Conifer casualties

Some before/after pictures can illustrate forest management work on our hill.  The first duo of pics shows a baby sugar maple (on the right front of the pic), with a red maple on the left.  Behind the two trees are a bunch of conifers (all balsam fir).  With the bowsaw and big loppers, the conifers were removed to make more room for the maples, as seen in the after pic. 

Back up the slope a bit, some birches benefited from additional conifer cutting this afternoon.

Before

After

Now, the two paper birches in the front of the pic and the yellow birch in back have lots more space to grow while soaking up the sun. 

Future kindling

Work to ensure we have enough kindling is a vital part of life on Hardwood Hermitage.  Without the small branches that get fires going, the big wood would be useless.  Prior to some snow this morning, some red maple stump sprouts were thinned.  The species may not be the greatest of trees, but the relatively soft wood rates very high as kindling.  Our supply is essentially infinite, because red maple stump sprouts grow quickly just about everywhere you look in the woods.

Thinning the stump sprouts helps meet forest management goals, in addition to being key to our heating plans.  The less desirable red maple gets removed, which provides more sun to birches, sugar maple, and red oak.

First walk of spring

Another great sunny day.  Birches young, old, and in between are soaking up sun on the first morning of spring.

Last walk of winter

Much to see on a very sunny last full day of winter. 

This spectacular paper birch stands about 600 feet northeast of the house, near one of our main walking trails heading toward the jut.  There's so much to praise about the state tree of New Hampshire!

Back toward the west, a vigorous young red oak weathered another winter quite well.  The tree, which has doubled in height over the last five years, stands to the north of two large white pines that mark a big turn in our main loop trail.

Critters, mainly deer, made a lot of prints in the snow that fell this week.  We have surpassed 6.5 feet of snow for the season.

Winter walks help to visualize forest work set for the looming warmer months.  These red maple stump sprouts are destined to become kindling.

The bowsaw took down two quaking aspen three weekends ago.  There's some good kindling on the crowns of these trees.  The wood is soft, but we'll still cut, split, and move the trees for burning in the 2018-19 season.  These two trees stood near the big paper birch in this post's first photo.

Survived the big storm

Spring arrives on Monday morning, but for this Ides of March, we had to move a bunch of snow.  The big coastal storm brought us about one foot of new white!

 

When nearly done with the clearing, we lost the chain that makes the snowblower do its thing.  We used shovels to move some of the snow away from the front of the garages.  We were able to make the driveway and road passable prior to the chain problem. 

About two cords of next season's firewood still sits covered by a tarp (and a bunch of snow, of course) on the north side of the main garage.  Lots of time in the woods planned for when the snow finally goes away.  We won't have any trouble replacing this season's wood that continues to do a great job heating the house.  The main thermostat was 81 degrees at 10 a.m. this morning.