Forests and chaos theory

A scientist uses chaos theory to describe how seemingly random disorder governs natural processes. A second wet snow storm -- this one way more intense -- followed by colder temps has created much change in the forest. Unfortunately for many young paper birches, that means death. Springpoles never recover their upright character, making them obvious candidates for firewood piles. Much work will occur as a result of the storm, but nature always has a plan. Other trees, hardier and longer-lived than paper birch (especially oaks and sugar maple), will be better off due to the additional sun and less competition for nutrients. But let's hope for no more heavy snow. It's probable that 25 percent of the property's paper birch will be wiped out because of the storm.

Wet snow and wood

A sloppy 3 1/2 inches of snow fell overnight. Birches northwest of the house look great with the extra white.

Earlier this month we finished our autumn wood processing project. Here's one of the completed areas of stacked and covered wood. We needed 23 tanks in the two saws and 117 1/2 hours of work, but we greatly expanded our supply.

Morning harvests

Of the many great aspects of a northern NH autumn, harvests rank near the top. We pulled about six pounds of carrots out of the ground this morning in a row by the house. We also cut and moved wood, our most important crop. Nature giveth!!

Another before/after

An hour of work this morning led to a very notable change to the area of the big triple trunk dropped a month ago. We split and moved wood before snow started falling (no accumulation, but the flakes were huge!). The first picture is a bit blurry due to the low light.

Working around rain

The weekend washout kept us from working on the big firewood project on Saturday and Sunday. But we cut a lot on Friday, then did some splitting and other wood work today.

This morning's before/after

 Before nearly two hours of work today:

After: 

Sawbuck Friday

Summer-like warmth and no precipitation created some great opportunities to process firewood from the big cutting work late last month. This morning, we cut many split, 22" pieces in the sawbuck, then did a lot of stacking. Many days of work ahead, but we're doing just fine. A before/after duo appears below. The stacks of 22" pieces turned into sawdust and a higher pallet pile in an hour and 45 minutes.