The Saudi Arabia of wood

In defense of a school's decision to switch to biomass heating, a man in Northern New Hampshire recently suggested the region should stop buying oil from foreign sources. He called our region "The Saudi Arabia of wood." Here are some recent pictures of our wood work as we prepare for the next few heating seasons with our favorite type of fuel, grown on our own land, as well as cut and split with our own hard work.

Of course, trees are great in their own right. Here are a red maple and paper birch doing just fine in our still pleasant early summer. Lows some mornings in the last week were below 40 degrees.

Hummingbirds

We have a very active hummingbird couple who are enjoying the feeder and hanging plant on the back deck.

Wood everywhere!

Some weekend work with the chainsaws is shown in the first two photos. We split about half of the big wood this morning. That will end up being close to a cord of good red maple for the stove. The small saw completed the work on the branch pieces that will also help out with lots of heat. The third picture shows our new frame for barrels meant to hold our sand/salt mix. This will be placed near our driveway hill before winter. Three neat forest photos conclude this latest collage. A huge sugar maple, lovely paper birch, and photo of the deep woods near our north lot line are featured.

A great start to June

From 2 a.m. to 8 a.m. today, we were under a frost advisory. The cool start and wonderful sunshine meant a work day was in store for us. We've made good progress in firewood and kindling, as you can see. Some trees enjoying the afternoon sun are also pictured, including a young red oak.

Frosty start for a turkey

We're having our first sunny morning in a while. Overnight temps were cool enough for some frost. This turkey didn't seem to mind.

Brake for Moose!

Yesterday morning we saw a moose for the first time on the property. The white patches are likely evidence of hair loss caused by rubbing off winter ticks. This moose didn't seem too bad off in that respect. We've seen photos of moose with virtually no hair left! Winter ticks can be a big problem for moose.

April snow showers

. . . bring May flowers? We received two inches of snow overnight. This should all be gone by the end of Friday -- sun and much warmer temps expected.