Burn Baby Burn

I love how the daffodils from compost heaps past

keep on coming up. Look close - they're everywhere.

Decided to take the last two weekends in April to clear

another area in the back forty.

This pile included part of a huge old apple tree.


Bill pushed it all together. Two days later there was

nothing but ash.

Yusuf came up to help this past Saturday. Bill gave him

some pointers on the fine art of using a chain saw.

Then they split what they'd cut.

I put up some pea fence.

They continued to split. It's nice to have the

help of a young back.

Later we met friends at the Shelburne Falls Bowling Alley.

This is what it's all about.

Visiting Tammy at the bar.

Then to Ollie's across the street for dinner.

Yusuf trying out what turned out to be HIS new espresso machine.

Sunday started burning a new pile and cleaning out

all of the trees and shrubs to the stone wall.

Burn, burn, burn.

We stayed til Monday because we just had to take

advantage of burn season.

We cleared to the wall on the other side of the road entrance.

The only thing left there now is an old, old apple tree.

The dogs love it here.

Here's a view of the whole spot. Difficult to judge

unless you've spent some time here but it really feels

good to see where the old pasture once was.

This is the view from the new clearing.

The one thing I can say about doing this is that I

still haven't quite recovered from working that

hard over a period of 2 days. I'm sure I will go up

this weekend, sit in one of the Adirondack chairs and

be very pleased with what we've accomplished.

Then I will be planning for next burn season!

New Equipment

Bill had to use the new splitter this week to split some

of the wood we cut down last week.

It's sweet.

And I bought a tiller from Florence that I can use. Did the
first pass this past weekend. Told Bill I'm ready to till
the entire yard!

I see a much larger garden this year - for many reasons.

Weekend of March 27

Haven't had the time to blog so I will catch up a little.

Bill's inspecting some of the work the beavers have done

on a nearby damn. He thinks he may just wait

for them to clear off the parcel he's been eyeing. We'll

just drag the trees out debarked ready to cut and split.

Russell called early on Saturday morning - since he didn't

sugar this year he needed to spend a day playing with Bill.

He drove his tractor over so we could use the winch to

haul some trees up the bank.

Bill uses a cant hook to try and get the logs over some rocks.

Bill using the winch to keep tension on a huge ash while

Russ cuts it down.

I think Russell just came over with his tractor to make

Bill want one even more.

Limbing up the trees, ready for burning.

Both in their safety gear.

Bill's new splitter. A little higher and able to split those

bigger logs standing up.

We burned all of the brush we had on Sunday with the help

of Manda and Yusuf.

Easter weekend we actually did nothing but eat. A weekend of

rest.