Spent a fantastic Saturday working with the boy out in the yard, taking down a few trees that have just overgrown their welcome, shading the garden and getting roots into the septic system. Mix of black cherry, sugar maple and silver maple. The big cherry blew apart two raised garden beds but they were junk anyway, we had plans to rebuild them this year and make some new ones as well. The rest of this tree needs to come out as well. Garage in the background. I love the splash of color in the end of the silver maple logs. The silver maple bled sap like a faucet - I probably could have gotten enough sap for a gallon of syrup just off the cut stump. For reference that small stump is 15" across. The stump at the ground is > 48". The tree has a heavy southward lean right over my shed. Going to have to use a lot of care to take the big one down. Tapered hinge and some strong wedging should drop it about 75° from the lean. Silver maple is brittle and has short fiber, likes to snap off unexpectedly. Sugar maple. More sugar maple and the garden area. The killer. I do 90% of my cutting with this little saw and the 16" bar and Oregon 20BPX chain.
You have a beautiful spot! And it must be satisfying to cut your own trees and process them a few feet from your house.
Great pics Jon, where is your snow.. Fields its gone.. Woods its not.. Looks like almost cord and half..
Still a few small piles here and there where it was plowed up. No frost either so everything's pretty solid and dry. May not get a "mud season" down here in the banana belt. There's probably more like 3-4 cords on the ground, lot of it I didn't show, plus all the tops. This is 2019-2020 wood, I have many, many cords of red oak tops on the ground nearby that need to dry for a couple of years at least.
Awesome amount I was guessing of Pics, if you need some mud I can give you some, solid and dry, umm nope not yet. OAKS , I have none up here, some Shagbark hickory i am eyeing as soon as I can get to it though without sinking in MUD. Sugar and reds are abundant. Oh for those that don't know Jon's probably 100 miles south of me in the Banana Belt..
Close enough. I'm a ten-minute walk and a good spitball from New York, and far too close to Massachusetts (20 miles)
Well almost due south as I am a 10 minute walk and a good swim to NY and as close to the Other border!!
This is unusual for me because I do not like to cut trees around the house. Especially the sugar maples, which have more value to me as syrup producers than as firewood. However, when the roots start wrecking the septic, and nothing can grow in the garden due to a lack of sunlight, then it's time for major clearing. I still have a couple more to cut this spring, I'm going to take out another six to eight next year depending on how the summer sun reaches the garden and the south side of my garage. I'm planning on a solar installation on the garage roof so anything in the way is gonna get cut too. Normally I have to venture out in the woods to cut, but even so, never more than about a few hundred yards from the house.
I love your garage/barn in the background! Can we get a picture of the front of it? Nice work on the trees. Always nice to kill two birds with one stone - clean up the yard AND hoard firewood!
Every soft maple I've ever cut has had a lot of color in it. We are on a ridge of very hard bluestone with white quartz inclusions, not sure of the origins but everything to the immediate west is shale & slate. That makes for a lot of mineral staining in the wood, which is most prevalent in the soft maples and poplar.
Ah, you guys are OK. It's the goobermint down there that's messed up. You probably think we're nuts too, especially now.
Ask and ye shall receive. It's one I took last July. You can sort-of see how much the back side is shaded and grown in from all those trees. It's 24 x 36, with a full footprint second floor. 10' ceilings first floor, 8' on the second but with 3' knee walls. 9' x 8' doors. All rough sawn lumber from a local mill, board and batten siding, insulated 2x6 full dimension walls, radiant floor heat in the 6" reinforced slab. Designed to be a future retirement woodworking shop/man-cave. Haven't parked anything but a tractor in it yet. The side where the tent is sitting, is planned to have a 12' wide lean-to addition to store the tractor and an outdoor workbench - maybe a blacksmith forge someday.
Jon, Thanks for sharing the photo and details. Best looking garage I believe I've ever seen. Fully functional, yet easy on the eyes and perfectly "rustic". Is the siding hardwood as well? Is the batton on the inside? I don't the strips on the outside.
