This past winter of 2015-16 was the warmest ever recorded. It isn’t necessary for me to deduce that from meteorological data, I simply need to look in the checkbook under “snowplowing-driveway” and see a fat 0. Since snow related sports aren’t my thing but being outside and working on woodland projects are, I was, therefore, quite pleased with the season.
The calendar year did begin with a welcome vacation to a very remote island. My recuperation from last summer’s hiking misadventure got a boost. Lying on pink sand sure has it over granite.
One astonishing phenomenon was our pond covered completely with feathery crystals one morning.
There was a great deal of wood splitting with my maul (no wedges).
An existing trail had many leaning Gray Birch that needed to be felled. In the process of sawing up so much material the idea occurred to me that there is a lot of green wood here that would be of use for bowl, spoons, and shrink pots. There is also the occasional crook or bent section of Cherry and Apple. In addition to this I cut Elm, Hickory, and Locust. I am looking into offering small select pieces to ship to interested parties- of this, more anon.
The sisyphean war on the invasive Asian Honeysuckle continued.
With the assistance of my young companion a system of three wetland boardwalks was laid out.
A season of access to dry ground and no ticks. Pretty hard to beat.
SOURCE: – Read entire story here.