I got out of work early today, and decided to go for a snowshoe walk in our woods. Plenty of snow still for skidding, but rain coming tomorrow, so I might be done for the season. Like my walk, this post is a bit of a ramble with no real direction. We have mostly pole-sized timber, but there are a few old trees. A mate to this one fell a few years ago. I salvaged some of the top for firewood, by there was hardware, from hunters, in the lower sections so I left it to rot. We've had the farm since 2001, and the previous owners since 1971. They said it was logged before they bought it - I'm not sure if that was 100% accurate, but this Northern Red Oak top has been laying here for quite a while, regardless. The snowshoes, for scale, are 32". This pic, below, is the same tree top along with the stump, minus the log they harvested. Snowshoes are still in there, but might be hard to see. The slope is pretty steep here - they appear to have backed the skidder up and pulled cables uphill to reach some of these. There are stumps like this all across the hill. To give you some bearings, here's a picture taken on a different day from across the way looking back at our hill. The tin roof of one of my barns shows itself just above the red tree in the foreground. You can see where the Maple/Ash stop and the Red Oaks start. The pic above is right at that transition. Where the Oak starts the land changes. Snowshoes are also in this pic... It is this steep all the way across our land. To get a skidder back beyond here means coming in from a road on the other side or driving half a mile off the property through the neighbor's woods and then turning and coming back on the top of the ridge. Here's a view looking off down the valley to the south. I've pulled out quite a bit of low quality wood from the floor, below here. This one, below, is looking back at the house. Hard to see, but on the left, in a white spot about halfway between the two larger trees, you might see the two chimneys. On the way home now. Here's a Red Maple, below, that I girdled years ago. I was hoping to create some bird habitat and to give some better trees some growing room. And now home's in sight... oops. 8 pics per post limit encountered.
Looks like a nice property. Amazing how those trees will grow right out of the rocks on those steep parts.
Yes very nice property and tour. My tour would be much more boring... only so much to see when one only has half an acre. At least I got plenty of room for storage tho!
Once the snow starts melting and you can get around on foot better, people seem to hit the woods to give their legs a stretch! It'll be awhile before that happens here though.
There's an old Marshall Tucker Band song called "Property Line", one of my favorite lyric in the song is "my idea of a good time, is walking my property line, and knowin' whats under my boot's is mine" Beautiful spot there!
Thanks for taking us along on your walk. Its nice to see the country side that others get to experience. Pretty looking hill!
