| I'll start the pictoral roundup of this year's activities with a few pictures of the post 2022-windstorm cleanup. We work together, but since John is the picture-taker, most of the pictures seem to be of me. |
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A few of the downed trees were red cedar. These we sold. Here they are, on their way to their new life in a carpenter's shop. |
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| Several of the downed trees were grand fir. Here's how we dealt with them. |
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| And how they appeared when I was finished. It is hard to tell the scale of the pile in this picture, but that's three or four cords of wood. | |
| One downed tree was a hemlock. Hem-fir is a mixed-species contruction-grade lumber not quite as strong as Douglas fir (also cheaper), but suitable for some residential construction. Fortunately the strapping young man who helped clean up our downed wood also had access to a portable lumber mill. Having had our downed hemlock milled into studs, our next-year's project will be to use them to build a garden shed. |
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| We also did some cleanup around our house: see my new knee in action; branches reduced to chips for groundcover; the stumpgrinder (and operator John) in action. |
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| Wildlife continues to wander about the property. A fawn spent quite a while investigating a flock of geese. |
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| As you see above, we had rather more deer than we needed; just as we were decrying the lack of a good apex predator (aka cougar) to keep things under control, the deer herd mostly disappeared. John found evidence of the cause while walking back from the barn. Not a cougar, but coyotes; they took down a fawn, after which the herd took notice and headed for the hills. |
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| Our other jobs involve grandparenting. Here's what that looked like this year. |
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| Finally, to close, don't forget, there's always fishing.
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Reduce, Reuse, Recycle .