Apple happiness

 A few apples from our forest joined 40 pounds of Granny Smith bought in Littleton to create many great fruity delights.  In the first picture, apple jelly sits in jars in the top rows, with darker apple butter below.  A wonderful apple crisp came out of the oven this morning, too.

Brush cutting a.m.

With the season well advanced, the saw blade on the brush cutter is passed its prime, but the excellent tool continues to do great work.  With a tank this morning completed down the hill several hundred feet, forest management remains a central activity in the woods.  With some delicate work in a patch of paper birch, several other trunks were cut, mainly balsam fir.  The remaining trees are enjoying the brilliant sunshine on a very pleasant morning.

The brush cutter also goes to work thinning weeds to help oaks.  These two small ones, living almost totally in shade, are probably not destined for long life, but they are better off than a few minutes before.  Sometimes hope is all an oak needs.

Seeing double

With the big trunks in the shade, the crown of a beautiful, magnificent, and huge double paper birch shined in the sun earlier this week.

From storm to firewood

Tropical storms aren't all bad when not too destructive.  Last week's wind and rain weren't that fierce, but there was enough of a wallop to break a red maple.  No surprise that the light species already exhibiting some dieback would break.  The crown ended up in the trail between Pine Cut Curve and the favorite raspberry patch.  After the top got cut out of the trail this morning, additional work dropped the 25 feet still standing.  Further processing led to 16 pieces of 22 inches, which will make their way up the hill over the next few days.  Splitting and cutting then remains for each piece after the trek home.

Here's the fallen crown prior to cleanup, with the break visible on the tree in the middle background (sorry for slightly blurry photo).

The next picture shows most of the 22" pieces after temporary stacking in the trail.  The small saw did all the work.

The doomed tree's stump is visible on the lower right of the last picture.  Birches that previously missed out on sun because of the red maple's trunk and crown now have a wide open spot to grow faster and healthier.

Controlled destruction

While some berry picking happened yesterday morning, the small saw went to work, as well.  The thinning focused on several clumps of red maple stump sprouts.  The controlled destruction seems quite chaotic, but it's actually focused on the forest management goal of removing less desirable growth to ensure more sun to favored species.  The mess will get cleaned up after the tropical storm! The weather will be great for several days starting Wednesday morning.