Forest paths, forest safety.

For those of you who don't know already, I live in a forest.  Well, not really.  I live in a house that is situated in a clearing and around the clearing is a forest.  Almost 8 acres of forest.  That's a lot of forest.  It's too much in some ways for D and me, but we enjoy doing what we can to care for it and be responsible owners of this bit of land.  As we were away living in a different town for 6 years we were not able to do as much, unfortunately.  Now, it's catch up time.  

It's been my goal for a long time to create paths through the forest and I've been working away at that for the past few years.  I can really see the progress which is so encouraging.  I was able to enjoy forest time with my grand-kids this summer and we loved walking through.  But 8 acres is 8 acres and there is always chopping, cutting, snipping, gathering, and piling to do.  In the past, we piled and then later in the fall when the rains started we burned the piles. 

 This year, however, we invested in a Chipper. We found a used one on the local Buy and Sell.  Man, I love the Buy and Sell's!  It's big enough to chip our piles into mulch and then the mulch is defining my pathways!


First, cut and snip.  He cuts and I snip.


 Then gather and pile.  We both do that.


And mulch.

In the above picture, you can see the cleared section on the right and the section for another day on the left.


He does the mulching, I do the shoveling.


Then rake the mulch onto the path. That was me.  He kept on throwing those branches in the Chipper.


Then place old, mossy rocks just so.  That was me too.  I just love old mossy rocks.


The good thing about this job is that it smelled like Christmas the whole time.  

This picture makes me happy.






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