Foresty
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Chainsaw accident
Thursday afternoon was a great day to be in the woods. I was continuing my work of thinning the forest between the house and the lake. I had felled a gnarly spruce, the kind full of twisted branches and hardened sap, all from a hard life of growing in the forest.
The tree felled where I wanted it to and I set out to delimb the tree. Careful as I am, the bar kicked bar and the nose caught into the chainsaw safety pants. I never go into the woods without wearing them, and a good thing I was. The chain hooked and tore into the kevlar lining. The lining on its own is designed to hook the teeth of the chain and pretty much bring the rotation to a stop. Which it did, but the force of the kickback had enough momentum to cut through the safety pants, catch the canvas pants I was wearing (pictured above) and cut into it. The result was a short gash on the inside of my left leg, just about 2 inches from the kneecap.
Limped up to the house, called out for some help and proceed to make our way to the hospital. 3 hours later we’re back home and I have 3 stitches to close the wound. Close call.
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Pine tree crotch
I had to clean up a pine tree that fell over form the last snow fall of the year, heavy and wet, the pine tree did not stand a chance as it was growing along the edge of the trail. So it really only had branches on one side. The snow collected, and with no counter balance on the other side, down it came.
What I could salvage from it was a length of the trunk and a collection of the crown. This video shows a bit of that process.
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Burning bush
I’ve been thinning the forest around the house since the first of March. Taking advantage of the cool temps and lack of snow. Still doesn’t take long to work up a sweat, that’s for sure. We will be chipping a lot of the felled trees but I thought I’d try a hand at burning some of the smaller boughs. There’s plenty of them. There’s just as much work involved in burning scrub as there is in picking it up and passing it through the wood chipper.
Was outdoors for a couple hours. Its not work when you think of it as exercise 🙂 . Cut down six trees, all produced a 12 footer, and a couple managed to squeak in 8 footers. One was a bit wonky. It appears to have formerly been a sheared Christmas tree that grew out over the course of a dozen years. Cutting it down showed that ants had made a home at the base. Had to cut away 16 inches at the butt until there was solid wood. It produced a 8 footer, although not much of a timber board. The base was probably 8 inches across but the top might have been 3-4 inches. That quite tapering of the tree over the first 8 ft. Its is a good indication that it was a sheared tree during its early stages.
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Pine tree down
Sad to discover this pine tree down across the road today. 🙁 It was at a turn in the road, we kept the tree trimmed over the years leaving just enough branches to walk or drive under. No more.
Always sad to see an otherwise healthy tree go down. Apparently though it did not have much of a root ball, so that played a part in its demise.
If the tree had fallen anywhere else I’d leave it alone, as it might still continue to grow even like that. But its in the road we use, so I don’t know what we’ll do there, mostly likely cut it down and salvage what we can for woodworking projects and the rest will go for the fireplace.
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Building a heat pump shelter
Time to start on building this heat pump shelter before the snow starts to fall. Last year was terrible weather for the big fan on the heat pump. The constant snow fall and thawing temperatures meant plenty of ice build up on the heat pump fan. I’ve never done log work like this before so its all new to me. Time to start on the corner posts.
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A peeling situation to be in
For an upcoming outdoor project I need 4 large diameter logs about 6-8 ft long, not to mention a number of smaller diameter logs. This Sunday was a fresh 6C outdoors, a perfect day to work for a few hours without breaking a sweat 🙂
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Grand old tree in Argyle, Nova Scotia
Today I finally stopped at this big old tree in Argyle, Guysborough County, Nova Scotia. Argyle is nestled in between Goshen and Loch Katrine.
I would love to see pictures of this tree “back in the day”. I always new this tree was large, but wow, I didn’t realize it was this large.
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Stirring up some dirt with a Big Arm
Slowly making my way to levelling out the hill in behind the workshop. The Big Arm attachment is made in Canada by Horst Welding in Ontario. Also making use of the screener I built for sifting the soil.
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Nova Scotian Woods Wreath
My dear wife found a picture of a wood wreath and asked if I could make one. “Sure”, I said. Truth be told, I’ve never made one before.
There’s always a first time for everything. 🙂
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backyard soil screening and road work
Working in the back yard, screening some forest top soil and adding to the composting pile. Also working on the old road, to take care of drainage to try and dry up the road.