March 29, 2007 

fter a false start the day before due to high winds,  the guys started falling trees yesterday and we are at it again today. And for long weeks ahead. We need to get all of them done as soon as possible while the ground is still frozen as it makes things alot cleaner. The reason we have to take down so many trees, is they are dead or dying from the Mountain Pine Beetle epidemic. We had 6 trees down here by the house which were Ok last summer and dead now, 4 in the barn area, and 200-300 in the back 40. 

Picture to Left: One of the dead trees in our barn area. 

 We are skidding them up into the driveway so the portable mill can get to them. It is sad so many trees have to go, but they are an extreme fire hazard, the good news is the wood will go to many uses. Siding for our house and shoppe... A new barn so we can get rid of the shacks that somewhat pass for barns, but at least it keeps the animals warm and dry. Maybe enough for my writing cabin. 

Picture below: See the holes and the pitch? The pitch is where the beetles go into the  tree and the holes with the sawdust is where they come out after breeding and laying eggs to fly somewhere else. I will see if I can pull bark and get pictures of beetle larva for you guys. 

We have made the sad decision to drop every pine on the property, as they are either all infected or soon will be. With the mill coming we want to get them all so we can use the wood for better things than firewood. But we have alot of other mixed conifer and deciduous trees out there for wildlife and esthetics.

My job is a choker setter, limb hauler to the burning pile, coffee runner and lunch maker, "Gopher" and I am generally banned from the area when they are falling logs. I wish I had gloves that fit. 

Picture below: My boyfriend hauling 2 trees down to the landing area where the mill will be.

Picture left:  My boyfriend's uncle helping burn what we cannot utilize. This burn pile is in part of our driveway. And other other dead trees on the other side of the fenceline are alot further away than they look. The burning is a necessity. And we will have at least 100 just like this one. We can't use the little stuff, there will be too much of it and it will turn into a fire hazard as well. Check out early July 2006's blogs to see what we deal with here for wildfires. It is pretty much our only natural disaster problem we worry about here.

 When we fall trees we do everything to that tree including clean-up, so between the 2-3 of us, we only do 8-10 trees a day. It is pretty amazing the way we do it and within a week new growth is coming up and it does not look recently disturbed. It is even better with the frozen snow on the ground as the logs are 12-36 inches above the ground so it is not disturbing anything.

Since my gloves are all stretched out from the guys, I had to use them like potholders on the choker cable, the guys laughed at me.