Bolt Hole, July 9, 2011

Beautiful sunny day here in the northland. Temperatures remained in the low 70s and the humidity has dropped considerably. A light breeze blowing out of the west northwest makes it even nicer.

Just got done doing 2 hours with the chainsaw. Cut up two maples and a birch that were blown down along the side of the trail on the east side a couple of years ago. Disappointed (but not surprised) that the two maples were already showing some rot in their core. Still, the logs were thick enough that losing four or five inches in the center will still yield me four to six nice pieces of firewood once it's split. The birch (the grey shaggy barked kind) displayed little rot in its core and will make some fine firewood.

What did surprise me was the amount of water that came gushing out of one of the logs. It had a hole facing upward that captured snowmelt and rain in a little interior reservoir. Got my pant legs soaked when I hit that sucker! Water literally poured from the cut surface and, propelled by the chainsaw, was thrown against my shins.

Earlier today, I did a three hour walkabout with the loppers in the woods to the west. Some real nice deer trails in there. This is where Mark and I harvested last year's firewood from three downed maple trees. I might be able to get an ATV load or two from the stumps that we left. Other than that, and except for a couple of fir trees, there aren't any new blow downs to be had for firewood. There are, however, a couple of standing cherry trees that, with all their twists and bends, are good for nothing but firewood. Problem there is that they need a year's worth of seasoning to be any good for burning.

I hesitate to bring fresh wood like that out to the yard or barn. History is not on our side with folks stealing wood from the barn which has no doors. I could cut and stack the stuff in the forest, but the shadiness of the woods will not help it cure properly. Guess I'll have to figure out how to hang some doors on the barn!