Woman Working in the Woods

I left you hanging at the end of my last chapter in my Forest Project.   I finished the ‘Slash Pile Burn‘ part of it earlier this year, and have slowly brought firewood up to the house all summer.  I tried to haul 10 wagonloads per day up to the house, but pretty much stopped everything when working in the woods became a fire hazard.

Today I revved up my chain saw & commenced slicing all the longer branches. According to my DNR rep I can use it until 1pm.  In the heat of the day with risk of fire too great, I have plenty of other tasks.  The photo above is my make-shift holder for little branches where I sawed 4 to 5 at a time.  Cute little pile, isn’t it?  The previous photo shows a cool tool that holds a branch while sawing, but it only holds one at a time.  It’s a bit cumbersome to put the saw down while I reload.

When 1:00 rolls around, I turn off the saw and fill my wagon.

…and split some larger rounds.  Yep, I learned how to split wood this summer!

I may not get all these branches finished this year, but will do my best.

There are a couple of logs still lying around that I’ll tackle after I’m more adept at sawing.  I’ll have to saw them in place since I can’t even roll, much less lift these up to any tool or make-shift holders!

The best news of the day is my neighbor, inspired by my project cleared HIS property.  This makes it possible for me to get a truck down to the bottom of my property!  Yay, instead of hauling my little wagon uphill, I’m now hauling it a short distance downhill to the truck.  Truck gets loaded & I simply drive out ~ YAY!!  Of course, then I have to unload the truck and stack it, but that’s a story for another day.