Assorted woods and shapes

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Aspen1, Red Elm Chalice, Honey Locust top hat, Red Maple	Aspen1 before polishing
Red Elm, Chalice style	Honey Locust, top hat style
Red Maple	Aspen1
Red Elm chalice	Honey Locust top hat
Red Maple	Paul gave these to the Greyhound Christmas Auction.
Aspen2	Aspen3, spitoon style
Walnut	notes

Hickory Burl Bowl from near the Bear's Lair

I started out with a burl that was 11 inches in diameter and about 8 inches thick.  The burl had a lot of bark inclusions and some punky areas of wood as well.  It ended up with a half garbage can full of chips and a bowl of just over 6 inches in diameter and maybe 2 inches tall.  Some nice figure and color but wanted to have a larger bowl--just wasn't in the wood this time.

more crop tree release

We are cutting mostly soft (red) maples, but occasionally we have taken down some aspens too.  Neither are great for firewood; we'll use the maple but make brush piles out of the aspen. Some of the aspen is too big for us so we are girdling them.  They'll fall eventually but make good woodpecker holes until then.  Since none of the trees that we are cutting are top heavy, a couple trees have hung up on other trees; that requires cutting off small sections of the trunk and dropping the tree down a couple of feet at a time, like a string of pearls, until its branches clear the tree it is hung up on.  It is rather tedious and nerve-racking as you have to be careful not to get the chainsaw blade caught in the trunk of the leaning tree and everyone in the forest has to watch where the leaning trunk will start to fall as it can change the direction of fall with each cut.  Every once in a while we do get a tree to fall exactly where we were aiming.

Today one maple fell just as planned and it even managed to prune off several dead oak tree branches from one tree we were releasing. At this time of year it's still easy for us to identify the trees; oaks still have dead leaves, maple bark is silvery, and aspens have bulby buds.

Paul has tried to keep the stumps low to the ground but with larger trees that becomes quite a chore, sometimes requiring the use of a wedge to keep the stump off the chainsaw blade.  It is hard work, but we are making progress.  We have released about 35 trees so far. We have blue dots on the keepers and red slashes on trees to cut in the future.

 

Reading  Tillie, a Mennonite Maid: a story of the Pennsylvania Dutch **** Reimensnyder  A tough young girl makes her life goal happen with no help from her very strict father but lots of help from the English community.

As part of the NRCS grant  we are targeting oaks, black cherries, and hickory trees to release on 1-4 sides exposing them to more sunlight and allowing their crowns to expand and hopefully result in more hard mast (acorns/nuts/berries).   Today, after a quick trip to Lowes for 16" Poulan chainsaw, we took down 5 or 6 red maples that were shading some oaks and cherry trees.  There were others in the way of the saw, but they were rainbowed or already dead.  Maybe 50 left to cut, then we'll call in an expert to do the big aspen.
All of this wood will have to dry for next year's firewood.

Reading: Focus ****Leo Babauta,  a free ebook available in PDF format  at http://focusmanifesto.com/
simplify declutter and focus time to create.

Hall tree

Cabinets

 Kitchen

Our Amish cabinet father and son team (David and David) from Glick's, (152 Mt. View Dr, Howard, PA 16841, 625-3587) showed up at 7:10 to deliver the hickory. They had to bring in master bath vanity through the bedroom window, but everything else fit nicely through the door. Their English driver pulled the long trailer up to the rear door where they could drop the back gate on to the porch and walk in easily. The master hall piece has to be shaved down an inch or so on the sides. The hickory looks great with the pine ceiling, maple floor and hemlock timbers. We'll soon have the whole forest. 

Guest bath