‘Tis the Season…

… to harvest firewood for the coming winters.

The pile as of two days ago.

This coming winter is already taken care of, so now I am working on winters 2023, 2024, 2025, etc.  This week I have done nothing but retrieve a small portion of the windfall over the past year, yielding a heaping pickup every day.  Thus far my mountain of firewood to be split and stacked is about 1-1/2 winters, maybe more if the new cabin windows make the same difference as did the two previous projects — insulating and sealing the crawl space under the cabin, and replacing all the chinking between the logs.  These two ventures resulted in cutting our firwood needs by almost 50% last winter.

The road up to the previously felled timber is blocked by windfall trees which must be cut up and removed to even get to the upper inventory. Each of these trees renders almost a full pickup load of cut bolts.

I haven’t even made it to this tree yet, with its 40+-feet of clear trunk almost 24″ in diameter. If it were less logistically challenging, I would contemplate getting this one milled into slabs.

I’ve retrieved four truckloads, with at least another dozen still awaiting my ministrations.

This maple log was a particular challenge as I had to use some block-and-tackle to enable my little pickup to drag it uphill and on to the road so I could work it.  This made me appreciate my little Stihl saw all the more.  It is small and lightweight but can handle an 18-inch bar due to its narrow chain.  I keep the chain sharpened several times a day and have to swap out the current chain because I’ve worn it to the nub.

This week also brought the first swatches of color to the local flora.