The Cusp of Autumn

With the walnuts raining down and the their leaves yellowing, and the sound of chain saws off in the distance, we are definitely moving from the cusp of autumn to the reality of it.  Last week my dear friend Bob came over to bring down several dozen tons of trees for me to prepare, mostly for next winter and perhaps the one after that.  We already have more than half of what we need for this coming winter but I really want to get way ahead of future demands.  The local tradition is to enter every winter with two years’ worth of firewood in hand, and that is my goal as well.  Our objective for this cut was to select several trees that were either damaged or in the wrong place (I am trying to establish a cleared path to the southwest of the barn so I will no longer lose winter sun at 3PM), get them on the ground for me to work with, and emerged unscathed ourselves.  In two hours we accomplished all of the above.

Working with Bob is a great learning experience as he has been felling large timbers ever since he was a boy.  I am fine with cutting it up once it hits the ground, but I’ve heard there is unending paperwork if you drop a twenty ton tree on yourself so I defer to him in this enterprise.  He stands at the base of the tree looking at its trunk and crown, judging both the direction it would like to fall and the degree to which that trajectory can be altered.  Then he sets to work, back notching then felling the tree.  In every instance of the two dozen trees we (and by “we” I mean “he”) dropped it came down exactly where he wanted it to come down.

Now it is up to me to cut them into short bolts, process them with the hydraulic splitter, and stack them to season.  Starting next week I will begin filling the firewood crib and the front porch with a mountain of BTUs.

The most beautiful sound in the depths of winter is when Mrs. Barn remarks, “Hmm, kinda warm in here, isn’t it?”