April 29 2014

 Bill worked primarily right behind the house on the south ridge.  You can see the hole that he is starting to make.

 

I also worked more down on the field and got as much as I could down.  Will now need to wait for Bill to get in there and cut out his trees because they are all so intertwined I cant cut any more out.

Looking north on the south ridge near the back line.

Looking towards the north ridge.

Looking down at the house from the south ridge.

28 April 2014

Here are todays activities...

I stacked the wood I cut up in this make shift platform.  Not pretty but it works!

 This is the start of what the bottom of the driveway looks...I did start to cut a few small trees down but didnt get much done.  There are about 6 trees Bill can use.  The rest f the pines I will cut,pile in the back and then leave the rest.

Bill cut about 10 trees through the middle.  He brought down 2 hitches and the rest should be out tomorrow plus more.

21 & 22 Apr 2014

21 Apr 2014

Bill got quite a bit done and its starting to open up more and more each day.

Ready for a load to go to the mill.

I sent a lot of time raking the debris from the hillside and then I decided to trim the back apple tree.  I took that one right down too and I may not see apples this year but Im hoping itll come back next year.

 22 Apr 2014

I went right back to mom and dads lot and since they were predicting rain today I thought itd be a good idea to plant the apple trees I picked up last night.  May be hard to see but there are 4 and they have orange tape on them.  This was the best place to put them so they could get water from the brook near by and also get lots of sun.  In 3 years we should have good feed for the deer.

Bill pulled 7-8 hitches today.

Should have another load ready for Thursday.

I did the final pass with the blade to get any stems I didnt get from before on the hillside.  Its looking real nice.  I then put down the weed killer so the briars dont come back and wouldnt you know that after threatening rain all day, it waited until I was done!  :-(

Apr 20 2014

 A beautiful Easter day.  Spent it relaxing with some chores around the house plus I took the Polaris for a spin to get some hours on it.

I picked up all the debris from the yard plus I got about 1/3 of the hill side cleaned up and put some weed-kill down to hopefully get rid of the briars.

I also pruned upone of the apple trees.  They say to take it right down and start from scratch when they havent been pruned in a bit but I might have over done it.  We will see if the fertilizer will help get some growth going.  If all else fails we will just cut it down and start anew.  I am not going to do the one by the road due to I dont need the deer eating apples right there where every Tom Dick and Harry Hunter will be staring hem down in the fall. I havent decide yet if I will leave it like it is or cut it right down.

This is the remaining bank.  I got a lot of the big stuff out but still need to tidy it up and then put weed-kill down.  I took about 6-7 trips with my trailer to the burn pile across the road.  Thank God I had the Polaris!  That thing is a beast.

Bill came in yesterday just as I was leaving to see the kids and he cut up all the logs he brought down from the back.  Luckily it doesnt look like there is much "red rot" and only a tree or 2 were chewed up pretty good from the woodpeckers and was full of ants.  Keeping my fingers crossed it keeps going that way.

About 1130 I took a break and took the Polaris for a spin on some of the ATV trails I hadntbeen on before.  As I said this thing is a beast!  There were quite  few wet/muddy spots and the Polaris went right through them without having to out it in 4X4.  Along the way I saw this deer hanging out and didnt even seem to mind that I was coming in to her/him. Its amazing the difference in them between spring and fall...lol.  I got off the ATV and walked within about 20 feet of him/her before she "walked" off.

18 Apr 2014

I returned home on the 6th to find there was still snow on the ground. The firepit stones were just
peeking up from the snow and by the end of the 1st day home, the snow had mostly disappeared
on the south facing lawns.

The temps the 1st  slowly climbed to the point of getting into the 70's on the 14th.  The
snow was just about gone except for the low lying areas between the ridges behind the house.

Then on the 15th the temps dropped down to the teens and we got snow once again.  We ended up getting 2 inches and it only stayed around for a few days.  The temps are slowly climbing back up
but we are still near freezing at night.

Last week I started having Bill come and start logging the lot.  I am cutting all the pine off to open things up.  Right now I lose sunlight at about 11am in the winter.  As we looked things over it was decided to just cut everything since it hadnt been done in a while.  I also wanted to cut the big narly pine next to the house as well as the big pine down by the road and the power lines.  This will hopefully get more sun and airflow moving so that maybe I can grow grass where moss has over taken over the years.

Here are the before pix to see the progression as we go.

Bill made a lot of progress with just taking down a couple trees.  Here is Bill opening up the area where he will stack logs.

Yesterday I went out to see Jake and I helped him with getting some stereo speakers for his car as he is getting ready to go back to LI in a few weeks.  I was able to stop by and see Beck, Anise and Brie for a few minutes. The girls are growing up so fast and I cant wait to see them for the day on Sat as well as getting Jake to cook us a meal at the place he now works.

Today I was up at dawn and got right out to take pix of what Bill had done the day before.  He had pulled down about 15 to the road.

This is the view of the cutting on the ridge towards Uncle Harolds trailer looking towards Stock Farm Road. He has about another 10 trees on the ground up there.

This is looking towards the ridge to see how much more open it is.

Here is Bill pulling a hitch of trees down.  The trees are about 80-90 ft long so he has to swing them right around.

While Bill was doing this, I was cutting more hard woods down that are going to get ruined when we drop the big pine by the house.  Tim and my wood pile is growing!  The 1st pix is from the 1st day I cut wood.  Dont worry Tim...After the 1st day I made sure I cut all these pieces to the proper length so we dont waste any wood.  :-)

2of the 3 maples went right next to this pile just like I wanted them to so that I didnt have to haul them far.  The 3rd didnt cooperate.  Mostly because a slight breeze pushed it the wrong direction but thankfully it didnt hit anything.  Its the tree leaning behind the chopper and Bill will grab it for me next week so I can get it in the wood pile.  The sap was running like crazy today!

Here is the view now that the hard woods are gone.  The pines on the bank behind the garage will go next week.
 

Here is how it all looked when Bill was done for the day.

After cutting my hard woods, I went down on the field and cut down all the briars on the bank and trimmed the apple trees some.  The debris is still there and I hope to get that cleaned this weekend but it looks much nicer.

Thats it for today.  Stay tuned as we progress right along!  Happy Easter everyone!