Last walk of 2014

Happy New Year! Here are a few early winter pics from Hardwood Hermitage, taken on walks each of the last two days.

The last photo is a young oak that found an opening in the forest. The sun the tree received today was quite deceptive -- windy and cold. Like many other young oaks, this one has benefited from brush cutting.

Almost Win-tah

We've had over two feet of snow since our mid-November post. A persistent low pressure system has kept us cloudy for nearly 10 days, dropping an inch here and an inch there. It's not even warm enough to melt or slide off a bit of snow off the solar panels. Thanks to nice sun in early December, though, we're ahead of last year's pace for the month. Here are a few pics showing what Autumn (know as Almost Win-tah up here) looks like sometimes.

This interesting picture was taken before most of our snow. A red maple was the target of a hungry beast, undoubtedly a moose based on how high the pulled bark was on the tree.

First snow

About an inch of snow fell overnight, our first of the season.

Shiny, happy birches

We had a lot of sun on Veterans Day. The birches of Hardwood Hermitage were perhaps especially shiny today to honor those who have served.

Cloudy brush cutting

The sun decided to start its winter hibernation a bit early. We've had a rather cloudy October. Solar production will be over 100 kw/hrs less than last October. We got a few breaks of sun today. Regardless of our level of sunlight, the brush cutter can do its job. This photo shows a typical spot for some good work. There are a lot of young hardwoods and conifers in this photo. Much of this will have to go for the good of the desirable trees. All of the green here, which is balsam fir, will get wacked. Even some of the hardwoods, including a few paper birch, will go. Mother Nature allows way more trees to grow in cleared areas than can survive while also not creating too much competition among saplings. With fewer youngsters in a given area, the survivors will grow faster. Note the paper birch on the right side of the photo. It has already transitioned to the mature shiny white peeling bark. Most others in the picture are still have the brownish hue of their first few years.

Yellow birch takes on so many interesting shapes. This tree decided to create four trunks from the stout single trunk attached to the ground. A great many yellow birch are present in this area of the property.

Demand destruction

Sorry for the ominous title to this post. Actually "demand destruction" is a good thing. In the energy conservation world, the concept means the elimination of need for electricity from power companies. We've taken another step in that direction with the installation of our new heat pump hot water heater, pictured below. Thanks to our solar energy, we've only used about 3.8 kw/hrs of electricity per day from the grid for the last 17 months. The new water heater should save us close to our average daily grid usage by taking heat from the surrounding air to decrease the need for electricity. The room stays warm during heating season especially since our wood stove stack lets off lots of heat only 1 foot from the water heater.

Friday morning walk

Wow. The first week of October always ends up lovely for us. This collage of pics celebrates fall foliage between the lines of Frost's "In Hardwood Groves." The same leaves over and over again! They fall from giving shade above

To make one texture of faded brown And fit the earth like a leather glove.

Before the leaves can mount again To fill the trees with another shade,

They must go down past things coming up. They must go down into the dark decayed.

They must be pierced by flowers and put Beneath the feet of dancing flowers.

However it is in some other world I know that this is way in ours.

Future oak groves

The really big red oak southwest of the house had a banner year for acorn production. This group of acorns was picked in about 15 minutes today. With acorns picked earlier in September, we plan on May mass plantings for future oak groves in several spots. These acorns will soon go in the fridge for a few months for stratification purposes, required of red oak acorns.

First fire

We started a fire less than 30 minutes ago. This gets the burning season going three days earlier than last year. All that hard work over the spring and summah is worth it just feeling the heat from this first fire. A frost advisory starts at 1 a.m. tomorrow, but WHO CARES?

8 megawatt hours

We've had a sunny start to September! Our panels surpassed 8 megawatt hours of total production yesterday. Clouds and storms today, but three more consecutive days of good production seem likely starting tomorrow. Overall, the panels continue to produce more than 80% of our electricity (about 82.1% to be more exact). Cooler temps tomorrow, as well as the return of the sun. A fair amount of yellow is evident on birch leaves. Lots of trees haven't turned at all yet, but the biggest sign of autumn continues to show itself.

Two forms of Red Maple

Some of our red maples are starting to turn. Autumn isn't far!

Here's red maple in a different form: 49 pieces of the big blow down that were moved closer to the splitting pile since Sunday.

Working on the blow down

We spent some time yesterday and today working on the big double trunk red maple that blew down in the July 2013 storm. We'll get about a year of firewood from this huge tree. The two trunks each had a diameter of one foot 35 feet from the ground. Lots of work to prepare as firewood, but we made great progress thanks to both chainsaws. The sawdust was really flying.

Life all around

However difficult the loss of our beloved kitty, inspiring life abounds on our wonderful hill. Recently we've seen a groundhog munching nearby (no pics of that little fellow yet), turkey broods, deer, the hummingbirds, and signs of black bear. Of course, towering above us all is the greatest of all life on Hardwood Hermitage, our trees. Seeing this huge double-trunk yellow birch was simply awesome!

Then there's the majestic white ash

Of course, paper birch, the state tree, doesn't play second fiddle to anyone!

For toughness and commanding stature, nothing beats red oak in the Great North Woods. This big quercus rubra has been battered by wind and ice for a couple of centuries. You can see through a big hole in this tree! Falling branches are everywhere, but the central trunk still produces an impressive canopy of leaves. They'll start turning red in about five weeks!

In memory of Peaches

We said goodbye to Peaches on Tuesday. The cutest and sweetest kitty ever lost her battle with kidney disease. To honor the memory of our precious, beautiful girl, we are posting some pictures of her. This collection includes some of her favorite activities, such as sleeping (#1 all time favorite), hunting, and even playing Scrabble. Between pictures are the verses of "When Great Trees Fall," a timeless poem by Maya Angelou.

When great trees fall,
 rocks on distant hills shudder,
 lions hunker down 
in tall grasses,
 and even elephants 
lumber after safety.



When great trees fall
 in forests,
 small things recoil into silence,
 their senses
 eroded beyond fear.



When great souls die,
 the air around us becomes 
light, rare, sterile.
 We breathe, briefly.
 Our eyes, briefly,
 see with
 a hurtful clarity.
 Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
 examines,
 gnaws on kind words 
unsaid,
 promised walks 
never taken.



Great souls die and
 our reality, bound to
 them, takes leave of us.
 Our souls,
 dependent upon their
 nurture,
 now shrink, wizened.
 Our minds, formed
 and informed by their 
radiance,
 fall away.
 We are not so much maddened
 as reduced to the unutterable ignorance 
of dark, cold
 caves.



And when great souls die,
 after a period peace blooms,
 slowly and always 
irregularly. Spaces fill
 with a kind of 
soothing electric vibration.
 Our senses, restored, never 
to be the same, whisper to us.
 They existed. They existed.
 We can be. Be and be 
better. For they existed.

7 megawatt hours produced

We had some storms today, but enough sun earlier in the day to surpass 7 megawatt hours of total solar production since May 20 last year. That's 7,000 kilowatt/hours from our favorite yellow orb. With the meter only reading 1,665 kilowatt hours of usage, the sun has been the source for more than 80 percent of electricity. Sounds like the next three days will offer some more good production. Nothing like the sun!

1 + 1 = 3 (hummingbirds)

We have a new addition to the local hummingbird family. We've been watching them now and determined that there is a new youngster visiting the feeder!! I'll try to get a picture of it and post. And as if this isn't enough excitement, last night, when i went out at about 9pm to bring in the feeder, a rather large black bear bounded out of the bushes and away from the house to the east. Who knows...it may have been sitting there waiting until our lights went out to come and partake of the feeder. Well, that is exactly why the feeder comes inside each night!!! Clearly the bear was quite scared as it didn't even look back -- just took off when I opened the North door.

Taking the afternoon off

We did a lot of work in about 3 and a half hours this morning. We're taking the afternoon off. We cut some more red maple firewood logs, cleared a path blocked by some fallen red maple, and trimmed some conifers that were blocking access to the sun for oaks and birches in a spot about 1000 feet from the house. Here are some pictures of our busy day.

The good blend of sun and rain have made for a lovely wildflower season so far. These are just two on the hill near the house:

We received more wind and rain from Hurricane Arthur than originally expected. This white pine must have twisted when it fell, causing the splintering of the trunk.