Down Come the Birch and the Maple

Today was one of those days that just might pass you by. It’s a day where you wake up, do some stuff, do some more stuff and then realize that it’s dark outside. Then, you eat and go back to bed. Winter has many of those days and if we aren’t careful, we’ll end up staying inside much more than we should. I think it’s because of the short amount of sunlight. Although, that’s supposed to be getting longer now.

Around 3PM, I realized that I hadn’t gone outside yet. Since I get bothered if I don’t get my fill of adventure, I suited up and went to do a little shoveling at the end of the driveway. I ended up not doing much shoveling because the snow was too hard and icy. I figured I’d just drive over it a few times with the truck next time it’s started. That’s so much easier than laboring in the ice, especially since it’s been snowing almost every day here lately.

As I was walking back to the house – shovel in hand, I took a detour and headed back toward the pond. I wanted to see if it had the same layer of ice/snow that the rest of the area had. I wanted to see if I could shovel a portion of it and slide around a bit, kind of pretending that I had ice skates on.

Lo and behold, the pond was in great shape. It only had a few inches of fluffy snow on it that I easily shoveled off in a few short minutes. Well, I actually shoveled a portion of it. I ran back in the house and asked Laura to come out to get some pictures of the event. I saw her walking out a few minutes later. By that time though, I had the chainsaw in my hand and I had already cut down that ugly, bent birch tree. Check out the Autumn picture of it here. It’s the first picture. Obviously not the other ones.

Pretty strange change of events huh? “Hey Pumpkin, can you come out and get some pictures of me shoveling the pond?” And by the time she gets out there, I’m cutting a tree down. Let me explain. When I realized how thick the ice was, I saw an opportunity to drop the Birch tree I’ve been looking at for weeks on it. If I did it on the ice, I wouldn’t have to deal with dragging it out of the water with the truck, come Spring. I think that makes sense. All I’d have to do is cut up the wood on the ice and then walk the logs off.

Having the pond frozen like that made things so much easier.

When I was finished getting all the Birch wood off the ice, I started looking at that maple tree I never finished cutting down. You can see those pictures over here. Since I had Laura there watching, I figured I would quickly knock the Maple tree over and try to get as much of it off the ice before it got dark. I did that and removed about half the wood before my chainsaw chain somehow tightened up on the bar. When that happens, I have to stop and make some adjustments. Today, I figured that it was a good time to call it a day. I was already sweating way too much and was rather uncomfortable. You can see the size of the wood in this next picture though.

I’m thinking that the wood I got from today’s adventure will finish up my cord. Can you believe that? Just from poking around the property, doing some cutting and splitting, I was able to fill the shed with about a cord of wood. That’s pretty good. Now we just need a stove and to get it hooked up. I’ll do this over the Summer. Tomorrow though, I’m going to finish gathering and splitting today’s wood. I’ll stack it up in the shed and take a picture of it. You can be the judge of how much it is. Maybe my calculations are off. Until then.