A morning of log cutting

We made progress on cutting the logs taken down on Monday. Tremendous weather this morning, with lows in the 50s and great shade, led our big saw to roar for a good chunk of the a.m. Some pieces are now short enough to split, but a lot of work was needed just to cut the longest and thickest logs down to four feet.

Lots of logs

Here are some pictures of the logs placed in several places after Monday's cutting operation. The tractor moved 6 bucket loads close to the house. These will be cut, split, and then stacked on the north side of the main garage.

Some of the longer logs in other locations have been measured and marked, the blue line shows where the saw will cut the log. Smaller pieces will be 44 inches, then go in the sawbuck for higher cutting than the ground.

Big logs like these will be cut shorter because of the weight.

Some red maple was included in the job, but most of the logs are paper birch, like these.

The work crew chipped smaller portions of each tree. We decided to keep the end product. We'll use this as mulch and in some wet areas in our trail system.

Raining sawdust

In order to protect power lines and get a year of firewood, a cutting operation was completed today. The work required professionals and a big bucket truck because of the proximity to power lines. Because of the cutting high up in the bucket, it was raining sawdust today! Here are some images of the work.

The biggest trees taken down were showing signs of dieback. These were also the trees that were the biggest threat to the lines. Several lovely paper birches also taken down along driveway. Just the growth from all of the young paper birches on our property this year might make up for the biomass cut down today, though! We'll get a year's worth of firewood out of the deal. Lots of sawing and splitting to do to prep the heat for our 2016-17 season.

Work on a trail loop

The brushcutter (weed wacker with saw blade) and trimmer (same tool with spool of plastic string) are used to sculpt several areas for walking. The primary trail is a loop that begins at the house, goes north and west, then loops back. The loop's total distance is about 2,200 feet. The trimmer did some work this morning to keep grass and weeds down. Note the large number of young paper birch along the loop.

After making your way back to the house, these trio of white ash appear to stand guard over the trail.

The many small paper birch visible doesn't mean everything is small along the trail. There are big rocks and trees, too!

Great berry season means time for jam!

We've had a great raspberry crop this year. The plants grow in many parts of our forest. Five pints of berries were used to make some jam:

Berry plants get wacked by the brush cutter to make trails and help trees, but plenty remain. After raspberry season ends, blackberries will be ready. Picking our own berries for several weeks is one of the great parts about the season we know as summah. Both saws also got some work this weekend, as did the brushcutter. Some rainy days limited solar production, but we were still minus 17 for the week.

Two days nearly completes wood shed

The team building our new wood shed put in a lot of work Saturday and Sunday in hot, sunny weather. The first pic is a before shot of the shed's location.

Our next pic shows the nearly complete shed, which will hold more than three cords of wood. Above the big wood, shelves will give us a place for kindling, the all-important small stuff that gets the fire going. The shed's siding and trim match the house. They've done a great job on the shed, which is a much better storage option than using a bunch of tarps.

We continue to add to our future heating inventory. Some forest thinning provided many branches this weekend!

Two new panels add to solar production

We filled up the rack on the roof by adding two new solar panels. The new panels have a bit more power in them than the previous 20. We had a new net meter installed just after the two new panels were put in. The meter shows minus 100 as our usage since install 16 days ago. Overall, the solar panels, since first production in May 2013, have created 11,660 kilowatt/hours of electricity, about 77 percent of our total usage.