Slave driver Mark came over at 8 AM as we agreed and we proceeded to take down several of the bad pines behind the barn. They were bad pines because 1) their wood is worthless for just about anything and 2) they were shading some small apple trees that need the sun and need to have the soil around them dry out. Right now, many of those small apples are long and leggy with moss growing around their base.
This was Phase 2 of the apple project. Phase 1 was carried out by Mark two winters ago when he trimmed all the shrubs away from many small apple trees behind the garage. Now there's a lovely parklike lawn dotted with apple trees in that area. Not all are producing apples and the apples that are produced are pretty poor human fare, but the deer seem to like them as do the grouse. There's still a section of Phase 1 that needs to be cleared to the ground but the brush hog may get most of that this summer. Mark trimmed when there were two feet of snow and many of the short stubs from that trimming still need to e removed.
Once the trees were down, we went into the garage to cut and install two new posts and a box header in the garage area of the garage/workshop. This was a little more daunting than expected. One of the old posts would suit us fine being nearly 9 inches in diameter at the small end, but the other was only 6 inches and we thought it was too skinny for the job. Luckily (?) I had those two trees that blew down across the trail that I had cut the other morning. Both were more than long enough and certainly thick enough for the job. One was balsam fir like the posts we put in the workshop, but the other was a hemlock a much stronger and water resistant wood so off I went with the ATV to retrieve the 12-foot long log while Mark cut a tenon in the top of the post we were going to reuse.
Let me tell you something about a log, newly felled, 12-feet long and tapering from around 12 to 10 inches in diameter...IT IS FREAKIN" HEAVY! I finally succeeded in getting it to the front of the garage and both I and the ATV were happy about getting it untied from the tow hitch. Getting this behemoth cut to specs and into position took a another hour of heavy lifting but we got 'er done! The rest of the roof may collapse under the weight of next winter's snows and ice but, by golly, the section directly over those new posts will survive! (Unless they sink into the mud of the garage floor. We really need to do something about the drainage around that building and the barn.) Our next project on the garage/worksho will be replacing all the old nails in the metal roof with nails having rubber gaskets so it doesn't leak.
Shortly after noon, we were back to the Phase 2 clean-up. We trimmed the felled trees and cut the trunks into manageable lengths. Then I hauled the debris away to the "dump" on the other side of the property while Mark trimmed out some of the smaller worthless shrubs from around the apple trees. We worked no-stop from just before 1 PM until 5 PM but we got most of it cleared away.
I'm heading back to PA in the morning so I can get some rest! (If Terry will let me.)
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