Cutting Trails II

Eventually you need to use a chainsaw.

(Post too long for email, mostly pics)

Before I headed to the 80 I picked three gallons of high bush cranberries in a ditch near my parents home.

A pretty simple set up. I remembered the chainsaw chaps, but forgot a helmet. I won’t be dropping anything big, or from above my head. I will probably invest in a proper helmet and visor (and a bigger chain saw), as I intend on doing a lot of work in these woods. I did have safety glasses.

High ground SE of the pond. Like I said in the first post on Cutting Trails, a metaphor for cutting through the BS. Sometimes it is especially thick and requires a bit more power.

East side of the pond. What to do?

To the right or the left of the V in the middle? The deer trail goes to the right.

Take the high ground. That deer path just above that bowl is nice for walking, but not for a snowmoblie. It is too tight and slanted and I might end up in the bowl with the snowmobile on top of me.

At the edge of the pond, heading to the left of that leaning tree in the middle, working the edge of the tallest grass.

Heading uphill out of the low ground around the pond.

East of the pond, deeper in the woods.

I didn’t want only straight trails. I followed some deer trails, but most of the time I let the woods dictate where the path should go. I try not to get too close to mature maple and oak trees or younger ones I want to save, as I do not want to damage them with a snowmobile. I finished the chainsaw work after three days and about 15 hours. Roughly 1.7 miles of trails. There are a few other legs between loops to finish, but those are not such a priority. About 2 miles of trails in the woods, when I am done. More like 3m+ in the winter, with a snowmobile trail around the edge of the field and property lines.

The woods are still very colorful. There are probably a hundred mature maple trees on the property worthy of tapping. Half of the mid-story trees are maples. I would like to sculpt the woods into a sugar bush, primarily maple. The trouble is, the woods are choked with 100’+ oak, basswood and poplar, and the maples max out at about 70’, so when a heavy wind comes through and takes down trees, the maples often get demolished by those bigger falling trees. I need to take out and process a few hundred poplar and basswood (the oaks all get a pass until they are dying) not just to assist the maples, but there are very few young oak among the mid-story, and hardly any lower story saplings of any kind of tree because so little sun reaches the forest floor.

Before I get to that though, as I need to work out how to process all that wood, I am going to focus on getting to know the woods even better, and start spot cutting things to make way for those maples, including thousands of young and old iron wood, which make excellent fence posts and for burning for heat. There is also a lot of invasive buckthorn to manage. Also there are a handful of mature cherry on the property, so I need to find the young ones too. Good forage for birds. These are mostly young maple.

This is one of the most majestic maples on the property.

I think a New England aster. Surprising, one of the last flowers in the field. Haven’t seen another on the property.

I never noticed this nice grassy spot on the east side of the pond. There is even a bench I didn’t put there.

Nice for watching fall sunsets over the pond.