Aerie Report, September 29, 2009

I checked the rain gauge this morning and it held 1.05 inches of water. That's from Saturday night through today although the rain pretty much stopped by 3 PM Monday. Heck, the sun even came out briefly to drive the temperature up to 60 degrees...right after the fire I built brought the house temp up to 68 degrees.

I may need to build another fire this evening. The winds shifted over night first blowing from the north as opposed to coming from the south like it had been all day, and then from the northwest this afternoon. That brought plenty of cold Canadian air our way and the morning low was just 48 degrees and the high never got above 55 this afternoon.

The weather hacks at weather.com say we're in for rain tonight (60%) and tomorrow (60 %) and it has started falling as I type this. That's a cold, raw rain, too. Tomorrow's high, they say, will only e around 55 degrees.

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After reading this article: U.S. Northeast May Have Coldest Winter in a Decade (linked to at several of the blogs I visit) this morning, I figured I better get out there and get some wood split. So I did. Wood definitely warms you more than once. Heck, I hardly noticed it was only 55 degrees while I was working.

My goal was to run this:

Cut oak, ash and maple at the ready.

Through this:

Two Ton Yard Machine ready for splitting.

And get it stacked here:

Empty pallet awaits filling.

I pretty much succeeded in the first part. All that wood is split. As for the stacking part, I'm gonna need a bigger pallet. I've almost filled the pallet pictured above, and there's lots more to go. I'd guess I've got maybe three to four face cords (that's two full cords) of wood split today. The stuff under the blue tarp is from last year when I could still bring firewood from the Bolt Hole. No more of that! The ash borer has caused both NY and PA to issue quarantines on firewood. You're not supposed to transport wood more than a few miles from where it was cut. I don't think it would really matter if I brought wood from the Adirondacks. Most of the ash trees up there went into making baseball bats and skis a long time ago, but I'm not going to risk some over zealous LEO or trooper going all nuclear on my ass.

Almost full pallet. A basic cube 4' x 4' x 4'.

And there's more to stack.

Luckily I have two more pallets and there's lots of tree tops still laying out there waiting to be cut and hauled in to the yard.

As for finishing the stacking...manana...or maybe Thursday. The hydraulic splitter may be a Godsend, but you still have to lug those rounds about and my back is sore.

Bolt Hole Report

After having several hours of dampening rain showers Tuesday night, I went for a walk yesterday morning. The leaves on the ground at sunrise were nice and soft and didn't crinkle with every step. I planned to do a circuit to the southeast of me; one that would allow me to walk with my face into the ever so slight breeze that was pushing northeast up the slope and east toward the sun.

Once I got off the jeep/snowmobile trail and through the first 200 feet of small conifers, things opened up in a beech cherry forest that, surprisingly had only a few blow downs. I could actually see out to almost 100 yards. It was state land so some of the trees were huge! One old sugar maple that was partially uprooted had to be nearly three feet across at chest height and easily 75 feet tall. It was caught at the top by a slightly smaller but equally impressive sister.

Walking slowly and stopping often to scan the horizon all around me, I made my way southward until I reached a downslope heading to a swampy area and a creek. I found an log on which to sit and stopped to rest for fifteen minutes while I ate an apple and searched the exposed areas for deer. Nada. I did get up close and personal with a red squirrel which hopped on the end of the log three feet from me and didn't realize I was there until I said. "Booo!" It scampered on to the tree against which I was leaning and peered around the bole to see what the hell I was and if I was dangerous. I guess I passed some sort of test because the squirrel sounded no alarm and went on it's unhurried way.

I headed down the slope. At the bottom of the slope, I turned to the west eventually crossing the state boundary and back onto private land. I knew exactly where I was by the gold paint on the trees marking the border, the remnants of logged cherry trees littering the forest floor, an easily discernible skidway and my GPS unit.

Movement became a bit more difficult with all the tops of logged trees scattered about and the few blowdowns across the skidway. I was just making my way through a thick patch where I had to negotiate two tree tops and had limited visibility because of many young beech trees that are still yellow-green with leaves, when the slope above me exploded in activity. Apparently the noise I made stepping on a branch and my odor wafting up the slope had spooked three or four deer I never saw.

I froze for several minutes listening to the sounds of the deer going up the hill away from me and cursed my luck. I waited, hoping one or more might get curious and do something stupid like the squirrel, but it didn't happen. I made my way over to the point from which the sounds seemed to originate to get a clue as to whether they were just passing through or had been bedded down on the slope waiting for the morning sun. This was very near where I had sat on Tuesday morning and an area Mark had walked through trying to stir up deer.

I couldn't even find any signs in the leaves that there had been deer in the area. I found no beds (matted down leaves of a roughly oval shape), droppings, or even stirred up leaves indicating the sudden hoof activity I had heard. After a brief search, I gave it up and continued along a skidway that lead right to where I had sat the day before. It was along this skidway that I did find fresh scat (that's deer shit for those that don't talk so polite).

So ended my three and a half hour walk in the woods. Distance was probably only a mile and a half. The experience was worth it--frustrating, but worth it.

I spent the afternoon moving some firewood into the barn for the winter. Rain was forecast for Wednesday night into Thursday (and they were right--for a change) and I wanted to get the split wood under cover before it got wet. I moved about a cord and a half using the wheelbarrow. There's still another two cords that need to me moved and about the same that needs splitting, but that will wait for another day.

Today will be spent stoking the fire and keeping dry inside.

Ooops!

Terry read in the paper that the Photography Club, meeting over at the Wellsboro Library this evening, was to have a speaker who would talk about The Wolves of Yellowstone. Having some interest in photography, Yellowstone and wolves it sounded interesting so off we went after dinner.

The meeting was supposed to start at 7 PM and we arrived ten minutes early to find a speaker already making a presentation...about woodworking. He talked about how he made pine trees out of single billets of wood, inlaid trees, birds and turtles into the backs of plank chairs and deacons' benches and the making of several other items from his shop. I found this all very interesting. Then his partner talked about her working with wool and leather to make rustic clothing for reenactors, rendezvous, and pow-wows. Yet another topic of interest to me.

Needless to say we were at the wrong club meeting! Turns out these folks were from the Wellsboro Arts Club. Talk about serendipity! I spoke with the craftsman and his lady afterwards and they invited me to their workshop. That's an invitaion I will definitely accept once the Dickens Christmas weekend is over. (He's trying to produce another hundred or so trees in the next three weeks so he can sell them--and the four hundred or so he has in stock--at that event.

The Photography Club? That meeting is on the night of November 13. So between that and the Tiadaghton Audubon Society dinner meeting on the 14th our week is pretty well planned.

At the Bolt Hole for the week

Fall is definitely in the air here in the Adirondacks. The temperature last night fell to the upper 20s and there was a heavy frost on the ground at sunrise this morning. All day the temperature never got above 58 degrees.

One thing I miss up here is high-speed internet access. Using dial-up to surf the net or make any sort of download is a time consuming process. Forget about listening to a football or baseball game via the internet. Plus, being on the end of the telephone line, should there be any problems with the lines, static fills the circuit and knocks me off line in a blink.This happens at least once a year when there's an ice or wind storm.

I've been able to walk the woods the last couple of days and the number of uprooted trees or trees that had their tops snapped off during the mesocylcone in late August is amazing. The entire character of the woods changes when that happens. Trails are blocked that were open during the summer. New "open" areas are created where sunlight can now reach the forest floor. It's a learning process when you want to walk the woods. As you may know, the Adirondack Park (that is the state land within the Blue Line) is considered "forever wild" which limits what can and can not be done within its boundary. There will be no clearing of storm damage on state land. I will, however, plan on how to either drop the leaning trees to the forest floor or fell those that I can for the purpose of harvesting firewood or speeding the decay of the dead and dying timber. Already I can see that it will be a good deal of work.

How I spend my week

Okay, it was only a four day week, but still…

As mentioned in the two previous posts, I was up at the Bolt Hole from Tuesday through Friday. The temperatures were only in the 80s according to the thermometers on the porch, but the humidity must have been around the 90% level. So, of course, I was there to do some very physical labor, namely cutting and hauling wood, splitting wood and, finally, cutting grass.

When I got there, I found two very impressive stacks of wood that Mark had already split and laid up.

The stack is approximately 6 feet tall and 24 feet long. Logs were cut about 18-20 inches long so each stack is that deep/thick.

The green tarp on the right covers some well seasoned dead wood ready to burn.

I needed to make a similar contribution to our effort.
First task was to haul the previously cut wood out of the forest (and cut some of the downed logs in the process). That, plus rebuilding portions of the trail to get the ATV over some treacherous spots, took much of Tuesday afternoon and all day Wednesday. I worked 50 minutes to an hour and drank about a quart of water every hour. Perspiration was literally pouring off me whether I was in the shade or not.

Here’s another view of Mark’s stacks with the ATV (Yamaha ProHauler) and some of the rounds I had hauled out of the forest.

All day Wednesday was spent cutting and hauling rounds of tree trunks from the forest. By Wednesday evening I had a sizable stack of rounds hauled out of the forest and ready for splitting.

It took most of Wednesday to haul all these rounds up and get them ready for splitting. The pile was about 10’ x 12’ by 3’ consisting of maple and beech.

Starting at 8:30 AM on Thursday and working until 5:30 PM with an hour+ break mid-day, I reduced the stack of rounds to this:


Not too shabby. I figure it will come close to matching Mark’s stacks. I left it for Mark to stack since I still had to cut the lawn and then get back to PA Friday afternoon.

Friday was just as hot and humid with thunder booming in the distance. I quick stepped my way behind the lawnmower and managed to get the entire think done in two hours fifteen minutes. Then it was time to take a nice cold shower, pack up, climb into my air conditioned truck and drive the 4 hours to PA.

Despite drinking over a gallon and a half of water a day, I still dropped 5 pounds. I’m sure some of it will reappear as I relax over the weekend but then, next week it’s retaining wall time!

Oh, my aching back...

...and legs and arms....

So yesterday morning I got the hydrolic log splitter out of the garage and set up to reduce the rounds of former trees into much smaller pieces so they could spend some time drying before winter gets here. Let me say that the 25-ton Yard Machine splitter was one of the BEST purchases I ever made. It's gotten some serious use the last three years from both Mark and myself and has successfully reduced cherry, maple and beech to firewood for both our cabins. Mark spends much more time at his place during the winter than I do and burns close to 8 face cords of wood each year. I'll go through 2 maybe 3 face cords during the hunting season and the few extended weekends I come up to enjoy the snow and solitude. (Hey, maybe there won't be much need for that solitude stuff now that I'm out of NJ and into north-central PA where it's pretty darn secluded to start with.)

Anyway, I set up around 8:30 AM and worked until 1 PM when the sun and heat started to get to me. By then I was two-thirds through the stack of blocks but it was the easy two-thirds. I took an extended lunch break during the heat of the day to get off my feet, have something to eat and drink, and then checked the cameras. (Ho hum, lots of pictures of our "Teddy" bear who has taken possesion of the feed pile but a few of a spike buck who snuck in while "Teddy" went on walk about. Got a couple of raccoons and a fox, too. Not bad for one night.)

I got back to work around 2:30 and went at it for three more hours before finishing the last splitable round and put the splitter away. There is one heck of pile of split maple and beech laying in the yard now, but I'll leave it for Mark to stack for air drying. (I'll post some pictures when I get back to PA. Nothing but dial-up service at the Bolt Hole.)

The maple was pretty easy to run through the splitter as many of the rounds were from a tree that was either hollow (real easy split) or a bit punky in the center (also easy splitting but the center is nearly worthless as fuel). The beech, however, was a b*tch! The grain is straight but really doesn't split that way when wet. The inner fibers cling to one another with a mean spirit. You had to run the splitter all the way through the chunk and even then beat the two pieces apart. Of course much of what I did in the afternoon was the beech. Should make good firewood once it dries out, though.

Today, I've got to cut the grass before/between thunderstorms. It will give me a chance ot stretch some of the stiffness out of my legs and back. I use a walk behind push type power mower and have about two or two-and-a-half acres of relatively flat lawn to cut. It' should take about two-and-a-half to three hours to finish. THen it's shower, pack up and head back to the Aerie.

Sweat equity

So, yeasterday morning I drove the four hours from the Aerie to the Bolt Hole in my lovely air conditioned truck. When I arrived I found that Mark had split and stacked one hell of a lot of firewood. There were two stacks approximately six feet hist and 24 feet long each containing split cherry, maple and beech. And that was just from the trees he cut down.

i changed into my work clothes and fired up the ATV to haul out some of the blocked up trunks I had cut. After three hours of hard labor, I was soaked. I had drunk two quarts of water and had probably sweated out that and more. I had made a sizable stack of blocks for myself but had lots more to block up and haul out. I called it a day knowing I would have to work a full 8 hours on Wednesday to get the rest out of the woods and up to the splitting area.

Wednesday morning dawned clear as could be and promised to be a scortcher. And it kept its promise. The forecast was for around 90 degrees and while it never got that hot (I don't think it broke 85) it was hot enough when your doing the kind of physical labor I was doing. All day long I was hoisting blocks of maple and beech that probably weighed in at around 50-75 pounds onto the back of the ATV and hauling them out of the woods. When I wasn't lifting, I was cutting. I had dropped two trunks that I hadn't gotten cut when Mark and I Were working together about two weeks ago and they had to be blocked up before I hauled them out. Again, I worked at a reasonable pace trying to take a 10 minute break every hour and drank lots of fluids. I even took a "siesta" to go and check the game cameras we have in the woods. i worked from 8 in the morning untiil 5:30 in the afternoon to finish the bulk of the job. All that's left are some limbs that are less than five inches in diameter and therefore need not be split. They are stacked tee-pee style against the trunks of trees to await another day.

Tomorrow I'll get the hydraulic splitter out and reduce the size of my blocks into burnable faggots of wood. As it promises to be another hot day, I will comfort myself with lots of water and the thought that when this wood goes into the wood burning stove it might be as low as -10 degrees outside.

Oh, BTW, Terry called this evening to say the stone and block for the retaining wall at the Aerie will be delivered tomorrow. And each one of those blocks weighs in at 85 pounds.