Thursday, April 9, 2009

Out of the Woods

We are done cutting wood for now unless there is a prolonged cold snap.
Much of the farm here is forested. About a hundred acres is in mostly northern hardwoods. "Our" side of the road, which is the north side, has 80 acres and is our original homestead.  Owned by us for most of the time we have lived here, it is about half wooded. Some of it is low - soft maple, white pine, tamarack. Most of the remainder is hard maple/beech climax forest with hemlock underneath, and bitternut hickory, ash, basswood and cherry mixed in on the higher clay, with yellow birch and red maple on the lower edges. The very northern-most boundary rises to sandy ground with red oak and aspen. It is a very diverse, mature mix that we have been managing since the early 70's. We have hunted, mushroomed, sugared, cut firewood, and logged  for our own building materials and timber sales. It looks better and is much healthier than when we started.
The other side of Loop road or "the Ervin place" was sold to us by Roy and Yvonne Ervin in 1987.  They owned the 120 acres for 42 years, built the house and farmstead and took very good care of the land.  It is half tillable and half wooded, the woods being on lighter soil and more level than our home place.  Good stewardship of this forest with many decades of select cutting has left a beautiful stand of hard maple and black cherry timber with some good white ash, beech, basswood, red maple and a smattering of red oak.  It has almost no conifers except what has been planted on the edges in the last 15 years.
  We have been thinning and culling firewood on the back forty of this property for the last two years. In years past we have worked in the woods cutting timber and firewood throughout the winter.  This year, because of the severity of the winter, we had a very late start.  Mike and I were able to cut on and off for most of March since we were not making maple syrup this Spring.  We finished up this week, not that there isn't more to cut up.  The trees marked for thinning that needed to come down are on the ground  and the brush is cut off it and under it.  For the health of the remaining trees it is important to drop these thinnings and do any skidding before "slippage", when the trees are actively growing and the bark is soft.  Much of the firewood is cut up and quite a bit is split.
  Our woodshed is nearly full of dry wood cut in previous years. An outdoor 'boiler' heats our house, domestic hot water year-round, and our small greenhouse. After the weather warms, we will be burning brief fires of light, junk wood and kindling to heat our hot water. The Ervin house is rented to the Fritcher family who utilize a smaller 'boiler' for heat. Last year two other families heated their homes from these woods. There isn't that much wood cut yet but combined with the standing deadwood I think we are done for now. There is too much planting, fencing and building to do. But the wood work rhythm has been established and with these cool mornings it is tempting to pick up the chainsaw and ignore the other work. Soon the bugs will be out and we will be glad for work in the open. 

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