits of purple on some leaves, was absorbing the heat.

Inside, one of the universal laws of physics was demonstrated:  Every sun beam finds a cat.

Wood and flowers

We had great weather this weekend.  Plenty of cutting and splitting done.  Our July 4 wood rack is now officially full, with some nice logs on both sides.  The logs will be for the 2014-15 winter.

Just over three cords are ready along our driveway.  This doesn't count the red maple west of the house, which will burn first -- or the shed full of wood pictured above.

We have plenty more to cut and split, so, with only about 2 or 3 cords needed each winter, we're in really good shape on our supply.

Here's a bonus photo of some wildflowers growing just north of our deck.  Lots of good color from them this summer.

Next weekend is the Lancaster Fair!

Various Ramblings

We've been spending weekends and a few mornings here and there, picking berries, getting the garages organized, working on firewood (a perpetual task!) and getting ready for our first winter in the house.  We are in really good shape wood-wise (will post some updated photos and measurements soon).  Berry season was decent (not as many as we had hoped), but we still managed to pick enough to give some to one of our neighbors on 2 occasions (they have brought us squash and cucumbers from their garden).

The driveway will soon have its final grading and layers of gravel applied.

The next big event will be delivery of our new tractor!!!  We ordered it last weekend and hope to have it by next week sometime!  Will definitely post photos and specs.

Our solar electricity generation has been fantastic this month and we have exceeded 2 MegaWattHours since going live in May.

CO2 Emission Saved:  3,242.02 lb

Equivalent Trees Planted: 83.25

Light Bulbs Powered: 6,468.24 For a day

Baby white oaks

We welcome another grand tree species to Hardwood Hermitage.  White oak (quercus alba) acorns were planted on our south hill last fall.  Several baby trees can be seen now, like the one pictured here.

Unquestionably one of the greatest trees, white oak has tremendous aesthetic virtues.  The burgundy fall color on those round lobes is fantastic.

A white oak weighs about 46 pounds per cubic foot.  They are very valuable as lumber and firewood.  The cells in the wood are totally closed, unlike red oak.  Thus, quercus alba has been used throughout history in places that you don't want liquid to permeate, such as ship building and wine barrels.

We'll never see the white oaks we plant get to enormous proportions, but the majesty of this highly desirable species can't be denied.  More will go in brush cut spots we're working on this summer.

Berries!

We picked some great berries yesterday afternoon.  They amounted to about 3 quarts.  Plenty more blackberries will be ready in the next week or two.  Here are some we washed yesterday.

On our way back up the hill, we saw a porcupine about 35 feet high in a big red maple.

We continue to work on wood cutting, splitting, and stacking.  Also, we've completed some tractor garage clean-up in preparation for the tractor.  We're close to ordering one after test drives yesterday.

Destruction and creation

Nature's two most powerful forces, destruction and creation, are constant companions when you live in a forest.  We lost a big paper birch in that wicked storm earlier this month.  Also, the power company's tree crews did some preventive cutting of a few trees leaning toward the lines.  We got a lot of wood out of both events.

This weekend we did cutting of paper birch logs and a red maple log.  Most are in 22" or 44" lengths.  We'll cut those into burnable lengths later.  Here are pictures of the work, followed by a baby red oak created recently.  During the storm, the blown down paper birch and a dead conifer both came really close to wiping the little oak out.  But the lovely tree survived.