Wood Chips A-Flyin'!

Finally got back out to the property today for a warm day of clearing the garage site! Sunny, clear skies in the morning that clouded up in the afternoon. Highs in mid 20's.

When the weekend rolled around it was time to get out and do some work! The air today felt like spring. I know, I've lived in Northern Minnesota long enough to know that this is just the mid-winter thaw. However, it felt great to know that the sun is getting high enough in the sky to promote some of that good ol' spring melting. Plus, the melting and refreezing at night is helping us to see how and where the water flows on the property. This will help us figure out culvert locations for the driveway, make decisions about structure orientation, etc. So far no surprises. We had a couple of storm events in the fall that gave us an idea of the drainage patterns. At this point I don't anticipate any major driveway alignments or structure placement changes due to drainage issues. The big test will be this spring when everything melts!

Today was the third day of clearing the garage site. At this point we are about half way to having the garage pad and turnaround cleared. It took us most of the morning bucking the birch that I had felled the last time we worked. From there Amy started stacking the 16 inch lengths to cure for next year.

This picture shows the garage site looking down the driveway on the left. The area that we have cleared to the right is about half of the space that we will need. Unfortunately, the trees in the middle of the shot will be coming down next.

By the time the sun was getting low the felled birches were bucked, the fir were piled and ready to be burned and the cut wood stacked and curing.

The word is that a storm front might be coming through tomorrow. Nonetheless, we hope to be working away some more. It feels so good to be "carving out our niche" in the great north woods...