Seems like there hasn’t been a whole lot posted this month on progress we have made on the house. That got me thinking about what we have been doing. So here it goes…

Lee has basically gotten all of the logs (two still need chopping) that were dumped by our house chainsawed up. Then most of that he got split and we have already burned it. Needless to say we got another cord delivered and then packed away into the wood shack (formerly know as the trash shack).

More bramble pulling on my part. Oh how I HATE sticker bushes.

I have been working in my future shade  garden area. All the clear weather made me want to do some fun stuff. So I carried all the rocks  I have found around our property to make a small retaining wall. Then I shoveled dirt to raise it to the rock level. As I find more rocks I will add to it. Then I decided to be creative and use the broken out fire brick for another small raised retaining wall. I haven’t back filled that one with dirt or finished it either as I will need the rest of the chimney stack sledge hammered out of our house. I think it will look nice when it is all done and the ultimate in reusing. Otherwise it would be dumped at the, well, dump. And more limbing on the tree by the rock wall.

My dad came over for a week and a half after work and mowed down a lot of our fields. This has been probably the most exciting looking of all that has happened here. Now Edgar can run around and not come in covered in burrs. He used an old Cushman and a mowing deck. That thing went over smaller brambles like it was nothing. I about wept with joy. Lee and I are just amazed at how much better it looks.

I on the other hand did a ton of limbing on all the wild Hazel nut trees so my dad could mow around them. I still haven’t finished them all but now there are SIX burn piles waiting for some fire. My sawing arm is still sore. The effect of the mowed field and somewhat tamed trees makes every seem so much nicer.

Here is a picture of the back field and burn piles everywhere. Anybody want to come for a bonfire or two?

There was one casualty though…..my dad’s Cushman broke.

Well, the weekend didn’t go quite how we hoped, but at least a few things got done.  We took another load of the former occupant’s trash to the dump.  Yes, we are sadly still working on that.  I believe one more load, or two, should do it.  We also took a half load of their recyclables, and updated the cleanup report page.

Also on Saturday, we went to the Good Earth Home Show at the Lane County Fairgrounds.  It was nice to see companies trying to put up their green side, although I was expecting a few more environmentally friendly home building products for DIYers.  It seemed like a lot of home builders pushing eco-edifices for the wealthy.  However, there were also a lot of small local businesses: CSAs, plant & seed suppliers, herbs, soap, chicken coops, blacksmithing, etc.

On Sunday, Lane County finally lifted the burn restriction so we attempted to burn a couple of the large brush piles that have formed during clean-up.  Unfortunately, the fire was a no-go. It poured down rain last night, so any chance of a clean burn was lost.  Robin says they were just waiting for the weather to change to carry away smoke.  I think they do this sort of thing to mess with us. “Oh look, days of clear dry weather.  Let’s keep a burn restriction in place until the next downpour.”  Nevermind that those fires would be a lot less polluting if they could burn hot and dry.

I’ve been experimenting with a customized theme for the site.  What do you think?  Robin says it is still too plain, and I agree.  I’m just not sure what more to add.  Comments welcome!

We bought another cord of firewood this past week. It arrived cut and split and very dry! Perfect to fight back the chill during these 22°F nights.

It hasn’t rained in almost a week, so we’ve managed to make quite a bit of progress outside working in the evenings.  Robin’s dad brought over his three wheel Cushman and tow-behind mowing deck, and then stopped by three times this week to declare war on our fields of weeds, blackberry brambles, and dried grass.  Thanks Steve!  At this point, I’d say that about 70% of the property has been mowed, enabling us to reach trees we could only see from a distance before and work on trimming up low branches.

The blackberry thickets will definitely be a multi-year project.  I looked them up online, and it appears the only organic solution is to cut them down and then cut them down and then cut them down, ad nauseum.  Pulling them out by the root can also work, but the roots go deep and can regenerate from even small fragments.  Repeatedly cutting off the plant above ground eventually starves the rootstock and kills it.   Yes, poisons will also work, but they would kill the healthy soil ecology that has developed from so many years of ‘neglect’ by the previous owners.  I’m very thankful that it appears they mostly ignored the property and let it go wild.  Better a wild ground than a chemical-ridden golf course lawn.

My goals for the fields center on pasture farming, but it will take several years to shift the balance of plants and eliminate invasive species.  Our first order of business will be fencing.   We hope to start on that within the next month or two.

Finally, a comment about the post title.  While it hasn’t been raining, our normal evening fog has become all-day fog.  I don’t really think the weather affects my mood, but I am definitely looking forward to a blue sky again.  I suspect my cat is also looking forward to the next sunny day.  I snapped this photo of Jasper bliss during a brief sun break on Tuesday.

Okay, so not really, but tonight’s full moon did promise to be the brightest for 2009.  The moon is one of those things you lose touch with when you live in a city.  It’s still there in the sky, but street lights compete with it for attention and children think “midnight black” is a brownish color.

That all changes when you move to the country. There are no street lights and the sky is actually black. Now, admittedly, we can see the lights of Eugene and Springfield on the horizon, but you don’t really notice them when you are standing at your door in the darkness fiddling for the right key. “On the other side of that door is heat … if the wood stove didn’t go out.”

And so, you become much more in tune to the moon’s cycles I think. If the sky is clear and the moon is full, you can see your own shadow, walk to the barn without tripping over something, and watch deer bound across the field when we let the dog out. And tonight? Tonight I could practically have got a sun tan.

I’m getting chickens this spring. I am beyond excited to say the least. I still have to pick my breeds out and am not sure whether to buy them local or order from McMurray Hatchery. If I order from McMurray then I know that I can get some of my exotic breeds that I was looking at. I did have three species picked out but then I got nervous and changed my mind. Guess we shall see what I wind up with.

So you may be wondering what tree limbing has to do with chickens. Well we are going to have the future chicken coop back by the barn in the small fenced in area. And to get ready for this chicken coop we need to limb trees. We are going to have our brother-in-law build us one. And there is NO way I am going to be limbing HUGE limbs on top of my newly built chicken coop.

We had taken down some of the smaller limbs earlier but still had the much bigger ones that had been on the roof of the barn. So they needed to come down anyways. Lee’s brother Greg gave us a 28 foot ladder so that helped us get what we couldn’t reach before with our smaller ladder.

After much begging on my part to let me have my turn Lee finally let me up. Well mostly because I think his arm was falling off from all the sawing. Jessica came out to see us earlier. So when my arm started falling off she got her turn on limb sawing. I wonder if she is going to stop coming over as she always gets to help in what ever we are doing.

The tree limbs were huge so we are going to use them for next years kindling. Gotta put some of the yard debris to good use eh?

The first cord of firewood we purchased arrived cut and split.  Unfortunately, a “cord” on craigslist is really about 3/4 of a cord if that.  A dry cord of softwood weights 2000 pounds, and hardwood weighs about 4000 pounds.  If your cord of madrone arrives in the bed of a half-ton pickup, send it back.  So … for our second batch, I bought a trailer load of cut pole pines.  The trailer’s volume would hold 2.5 cords, and the length of the wood ensured that it was neatly stacked.  A good deal, with only one small problem: we needed to cut and split it ourselves.

Cutting is a rather straight-forward enterprise requiring only a bow saw and lots of energy.  Bahco is a good brand of Swedish-made saws and blades.  I picked up a 21″ bow saw at Wilco, and some 30″ Bahco blades for a frame saw I intend to build.  However, given the size of the above woodpile, a chainsaw is sadly a much more efficient means of cutting.  I don’t much like chainsaws.  They are noisy, dirty, and extremely dangerous.  They are the ultimate anti-green tool. Also, the average chainsaw injury requires 110 stitches. In their defense, they turn a tree into a pile of logs much faster that any hand tool.

I’d like to issue a big thanks to our neighbor Drew for stopping by with his Husqvarna a couple days after our woodpile was delivered and helping cut some of it.  Robin’s dad, Steve, stopped by subsequently with his chainsaw, and cut more.  I then used Steve’s saw to cut more.  And then the first pile was complete.  The picture above shows the slightly smaller second pile I have yet to cut up.  (The pines, by the way, were runaway Christmas trees, so no old growth trees were hurt in the making of this woodpile.)

Big logs cut up fine on the ground.  You saw most of the way through for all the cuts, then roll the log 180 degrees and finish the cuts. Small logs cut more safely in a sawbuck.  There’s lots of plans available online for these.  I looked through a few, and then built this one using all scrap lumber:

It folds flat for storage, and is set up for cutting 16″ logs on the marked lines.  The pivot bolts are recessed out of the way of stray chainsaw blades.  For small logs (5″ or so), I lift them into the sawbuck, and then cut them by walking from end to end and sheering off 16″ pieces.  When it gets down to the width of the sawbuck, I cut on the lines marked.  Also very handy for hand-cutting with a bow saw.

When the sawing is done, you end up with a pile of logs, many of which will require splitting.  Some people opt for a powered log splitter, but I find it impossible to justify the cost and environmental impact unless you have a firewood business.  Otherwise, your easiest solution is to buy a true splitting maul.  A splitting maul has a wider head than an ax, so it forces the log apart as it enters, but a flat end so you can treat it like a wedge and hit it with a hammer to motivate knotty pieces of wood.

My “buy from small businesses” rule led me astray here, as I don’t really much like the tool I ended up with and I’ve spent about $50 bucks on it counting a new handle (after breaking the first one in 20 minutes … oops) and the stupid rubber thing to save future handles (which causes it’s own set of problems).  My recommendation: if you are cheap, buy the basic 6 lb or 8 lb version at a hardware or farm store.  It looks exactly like a sledgehammer with one face ground into a blade.  It should run about $22.  If you want splitting bliss, buy the fancy 6lb model with flared sides and a double-curve fiberglass handle at Jerry’s.  It is $40.  If I could do it over, I’d get that one.  Oh, and be very careful not to over swing or you will very easily break the handle.  I speak from personal experience.

Anyway, find a maul, get a large log to use as a splitting base to save your back (I need a much wider one), find safety glasses, and swing …

Let me emphasize the safety glasses.  They are obnoxious, especially if you don’t have anti-fog ones, but splitting will often require striking your maul with a sledgehammer.  Last night I broke a small chip of metal off my sledge which shot across the back yard and hit the wood shed with considerable force.  You don’t want to end up a homesteader with an eye patch!

Anyway, a couple hours of splitting made a definite improvement to the state of our woodshed.  I read in a wood heating book that a person can split a cord in two hours.  I’ll need to be in better shape to do that … or perhaps have the deluxe splitting maul at Jerry’s … but it did go much faster than I expected.