I'll confess, we had a neighbor from up the street come down with his tractor and trailer to get some pine for his firepit so I raked so it was nice and smooth. We made them stumps 4 or 5 years ago so the root system was pretty rotten which makes for some easy pulling. That was an area that I kept plowed out in the winter until the pine clearing for the new garage in 2018. Before winter I'll split enough pine on the other end so that can happen again.
Just another dead pine felled today, we put a cable on it just too make sure it made it through the surrounding branches. The better rounds will go towards our shoulder season inventory and the worst will be firewood for the outside fireplace.
The area I hauled some beech and ironwood out of the other day had more of the same that needed to come down. All the beech and ironwood I took today was damaged or had something going on with it. We should have a face cord of some higher btu wood with everything I hauled down the hill in my last two outings.
I haven't been in this area in over five years, I drive past it on the main trail but never checked it until earlier this week. I noticed a broken off beech so I cleared a trail back in, I'm not sure how good the downed beech will be but I pretty much have cleared a trail to it. The smaller tree across the trail before the beech in the back is another ironwood.
I didn't look at all the dates but the first picture is from 10/21/2022. Two deer ticks got me two different times within three weeks but I did get them out earlier enough and had some Doxycycline twice, the second bite I was on it for seven days.
The new dog in the neighborhood was looking at our driveway, that was the same day and time I went down to our neighbors and put in the rest of their firewood for the winter. The coyote is on a trail we use all the time, one day my wife was walking the dog in the gully out back and the coyote ran past her on the ridge which is only 30 feet from the gully. I have the trail cams up and I did get my license, hopefully it shows up again.
With the warmer weather, the bugs were so bad that I pulled out of the woods. Since I wasn't doing much, I put in the rest of our neighbor's firewood for the year. We did have some good talks and a chit load of coffee. I had given them a free face cord of two year old seasoned ironwood for the year, they had given me a bunch of 2 x 4's so I built him a rack to stack some of the ironwood in. I have two gutters that need to be checked or cleaned and then I can put the ladders away.
We have two yotes that are coming in from the west just before 1 a.m., the one pictured above came in from the east during the day, the same day the yote came around, the fox was in the same area earlier.
Cool! We havent heard them around here this year. Normally in the warm weather we hear them on a fairly regular basis. Deer seen on occasion. Raccoons, possums and skunks are regulars in the backyard.
We went for a ride yesterday, we were coming down a road when a yote came running across. One has been chitting on the driveway, I'm thinking it's the same one that when the wife started walking the dog down the driveway, it came from our neighbor's property on our driveway and looked up at the wife for about 30 seconds before taking off. My wife seems like she runs into the wildlife more than me, the gully in the back she saw a bear when walking the dog (made her way back) and the yote back in the gully along the ridge. I'll spend more time out on this property, hopefully I can take care of this problem.
I was back in the same area today, there were three downed ironwood in the area so I bucked them up. I had one ironwood up there from yesterday that filled the trailer up. I wanted to start on a downed beech but some bug with wings were all over me so I called it a day. Picture 3333 is some of the rounds from the first ironwood I bucked up, 3335 & 36 are the three ironwood I bucked up today, 3337 is after I loaded up a ironwood I bucked up yesterday, 3338 is a new trail I cleared out when I started work in this area, 3341 will be a new trail before the Friday November 4 and the last picture is some splitting and stacking that should be finished by next Sunday.
The bugs are worse where I've been working compared to around the house lot so I'll get stacking the wood I brought off the hill and hope for cooler weather. I still have to fell some ash and some of those are on the lot the house is on so that should keep me busy.
It looks like we have another week of warm weather so I'll pick the days I'll battle the bugs. Soon we'll have room for four face cord of shoulder season wood so I can get splitting and stacking that. Today I put in just over a 4 x 4 rack of ironwood for our neighbor's, I'll get the rest done by Nov 6. Your area must be warmer too, are you still fishing?
