Biting off more than my chipper can chew

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!”

Wild about wild animals

The people of the world seem to be going wild with various ideologies that are harmful to others, and I need a break from writing about these foibles.  So, why not write about wild animals I’ve encountered?

My first close encounter with a wild animal that I remember was on a Boy Scout camping trip.  I don’t remember if I was a junior or an adult leader at the time.  I was sharing a tent with one of the scouts when we heard scurry along a bottom edge of our tent.  I got out a flashlight and we saw a mouse running around.

Without thinking, I grabbed the mouse and stuck it in my shirt pocket; the shirt was on a hanger on a rope at the top of the tent.  Then I started worrying that the mouse might gnaw a hole in my shirt, but I did nothing.

In the morning, I found my shirt pocket intact, but with the mouse dead inside.  I don’t think I injured it when I captured it; I think it died of fright.  I felt sad, but I felt it was a territorial dispute.

A much later animal intrusion ended more happily.  A bat went down the chimney at our cabin and rustled all night trying to get out.  Lucky bat, it was not cool or cold weather when we would have had a fire below.  I managed to get it out with chimney cleaning rods and duct tape.  I gave the rods a couple of taps on the roof and the bat went gliding off.

I’ve encountered bears many times, and my first Reader submission was a compilation of bear stories.  Black bears are more likely to turn and run when encountering humans, but don’t count on it.  My latest encounter was a bear in our cabin yard.  I stepped outside to take its picture, but I made the mistake of clicking my tongue to catch its attention.  I got its attention, but it chose to run the other way from that eight-foot tall animal standing to the top step.

We’ve seen moose tracks around our cabin, but these have all but disappeared as the trees have grown bigger.  A DNR forester told us that if we want moose we should clear cut.  The moose like to munch on young aspen.  Maybe we’ll have more moose as our recent clear cut fills in.

The most moose I’ve seen was on the Kawishiwi River in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area.  My son and I must have seen fourteen moose in one day.  We were at least three canoe lengths from one grazing the water plants.  I wonder if I’ll ever find those pictures in my jumbled archives.

Among the most skittish animals are woodpeckers.  Even if they are twenty feet up in a tree, they often will fly away.  I did manage once to get some pictures of a pileated woodpecker a lot closer than that.  Within a block of our house one was battering away, and I took several pictures almost level with it.

I did sneak up on a sapsucker drumming on the aluminum vent stack of our outhouse.  I guess it was so lovelorn that it didn’t notice me sneaking up on it to within eight feet.

Probably the least shy animals are wild turkeys.  Or is it most dumb?  A few years ago I saw one strutting around on the shoulder of Hwy. 44.  I stopped and took several pictures of it.  It would walk toward me and then back off.  I almost thought it was a domestic turkey.

But this past weekend I missed a flock of turkeys.  I saw a single turkey on the opposite side of the road.  I decided not to stop.  Then I looked to my right and saw about a dozen turkeys on my side.  Thank goodness they were on the shoulder and not on the pavement.  I slowed down but didn’t stop.  I was too tired from cutting up firewood.

One animal that I had to stop for was a huge snapping turtle.  Its shell must have been two feet or more front to back.  I stopped and took several pictures as it made its slow way across the road.  I doubt that anybody would have hit it; the damage to their car would have been considerable.

I do wish that I had stopped for another turtle crossing the road.  I was staying with my sister-in-law in a small town while I attended a conference several miles away.  As I drove to the conference I saw a turtle crossing the road.  I thought of stopping and carrying it across but didn’t.  When I came back in the evening, there was a broken shell only a quarter way across the road.

Another amphibian that fared better was a green toad that got caught in our rain gauge.  I tried shaking it out, but its sticky feet held tight.  I laid the gauge down on the ground, but it still didn’t leave its “shelter”.  I stomped or banged the ground behind it, and it darted out so fast that I almost couldn’t see it.

Deer are both curious and skittish.  I have taken pictures of them as little as thirty feet away looking right at me.  Other times I only have to wave a hand while I’m in the cabin and they will bolt.

I rarely see wolves, but we hear them or see their kills.  We came across a deer carcass on one of our trails. The next time we passed the spot, the carcass was almost gone except for an organ and some hair.

I did get a great “video” of a wolf howl.  You can listen to it on YouTube; look for “Wolves Howling in Brimson”.

You can also find some of my animal photos at https://www.flickr.com/photos/28887068@N00.

Some year Mel will be organized and find all of his notes and pictures.

This version has a few corrections from the original article at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/04/08/5095_wild_about_wild_animals.

More missed wildlife photo ops

This past weekend was really the weekend for wildlife and other natural phenomena.  And, of course, I missed the optimal times to record what I saw or heard.

Saturday we looked out our cabin window about 6:30 in the evening and saw a very large deer.  I quick took a picture but I had the flash on, giving me a great shot of the screen.  I would have tried to intercept the deer by going a different way, but I didn't have my shoes on.

Given its size, we think it might have been a buck whose antlers had not yet started for the year.

After I went to bed, I was wakened a pitiful bellow or two, then a wolf howl, another bellow, more howls and even barking.  I thought of grabbing my camera to record the sounds, but I was sure they would stop before I had the camera even on.  All was quiet for a bit, then we heard on more bellow and that was it.

We think a wolf pack took down a moose calf.  I considered going out in that direction in the morning, but it has been weeks since I had cut that trail and I didn't want to rouse any bugs.

My last chance to get something interesting was on Sunday.  My wife said that she heard fir cones dropping continuously like rain.  When I was by the fir stand, I heard nothing.  Later I was out there and I heard them, at least one ever five or six seconds.  I pulled out my camera to take a panorama.  Of course, as soon I did that, the cones stopped falling!!

Save a tree? Why?

Starbucks has been running a commercial to encourage people to bring reusable travel mugs instead of asking for a paper cup.  The commercial shows people putting Starbucks paper coffee cups on the pavement, eventually creating a picture of a tree.  One of the slogans is "One person can save trees, together we can save forests." Ironically, they are not saving coffee beans.  As each person places a cup on the pavement, it is quite obvious that it still contains coffee!  That was lots of coffee to use for a single ad.  I will admit that the cups had to be weighted in case of a breeze.

Minnesota Public Radio has a campaign to get people to become sustaining members.  On the air they are saying "Save a tree" because it will reduce their mailings because sustaining members will be automatically charged each month.  Additionally, for each new sustaining member they will have a tree planted in the member's name.

I don't like to see waste and I like to conserve resources by recycling, but I think these "Save a tree" campaigns are somewhat misguided.

First, the much of the wood pulp for paper comes from private lands.  When held by a forest products company, they are managed for sustainability.  When a tree is taken from such land, it is replaced by planting or by natural regrowth.

Second, the primary source of wood pulp is aspen and balsam fir, both which regrow naturally.  In fact, I call them both weeds.  Aspen regrows quickly from root suckers.  Balsam fir grows from seed cones without much effort.  In fact, both kinds of trees continually spring up in any area of our Brimson property that we don't keep clear.

I am very allergic to balsam fir, getting a severe skin reaction any time I have to trim a balsam or cut one down.  I've talked to a logger friend about removing many of them, but he says there is no market for balsam.  I may have to hire him to remove some near the cabin; they are too close, especially with drought conditions.

"No market for balsam" may be an indication that many recycling efforts are "paying off".  Consider also that many paper companies have been downsizing.  One could change the slogan to "Save a tree; fire a logger."

Worse yet, the value of private forest lands is increasing so much that forest product companies are selling their land to real estate companies.  These companies are selling them off in smaller parcels to individuals.  When this happens the individuals take out trees for driveways and buildings.  See "Breaking Up the Forests".

The breakup of the forests could have consequences for wildlife.  One could change the slogan to "Save a tree; starve a moose."  Somebody long ago told me that if I wanted moose, clear cut.  When we bought our property, there was a recently cut area of aspen (aka poplar or popple).  The stand was about eight-foot high and we occasionally saw moose tracks.  Now the stand is twenty to thirty-feet high and we haven't seen a moose track for years.  Moose aren't completely gone from our area.  One of our Brimson neighbors found two dead bull moose with locked horns: "Shed Hunter Finds Two Minnesota Record-Book Moose Locked After Battle to the Death".

Moose aren't the only tree predators.  One could change the slogan to "Save a tree; shoot a deer."  We have made many efforts to plant trees.  Our most successful was white spruce.  We had some success with sugar maple with probably half the seedlings turning into twelve to fourteen foot trees.  We tried red oak and they are all gone.  We had hoped to plant hundreds and hundred of white pines, but deer took a big toll on them.  We initially stapled paper to the tips in the fall (the recommended practice), but the deer would bite the top off below the paper.  We tried putting circles of fencing around individual trees, but the deer would reach in with their tongues and pull the tips out.  We put screen around the fencing and that seemed to work.  Unfortunately, for all this protection, we couldn't protect against drought.  Several of the trees that survived the deer turned brown and died.  I think of the 200 or more pines that we planted over a two-to-three year period, only about forty have survived and only about twenty are taller than me.

We have been harvesting aspen for firewood, both for our cabin and for our Duluth house.  I think we used about eleven trees last year, almost all aspen.  We are starting to use some birch; it is finally getting to fireplace size after a big die-off several years ago.  But our job may have become easier.  One could change the slogan to "Save a tree; stop the wind."  Except for some trees that were in the way of other trees, we have been harvesting broken tops.  The best yet are the four-inch diameter trees that were snapped off in a big wind storm or two.  The woods looked like it was full of a jumble of toothpicks.  When we can get to those without bark, all we have to do is cut them into fireplace lengths, no splitting.  These are just great for having a fast, very hot fire to warm the cabin quickly.

Ah yes, fire.  One could change the slogan to "Save a tree; start a forest fire."  A mature forest is much more likely to burn and over a wider area.  If we reduce our harvest of trees too much, we will have more forest fires.  It is nature's way of providing for large-scale renewal.

I think where we really have to be concerned about trees is in urban areas.  I regret that we no longer have any of the back yard trees we once had.  A silver maple and a birch became too old.  An ash provided easy access to our attic for squirrels, and three smaller birch just got in the way of the power and telephone lines.  Other than our arbor vitae, trees in the front yard are out of the question because of sewer lines.  Boulevard trees are impossible because the boulevard is only two feet wide.

Overall it is going to be more difficult to have neighborhood trees.  Wider streets leave less room for trees.  The ongoing sewer work in Duluth is going to lead to more front-yard trees being taken down or fatally stressed.  Disease and age are going to do in many mature trees.

About the only places left for lots of trees are parks.  Do we want to spend the tax money to keep our parks green?  It's either spend the money on a healthier environment or spend the money on health care.

Be careful what you wish for, you may get the opposite.

Death and Life in the Wild

Warning: a graphic image follows.

My wife and I were going to the back of our Brimson property to salvage some downed trees for firewood.  She was walking ahead of me, and when she got near a clearing she said, "There's a dead deer on the path."  As I drew close, I saw the carcass with blood and big tufts of hair all around.

We didn't want to move it off the path or otherwise touch it.  We went back to our cabin to call a friend who has several sled dogs.  I left a message for her that she could have some free dog meat with a deer hide thrown in.  We went back out and continued on to our intended salvage site.

We worked there for about an hour and went back to our cabin.  When we got to the meadow, the carcass was gone.  All that was left was the stomach and intestines.  We thought our friend had picked up the carcass.  However, I thought it strange that there were no tire marks.

Later in the afternoon our friend returned our call.  She hadn't come over at all!  Apparently the wolf pack had come back and dismembered the deer completely.  We saw some beaten down grass but didn't see it leading anywhere.

Later yet, I heard a moose bellow and then a wolf howl.  I pulled out my camera and turned it on to video to capture the sounds, but I only got a couple of wolf howls.  Click here for the video.  They are probably a quarter to a half mile away.  Very haunting.

Don't throw out the sports section!!

When we get the Sunday Duluth News Tribune, we separate out the glossy ads, the classifieds, and the sports section and put them into the recycling pile. We've been doing it for years, pausing at the sports section only if there is a human interest story on its front page.

For some reason a week ago I paused and said I should check for the Outdoors section on the last page of the sports section. Goodness, gracious, there was an article about Wes Neustel, former owner of Ski Hut and organizer of the annual Ski Hut trip to Bozeman MT. We know Wes, like thousands of others, and look forward to this trip.

Yesterday, I paused again before tossing the sports section on the recycling pile. On the Outdoors page was an article about Tim Bradach finding locked moose horns near his property in Brimson. Gosh, his and some friends' property is right across the road from ours. And double gosh, on Saturday I was musing on how long it was since we saw any moose tracks on our trails. The moose hadn't disappeared; we just hadn't looked hard enough.