A few years ago a logger friend suggested clear cutting some of the aspen on our Brimson property. I was hoping he would take some of the balsam, but he said there is no market for it. About two years ago, he and his partner cruised the property to assess how much they would cut. I thought they would be working that winter. They never did because “It was too damn cold!”
Last fall some people expressed interest in buying the property. My wife was eager to sell and I went along reluctantly. I called my logger friend to tell him not to cut because of the possible sale. Well, the buyers couldn’t get a loan unless there was a working well. Our dug well hadn’t produced much water in probably ten years. We sure didn’t feel like spending the money to have a drilled well. End of sale.
I called my logger friend back and said he could start when ready.
I assumed he would be cutting in an area of about two football fields, and so I said I would pick up the slash. I would use it for chips or firewood.
We walked the area in which they were cutting and discovered a clump of five large birch trees, each probably at least fifteen inches in diameter at the base. One was already rotted, and my wife and I cut that down and salvaged the bark for fire starter. We thought we would cut the other four down after the loggers were through. But they offered to cut them down for us, and they even dragged them to the landing area (the place where they put cut logs on a truck to take the chip-board company).
Meanwhile, they kept working across the property until they had cut double what I thought they would. And then they cut three times what I thought they would. Then the spring road restrictions went into force and they stopped. They want to come back next year to take even more!
Before I go on, let me say a few words about clear cutting. Aspen (popple or poplar) is a weed! It is a large plant whose root system extends over several acres and keeps putting up shoots wherever conditions are right. When we bought the property, an area had been clear-cut a few years before. In fact, we have an aerial photo that was taken after the clear cut – “desolation” for acres and acres. When we bought the property, that area was covered with thousands of trees one to two inches in diameter and eight to ten feet tall. A few years later, I was taking out trees for firewood that had fallen over; they were three to five inches in diameter or larger.
Also, a DNR forester who did a stewardship plan for us, said, “If you want moose, clear cut!” We did see a few moose tracks about that time, but we haven’t seen any for years. It may be wishful thinking, but I think I saw a single moose track on one of our trails a week or two ago.
And, many of the smaller trees that were not knocked over by the heavy machinery are six to eight feet tall and greening nicely. Oh, about ten years ago, the Forest Service put out a contract for clear cutting on the property that runs behind ours. The only way we know it was clear-cut is that there are no really big trees.
One of our disappointments in our first few years owning the property was all of the dying or dead birch. They were so far gone that only their bark was useful, and we haven’t even collected all of that yet. Birch is a tree that grows out of old stumps, and we now have hundreds of newer birch trees. I made up a rule of thumb that if I couldn’t put my thumbs together and reach my forefingers around the birch, it was a candidate for firewood.
Those trees are safe for awhile. I finally got the four big birches cut into rounds for splitting and am awaiting the loan of a splitter. We may have three to four years worth for our cabin. our sauna, and our fireplace in Duluth.
Meanwhile, I am working through a jumbled pile of “slash” that must have been thirty feet long, ten feet wide, and six feet high. The majority of it is four to fifteen inches in diameter and from four to sixteen feet long. These were either too small or two crooked to take to the chip mill. I think I have the pile down to about a sixth of what it was. And the pile of rounds of aspen is probably three times the size of the stacked birch.
Meanwhile the pile of stuff too small for firewood keeps growing. For a change of pace I do put that through my chipper and pave the paths with the result.
The problem with all this wood cutting and splitting is that I don’t have time or energy to keep all the paths mowed or cleared of brush. I haven’t even taken the time to go around “The Path”, a triangle that is about three-quarter of a mile in length. And there are two other loops that I have neglected over the years.
My wife insists, and I agree, that the loggers should clean up the slash of next year’s cutting, and even clean up what I haven’t removed of this year’s slash. After all, as that same DNR forester said, “Don’t make it a sweat farm!”
Showing posts with label birch. Show all posts
Showing posts with label birch. Show all posts
Saturday, June 27, 2015
Thursday, December 11, 2014
Would wood that could become the lost cord?
I had planned to write this third column about wood last week, but the latest blasphemies of ISIS led me to compare them to the blasphemies of other established religions.
I did have what I thought was a better title for this article, but, as too often happens, I didn’t write it down. Like the lost chord, it disappeared.
Other than climbing two trees, one of my earliest memories of wood is from eighth grade. The Cleveland Public Schools required boys to take wood shop, metal shop, and printing. I remember a bit of each of these classes, but it is only from wood shop that I have a tangible, functional memory. I built a two-shelf bookcase from walnut. Other than occasional waxing and once re-gluing its joints, we still have it holding books in our dining room. How many kids can afford to buy walnut today?
At one time, my Dad had forty acres outside Cleveland that was mostly woods. He thought he would sell some of his black walnut, hoping to make a tidy profit. He cut down a few on the side of a ravine, but he couldn’t get anyone to haul them up. i never did follow up with my half-siblings on what happened to the logs.
I also remember my dad sitting in a kitchen chair at a gasoline-powered splitter. He went through quite a pile of wood in short order. I think he may have been in his late sixties then. But a few years later he went to gas heat. It was part of his deal with a company building a gas transmission line through his property. When I split wood by hand in my mid-seventies, I think of his “ease” at the task.
But trees are not always so benign. A year doesn’t seem to pass without at least one front-page picture of parked cars severely damaged by fallen trees.
When I was in junior high, a tornado struck parts of Cleveland. One of the areas was where I had had a paper route. I don’t know what damage it caused, but decades later, some of those streets didn’t have any of trees that I had passed under on my route.
A few years ago our daughter and her husband had taken their SUV to a dealer for some service. When the dealer had completed the service, they parked it outside, right under a tree. A branch broke on the tree and did some serious damage to the roof of their SUV.
Every once in awhile when we go to our cabin in Brimson, we have to cut apart trees that have fallen across our drive or one of our paths. We have been fortunate that any trees down across the road to and from our cabin have been cut up by somebody else before we got to them.
In Brimson, it is a question of cutting up downed trees vs. cutting down trees. We have so many downed trees that we really don’t need to cut any live trees for firewood. We have so many downed trees that we will never get to many of them. In fact, there are probably enough downed trees within ten feet of our paths, that I will not to have to cut much brush to get to them.
We spent part of the last two weekends cutting up a pair of trees that have been down for three years. Most of the wood was nice and dry, but when I split some of it, it was filled with caterpillar tunnels or was rotted. The tunneled wood we certainly won’t bring back to Duluth; the rotted we piled in the fire ring.
Our efforts rewarded us with enough wood to keep us toasty through the night for at least four weekends at the cabin.
But the far better wood for heating is birch, but we would have to wait a couple of years for it to dry out. As I mentioned in an earlier column, birch is a “weed”. It just pops up without any help from us. One birch that I cut years ago had another growing right next to it. The stump of the previous birch has rotted and the current one is large enough for firewood. Many of the birch trees are big enough that splitting them in half would make good firewood. The problems are getting enough burnable wood for now, making sure that we have a clear space for them to fall, and being at our cabin with enough time to cut them down and split them.
Remember how we were disappointed about all the dying birch when we bought the property over twenty years ago? Well, the remains of many of those dead birches are still useful. We have many tubes of birch bark still around. Take a sharp knife, cut in a few inches, tear off, and clean up. A handful of birch bark is the best fire starter of all. One of the locals who did some work for us said birch bark was just like fuel oil. If we don’t have a lot of snow in the next few weeks, maybe we can harvest enough old birch bark to last us through the winter.
Mel thinks three articles on trees is enough for now. He promises not to write about trees for the rest of the year.
I did have what I thought was a better title for this article, but, as too often happens, I didn’t write it down. Like the lost chord, it disappeared.
Other than climbing two trees, one of my earliest memories of wood is from eighth grade. The Cleveland Public Schools required boys to take wood shop, metal shop, and printing. I remember a bit of each of these classes, but it is only from wood shop that I have a tangible, functional memory. I built a two-shelf bookcase from walnut. Other than occasional waxing and once re-gluing its joints, we still have it holding books in our dining room. How many kids can afford to buy walnut today?
At one time, my Dad had forty acres outside Cleveland that was mostly woods. He thought he would sell some of his black walnut, hoping to make a tidy profit. He cut down a few on the side of a ravine, but he couldn’t get anyone to haul them up. i never did follow up with my half-siblings on what happened to the logs.
I also remember my dad sitting in a kitchen chair at a gasoline-powered splitter. He went through quite a pile of wood in short order. I think he may have been in his late sixties then. But a few years later he went to gas heat. It was part of his deal with a company building a gas transmission line through his property. When I split wood by hand in my mid-seventies, I think of his “ease” at the task.
But trees are not always so benign. A year doesn’t seem to pass without at least one front-page picture of parked cars severely damaged by fallen trees.
When I was in junior high, a tornado struck parts of Cleveland. One of the areas was where I had had a paper route. I don’t know what damage it caused, but decades later, some of those streets didn’t have any of trees that I had passed under on my route.
A few years ago our daughter and her husband had taken their SUV to a dealer for some service. When the dealer had completed the service, they parked it outside, right under a tree. A branch broke on the tree and did some serious damage to the roof of their SUV.
Every once in awhile when we go to our cabin in Brimson, we have to cut apart trees that have fallen across our drive or one of our paths. We have been fortunate that any trees down across the road to and from our cabin have been cut up by somebody else before we got to them.
In Brimson, it is a question of cutting up downed trees vs. cutting down trees. We have so many downed trees that we really don’t need to cut any live trees for firewood. We have so many downed trees that we will never get to many of them. In fact, there are probably enough downed trees within ten feet of our paths, that I will not to have to cut much brush to get to them.
We spent part of the last two weekends cutting up a pair of trees that have been down for three years. Most of the wood was nice and dry, but when I split some of it, it was filled with caterpillar tunnels or was rotted. The tunneled wood we certainly won’t bring back to Duluth; the rotted we piled in the fire ring.
Our efforts rewarded us with enough wood to keep us toasty through the night for at least four weekends at the cabin.
But the far better wood for heating is birch, but we would have to wait a couple of years for it to dry out. As I mentioned in an earlier column, birch is a “weed”. It just pops up without any help from us. One birch that I cut years ago had another growing right next to it. The stump of the previous birch has rotted and the current one is large enough for firewood. Many of the birch trees are big enough that splitting them in half would make good firewood. The problems are getting enough burnable wood for now, making sure that we have a clear space for them to fall, and being at our cabin with enough time to cut them down and split them.
Remember how we were disappointed about all the dying birch when we bought the property over twenty years ago? Well, the remains of many of those dead birches are still useful. We have many tubes of birch bark still around. Take a sharp knife, cut in a few inches, tear off, and clean up. A handful of birch bark is the best fire starter of all. One of the locals who did some work for us said birch bark was just like fuel oil. If we don’t have a lot of snow in the next few weeks, maybe we can harvest enough old birch bark to last us through the winter.
Mel thinks three articles on trees is enough for now. He promises not to write about trees for the rest of the year.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Recycle bread, save millions of stalks of wheat
As I sit in front of our fireplace, I contemplate the slogans about how many trees are saved by recycling. We have probably burned twelve trees in our fireplace this year, from deadfall to those cut down with a chain saw. Actually more, much of the deadfall was trees about four inches around.
However, twelve trees from 80 acres is probably a miniscule portion of the trees that were either blown down or rotted. In fact, some of the large trees that we are burning should have been cut down long ago because of all the rotted wood in them.
All of the trees that we burned were aspen, almost a weed. Like birch, they grow from rhizomes, no need to replant. When we bought our property 17 years ago, there were a few dozen birches 12 inches or more in diameter, all dying or dead. Birch borer had infested them. Now we have several dozen birches scattered around, mostly on trail edges, each 3-5 inches in diameter. Aspens are even more vigorous in replenishing themselves, sometimes.
Within three years after we bought the property, there was one large stand of aspen that was blown down in a heavy storm. It still hasn't recovered and is mostly scrub. However, the property is filled with aspen of all sizes, some springing up where we don't want it. Other species can also regenerate rapidly, we have balsam of Gilead (bam) and red maple springing up all over. And balsam firs are really all over. I just wish our white spruce and white pine were as vigorous.
My point is that with stewardship that forests often regenerate themselves. Sometimes they need a little help with seedlings from a nursery, sometimes they don't need help.
A second point is that some percentage of our pulp wood comes from private land, some owned by large corporations. The land owners have an interest in regenerating their forests.
Yep, I recycle, after all it can cost more to start from scratch to make paper than it does to recycle used paper. I just don't want to make a religion out of preserving every single tree no matter where it is.
However, twelve trees from 80 acres is probably a miniscule portion of the trees that were either blown down or rotted. In fact, some of the large trees that we are burning should have been cut down long ago because of all the rotted wood in them.
All of the trees that we burned were aspen, almost a weed. Like birch, they grow from rhizomes, no need to replant. When we bought our property 17 years ago, there were a few dozen birches 12 inches or more in diameter, all dying or dead. Birch borer had infested them. Now we have several dozen birches scattered around, mostly on trail edges, each 3-5 inches in diameter. Aspens are even more vigorous in replenishing themselves, sometimes.
Within three years after we bought the property, there was one large stand of aspen that was blown down in a heavy storm. It still hasn't recovered and is mostly scrub. However, the property is filled with aspen of all sizes, some springing up where we don't want it. Other species can also regenerate rapidly, we have balsam of Gilead (bam) and red maple springing up all over. And balsam firs are really all over. I just wish our white spruce and white pine were as vigorous.
My point is that with stewardship that forests often regenerate themselves. Sometimes they need a little help with seedlings from a nursery, sometimes they don't need help.
A second point is that some percentage of our pulp wood comes from private land, some owned by large corporations. The land owners have an interest in regenerating their forests.
Yep, I recycle, after all it can cost more to start from scratch to make paper than it does to recycle used paper. I just don't want to make a religion out of preserving every single tree no matter where it is.
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