Clearing of Land Around Our Home Site

I view our 60 or so acres (1st diagram) from more of a Permaculture standpoint. The most well-managed portions of our land will be around the corridor that we travel and live. The least-managed portions will be at our property's borders. It is with these thoughts that I have been working our land. If you'd like to investigate the concept of Permaculture, one of my fave books is by Toby Hemenway and called "Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home Scale Permaculture".

I think of our land as arranged into concentric ovals or Zones (2nd figure). Our access road and home represent the center of the oval and the center of the most intensely managed land (identified in the above Permaculture book as "Zone 1". This Zone will be the most gardened and landscaped.





In the next oval (Zone 2) is the “stewarded” land. In wooded areas, the understory is fairly clear and populated with hardwood saplings (predominantly maple and oak) and is where trees may be harvested for fruit, nuts or firewood. In field areas, grass is mowed or fenced and populated with critters. Brush has been cleared back to stone walls. It is in these two areas where I currently spend most all of my time working. (note: Zone 2 was supposed to be orange and the color is apparently not picked up by my scanner. it's the obvious blank areas located around Zone 1.)

Outside of that is the soon-to-be somewhat tended forest. Outside of that is untended land. Through all layers of this land, trails will be made for recreational enjoyment and access. The first of those trails to be developed will radiate from Zone 1 out to property boundaries. Ultimately, a perimeter trail will follow the property boundary.

My first notions were to create vehicle access to an area that we will build upon. With the development of a road, this task is almost complete. Along with creating an access road, came the creation of a drainage plane for water (ie. a path for water to take)(more on this later) and restoration of the landscape on either side of the road.

Traditionally, when houses are built, the clearing of land happens quickly. In forested areas, the area is harvested using logging equipment or by using chainsaws to fell and cut up trees. Heavy equipment, such as an excavator, pulls the remaining stumps. Often, the pulled stumps are buried and the remaining brush is also buried or burned.

My tendencies lean strongly towards stewardship of the land and the above approach reminds me too much of the ancient “rape and pillage” philosophy. As I clear our land to prepare for a yard and house site, I do so with more of a minimalist approach. Time isn’t as much of an issue for me and the quality of our cleared space is. I am sure that I am doing significant habitat destruction but compared to the usual techniques that completely raze an acre or two of trees and obliterate the soil structure, I feel that my approach is a bit better.

The area I am clearing was once a New England farm field. This means that my clearing involves the removal of small trees, most less than 4" in diameter and brush. I am doing all the work by myself. My most often used hand tool for clearing is a long-handled pruner and sometimes I use a curved razor-tooth saw.

I have a chainsaw but I use it as sparingly as I can. I also have a 30 HP 4WD tractor with front bucket and backhoe, a field and brush mower and 4 inch wood chipper as attachments.

In the area I am clearing, plant succession is in full swing. Most of the small shrubs have been overtaken by popple (quaking aspen) and balsam fir. Maples saplings are small (finger sized) but beginning to sprout everywhere. While both the fir and popple have some commercial value as more mature (read: larger) trees, as 2-4 inch saplings, they don’t warrant commercial harvesting. I have decided that burning the cleared trees is a waste for two reasons. First, because of the carbon dioxide that will escape into the atmosphere (contributing in some small way to global warming) and second, because of the many nutrients that would also be lost to the soil. I have observed from working in my forest, that both downed popple and balsam fir decay quite rapidly. So by shredding and chipping these small trees (and thus increasing the surface area for the decay organisms to work) I will be giving them back to the soil quite quickly (within a year I figure).

I begin with the youngest trees and shrubs and clear these using long-handled pruners. These pruners work well for a few reasons. They can cut at or even a bit below ground level leaving stumps that you won’t trip over and they can reach under low branches so you don’t have to get a face full of needles and leaves. The trees that are too big for the pruners but small enough to chip are cut down with a chain saw. Trees that will eventually be cut but are too big for my chipper are left in place and pruned up as high as I can reach with the pruners or hand saw. Trees that will not be cut (mostly deciduous) are also pruned. By clearing in this fashion, chainsaw noise is limited to about 10 minutes an hour. This allows me to enjoy the sounds of the environment of which I feel I am a part.

The process I use has evolved over a two year period into something fairly efficient for the way I am doing it. I use the long-handled pruners to clear all of the smaller material growing on the ground. I also use the pruner to clear the branches off trees that will not yet be cut down. On trees small enough for me to chip, I will use my chainsaw to remove the branches. I skim the trunk of these trees with the bar removing the branches quickly. All of this "brush" is removed and placed in rows on relatively flat ground (pic below).

Trees less than 4" are cut down getting as close to the ground as I can without sucking too much dirt into my saw bar and chain. I have an old bar and chain I save for this purpose. I am bound to get some dirt and debris in the chain, bar and sprocket and once every two hours or so, I strip down my chainsaw and give it and the bar a thorough cleaning. The blade also gets sharpened frequently. I do go through blades and even bars but I look at this as an equitable trade for what I am getting in return.




A brief word on safety. I can not emphasize enough how important it is to wear safety equipment during this clearing process with a chainsaw. This is not normal chainsaw work. I wear heavy, tall boots, kevlar chaps, heavy gloves and a helmet with mask and ear protection. You are just plain stupid if you don't invest in chaps and a helmet. I am not careless with a chainsaw and have an immense amount of respect for the damage one can do. In the last two years, I have grazed my leg twice. The chaps saved my knee and thigh from what could have been some pretty nasty injuries. Enough said.

The felled trees are de-branched using the chainsaw and again the brush moved to the brush row. Once the area is clear of all small brush, I cut each tree pole into manageable lengths (8-10' for me) and stack it in piles for chipping. I will tackle 10-20 trees at a time. Obviously, you don't want to fell them on top of one another as it would make branch removal that much more difficult. The area I clear is a semi-circle and I move forward in this fashion. Ideally, the brush row grows in length behind me in the middle of the semi-circle and the stacks of poles on the outside edges every 10 feet or so.

Once every day or two, I will run over the brush row with the brush mower on my tractor. This shreds the branches into nothingness (ie. a nice layer of mulch) if your blades are fairly sharp. I'll then trade the mower for the chipper and chip the poles out over the top of the shredded branches. The chute on my chipper moves 360 degrees and makes it easy to do this.The picture below is the mulched branches with wood chips on top.

As I remove the brush and trees, I open up the topology of the land, I can see what the ground structure looks like and get a clearer idea of the “lay of the land”. What is left after I clear is: deciduous trees (mostly maple, apple, oak) I may keep and white pine, balsam fir and popple I will clear once I figure out what to do with it. The deciduous trees which I have left standing, if we choose, can be harvested for firewood or kept as shade trees.


Some necessary details for those wanting to follow this methodology. Your ability to work well in the forest depends on both the quality of your tools and how well you take care of them. I routinely clean and sharpen my tools. The cutting edge of my pruners are file sharpened and the bolts tightened when needed. A light coating of oil is also applied to the working areas to both lubricate and protect. My hand saw gets cleaned of pitch with turpentine (as well as I can). My chainsaw gets taken apart every two hours. The chain housing is cleaned of debris, the track in the chain bar is cleaned of soil debris and the chain is hand sharpened with a rat tail file.
There is a good article on file sharpening chainsaw blades at: http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles/brewer57.html.

The above methodology is one I am using on land that we will enjoy as extended yard and garden. Most all of the forest products left on the ground are no larger than ½ to 1 inch chips of rapidly decaying wood. I may even spread a thin layer of topsoil on top of all this to level and provide a seedbed for a conservation mix of grasses and clover. In essence, I am nuturing habitat that is to be shared by humans and our animal friends. I want this area to be easy to maintain and to flourish while I am building our home, a process I envision taking at least a year.

Recipe: Applewood Smoked Roast Turkey on the Grill

I absolutely love the fall Holidays (Thanksgiving and Christmas), especially the eating with family and friends part. My neighbors think I'm nuts for getting out my Weber kettle grill in the cold and (sometimes) snow but the result is worth it. If you have a Weber kettle grill and haven't read the instructions, you should. Somewhere in there are instructions on cooking using indirect heat. With the cover on, the kettle keeps wood in a state where it will burn without flame. This is terrific if you want to add a smokey flavor to whatever it is you are cooking.

Grill Set-Up
The charcoal is started (I use a charcoal chimney, ACE hardware carrys them), allowed to turn to white hot coals and then spread into two piles (rows) against the outside wall of the grill. A disposable aluminum roasting pan is used to catch drippings and is placed between the two rows of briquettes on the bottom rack (nice cookware will get ruined if you use it; never use anything non-stick as it gives off toxic fumes at high heat).

According to the grill instructions, it is important to locate the coals on each side of the grill, perpendicular to the grill handle on the outside of the kettle. The grill leg below the handle should point into the wind and one of the bottom three vents is thus positioned into the wind. This puts the two rows of coals parallel to the incoming air flow from this vent allowing for equal combustion on both sides of the grill. The round grill top is placed so that the one vent faces away from the wind (and away from the leg that faces into the wind). If all this is set up correctly, with all vents open, you get heat equivalent to a 350-375 degree oven. Once the white hot briquettes are in place on the outside of the roasting pan, I add 5-7 pieces of fresh charcoal. Then, I place the top rack on the grill with the handles over each row of coals. This allows me to add fresh charcoal and applewood through the holes under each handle.

I usually start the charcoal in the chimney then go in and prep the turkey. By the time the coals are ready, so is the bird.

I place the turkey on the top rack, cavity opening facing the kettle handle. This way, both sides of the bird are parallel with the rows of briquettes. The last thing I add are chunks of freshly cut (green) applewood. It's cut by saw into 3-4 inch lengths and then split into finger sized chunks with a hatchet. Dry wood can be used but must be soaked for a while (at least 4 hours) before using. Woodchips disappear too quickly for my taste which is why I use larger pieces. Other woods can be used (hickory, mesquite) but I really like the nice, sweet taste of applewood.

I check on the bird every half hour or so. If the coals are burning unevenly (which they do most of the time), I poke them a bit and add fresh briquettes to keep both sides loaded with about the same amount. I will move the front leg of the grill to a better spot for wind flow. I'll use a small branch to poke up through the bottom vent holes to keep them free of ash. I'll rotate the top rack 180 degrees, switching the handle placement to opposite of what it was every hour till the birds is done. I use a small professional, pocket thermometer to test doneness. They fit in your pocket and are more accurate (I find) than the big supermarket ones.

Depending on your coals, your bird will be done in about the same time as it will if cooked in the oven. In most cases, mine is done 15-30 min. less.

The Turkey
I remove the neck, giblets, etc. from the cavity and rinse and dry the bird as thoroughly as I can. I don't stuff the cavity. The few times I tried, I found the flavor of the wood didn't get into the meat and did get into the stuffing. It was also harder to predict when the bird would be done.

Into a mixing bowl I add, one or two chopped apples (dime to nickel-sized pieces) depending on the size of the bird, olive oil to thoroughly wet, flavored salt and spices. I use mostly celery salt, some Bells Seasoning, Jane's Crazy Mixed-Up Salt; enough so that you can see it on the apple chunks. This mixture goes into the cavity.

Onto the exterior of the bird, after it is sewn-up, trussed, legs pinned or what have you, I rub more olive oil or sesame oil. Then I sprinkle whatever I have used for the cavity onto the skin and pat it in. I would say I "liberally" add the salt's and spices. The skin will be too smokey and salty to eat for most when the bird is done (however, this helps give turkey soup an outstanding flavor).

My theory is that the apples steam when cooking in the cavity and this keeps the turkey moist from the inside. The oil on the outside browns and seals the skin from losing moisture. The oil on both inside and outside traps some of the smoke flavor from the wood. As the turkey cooks, the skin will darken to deep brown. If this looks too much like a burned turkey for you, cover the bird with foil just before your desired color is reached. You will have to experiment with the amount of wood to add ontop of the coals. Some folks overdose on smokey flavor easily and one or two additions of wood will be enough. I add wood all through the cooking every time I add charcoal (30 min-1 hr).

A note on "done". If your coals are kept fed and smoke comes out of the top vent consistantly, then your bird will be done in about the same time as it takes to cook it inside in the oven. USE A THERMOMETER to test for done. Oil frequently gets onto that little poppy thing and will stick it together so it doesn't work. Let the bird sit covered with foil before carving, yada, yada, yada (all other instructions for working with a turkey are the same).

If you use the drippings for gravy, thin them with other gravy as they are pretty salty and smokey.

Turkey Soup
I don't know about you, but this is actually my favorite part of the dinner. After the meal is over and you have totally gorged yourself and enjoyed rave compliments, the hardest part is to move beyond your full stomach to clean the turkey. It's easiest to separate the meat from all the other stuff while the bird is warm. I take the skin off before I carve so I can add it to the soup relatively intact.

I remove all the larger pieces of meat from the bones and save for turkey sandwiches, etc. The smaller pieces I separate and save for soup. The remaining bits of meat can be harvested after the soup base (stock) is made. Break the carcass down and put it, skin, juices and pan drippings (if you have saved them) all into a pot. Cover with water and simmer for 2-3 hours. Pour through a colander to separate the liquid from the solids. I then pick through the still draining solids to get other bits of meat. Some folks crack the bones to get the marrow into the soup base; I don't. At this point, you can save and freeze the broth or make soup. Choose any chicken/turkey soup recipe you like diluting the final product to your taste and enjoy!

On Road Construction-(4) Epilogue

As of Fall '07, our 1/2 mile roadbed is about 98% complete. The first section of roadbed, from paved surface, is complete. My neighbor across the street came over with an excavator and removed the few large, remaining rocks from my roadbed. A drainage swale was excavated on the uphill side of our road bed, the thick sod and soil placed on the downhill side of the road (the sod went down first, soil on top). The purpose of an uphill swale is not to drain the road but to intercept the subsoil flow of water and give it a place to go other than under my road.

The front field, which our driveway borders, is pasture and was fairly uneven. The old access road went through the middle of this pasture. As a good portion of this area had already been dug up, I decided to renovate the rest of it as well. High spots were scraped of sod which was placed in low spots. Soil removed from high spots and swales was placed on top of the sod and used to level other uneven areas. After I placed the sod, I'd run it over with the wheels of the tractor to flatten it, place soil on top of that and run it over again. I was lucky enough to find an old manure bed on the other side of the pasture. I guess barn waste had been dumped against a large rock many years ago. I scraped off the top layer of sod and harvested the nice, almost peat-like soil and used it as a top layer for starting grass seed. This I dumped and hand raked to about 1/2-1" thick, seeded with a mix of grass seed, clover and timothy and covered with mulch hay. As I was raking, I found small pieces of hard coal, some old soda (orange crush) bottles, a bit of barbed wire and other odd bits of history.

I managed to get grass seed growing well before cold weather arrived and the restored field area looks very nice. This front field mostly covers ledge. In the spring, water seeps into the soil, hits the ledge and moves slowly down hill (the whole area is sort of a hilltop). By adding drainage swales, the flow of water is intercepted and directed to drain more directly into a watershed. Previously, it would drain and sit, keeping this field too wet to use till mid-summer. I am very mindful of the environment. This area has always been used as pasture and had always drained the way it still does. I only enhanced the ability of the subsurface water to move to the place it always had.

The only obstacle left to deal with is a stream crossing. Our choices were culvert or bridge. After discussions with our local state forester and also someone from the forest service who deals with water issues, I decided upon a bridge. Firstly, I would not be disturbing the stream bed. Secondly, a culvert would have to be set at an extreme angle due to the location of uphill vs. downhill stream beds. My wife wants something that looks like a bridge. A culvert would have necessitated creating abutments made of stone and I got hung up on creating footings in a wet area. Seemed like using a culvert would be a project that could grow in complexity quite quickly. On the other hand, a bridge might cost more up front for the steel I-beams, but would be easier and quicker to install. More on this later.

There are still a few places I need to widen our road but I can do this as I need to. There is still one last bumpy spot that is still just rock. This last bit is about 20 feet long and will be finished this next spring. We are beginning to discuss house plans and the remainder of the drive closest to the house will be tackled prior to home construction once we decide on the location of the house.

As it stands now, Fall '07, we have a nice winding, half-mile driveway that traverses field and forest and looks very nice. Water drains to the sides of the roadbed nicely, flowing away, downhill through designed swales. The road stays firm throughout the spring as the ground thaws; this being the major issue in our area where the ground can freeze to 4 feet and we can get feet of snow in winter. Much of the roadside is grass and gets mowed throughout the summer. You can see across field and through forest as you drive into our future homesite. The deer frequent the field, the birds are abundant and include a mating pair of pileated woodpeckers and there are an abundance of other small mammals that we see constantly.

There is also now a small pond down-field of the first restored field. More on this in another post. We are having an early winter this year so there is little I can do in over a foot of snow. I will be catching up in my blog postings.

On Road Construction-(3) Finishing Up

Spring #2.
After our spring thaw, I found I needed to scoop out and fill one more 20' section of road (big sigh). With last summers unpleasant memory of moving tons of rock almost out of my thoughts, I took another 20 buckets of slop (mud) out of a last wet spot. I was lucky to find a mother lode rock pile at the end of the stone wall I'd been harvesting, under a pile of charcoal that was a brush pile I'd burned this past winter. I had to negotiate half a dozen large boulders that I could barely move with my tractor. I can only imagine how the farmer that originally cleared this land must have managed these. I have taken most all the small rock and am left wondering what to do with the large boulders. Perhaps some sort of modern stonehenge to make folks think I've gone off the deep end? That might be fun!

The last hole was filled and a few more damp spots had one-man rock placed in them. I ordered two trucks (20+ yards) of small rock and carefully layered this on the remaining roadbed that was still just soil. The ground was still wet enough so that this layer of small rock quickly got driven into the top layer of soil which was my hope. The areas in which the rock was pressed in deepest got a second layer of small rock. I plan on leaving these areas as they are, filling with small rock if necessary, until summer 3. My goal is to make sure that the small rock is packed in well enough so that there will be a solid road base. Of course, freezing and thawing here can (and will probably) wreak havoc on my road but I'd like to think I have done a decent job and that my road will last a long time and require little yearly maintainance.

My last task on building our road was closest to the paved road. Beyond our driveway entrance and wet area that had been filled with rock and a culvert summer previous, there was a small hill and large, sharp bend in the road that went around the small hill. I felt that this bend was a pain to negotiate and decided to remove part of the small hill, fill in the approaching valley and thus remove most of the curve. The only potential obstacle was (can you guess?) rock. There were tops of boulders (or so I thought) peeking out from the grassy hill I wanted to remove. As my neighbor across the street wanted to pasture his horses in our field again this summer and he brought home heavy equipment from his workplace often, I figured I had an out if I ran into anything I couldn't handle with my tractor.

In order to fill in the valley approaching the small hill, I needed (of course) more large rock. This gave me the opportunity to cleanup quite a few miscellaneous rock that were on either side of the roadway leading to our creek. These had been left by a skidder clearing through a stone wall. The remaining large rock came from the mother-lode rock pile described above. The largest rocks were placed on the downhill side of the road. Once the outline of the road bed was in place, I could start to fill the uphill side of the roadbed with more rock and the downhill side with debris. The downhill side would ultimately be filled and graded as a gentle slope.

I first removed the layer of grass from the hill and placed the sod on the downhill side of the outlined roadbed. As I dug to remove the topsoil below the sod, I was pleased and surprised to find clean gravel (no rocks). This gravel was a mixture of coarse sand and tiny (1/4") crushed stone. I used this as a top layer for the most finished parts of my road. It was a wonderful find and looks great as a road topping! I'm not quite done but already I've removed about 3-4 truckloads (and saved myself about $500.). Most of the small hill has been removed and, as I suspected, there are a few large rocks I am unable to deal with. So, I will wait for my neighbor to come home one weekend with his excavator. My other option is to drill a series of holes in the rock and fill them with a material that expands when it dries (after it's mixed with water). I have yet to track down where to obtain this stuff; I do know it exists. Our ledge rock breaks (and drills) fairly easily so this seems like it might be a viable option if necessary. This last section of road is about 20 feet long. As of late spring 07, my roadbed is about 99% done.

I have trenched a drainage swale on the uphill side of this newest finished portion of road and used the soil to fill and grade the downhill slope. The uphill sod was removed first, packed in place (downhill) and then topped with the remaining soil from the excavated swale. The swale was raked and then seeded with a grass/clover mix and covered with burlap which is staked down. I've tried to use straw or hay but with our occasional windy days, it usually blows away. The grass gets a nice start under the burlap; then I remove the burlap so I can reuse it somewhere else. It will last me 2-3 seasons if I buy the heavier stuff. After a week without burlap, I will overseed if I need to. In spring, we usually get regular wet days so I don't have to worry about watering and the grass gets a good start.

On Road Construction-(2) Road Base

I had already decided to tackle the worst part of the road first as I knew this would consume the most time and present the biggest challenge.

Building a long road can get expensive. The cost comes from using large equipment and from the fill (rock and gravel). Last year, around us, gravel was going for around $10/yard. I'd pay $120 per 12 yard dump truck of gravel; a bit more for 2-4" rock. If you have a low spot to fill in, that doesn't go very far. My goal was to build a road as inexpensively as possible. I didn't have heavy equipment and there were resources on my land I could use. The tradeoff was (as usual) the amount of time it would take. I figured that in one summer I could get a roadbase in that would be passable for vehicles most of the year. Then I could add to it to make it better as time went on.

It would have been easy (and costly) to have rock trucked in to fill the low spots but our small stream with steep banks presents an obstacle to all but small, high suspension vehicles (like a tractor or small truck). We are strongly considering a bridge but this is yet another topic for a later date. For now, we drive across the stream (it has a rock base so there is little to no damage to the waterway). As it is now, I have gravel delivered to the back of the first field. I then have to transport it, tractor bucket by tractor bucket, across the stream, to where I want it.

Once upon a time, our land was farmed. In New England, this means stone walls and often piles of stone. There is certainly no shortage of stone in Maine. A farmer would pick up the stones brought to the surface by spring plowing and dump them in one location. The result was either a stone wall or rock pile. Wooden posts supporting wire fences often separated farmed crop land from grazing animals. Often, rocks were placed under those wire fences. The largest rocks would be cleared first and stacked under the fence. As time went on, the smaller rocks from the crop side of the fence would accumulate next to the larger rocks. Nowadays, the wooden posts are long gone but you can still find the wire running along the top of the stone wall. Note the larger rocks on the left side of the picture below and the smaller rocks on the field or farmed side of the larger rocks.


Rock piles are found in places where it was too far to go to add rocks to a stone wall. Rocks from spring plowed fields were picked up and dumped in a pile often on the downside of a slope in an area considered out of the way but convenient enough to a field. I mention this in detail because these rocks have been a terrific resource for me in building our road.

I am a purist at heart and I wouldn’t dream of destroying a stone wall which I feel has historical value as described above. Most of the stones I needed were fist sized to some almost one-man stones (a one-man stone is a stone the can be moved by one man). These rocks were harvested from a rock pile or taken from the side of a stone wall. In many cases, the stone wall was more of a pile of rocks and in harvesting, I also rebuilt the stone walls. I figure that if the farmer who originally moved these rocks knew I was using his stones to build a road, he would be happy that I was doing something practical with them. Below left is the area I am harvesting the rocks from, below right is the beginnings of a rebuilt stone wall (it's the same wall).



The worst part of the road was furthest back from the road. It was the "v" shaped area where two stands of white pine drained (see previous post for a description of the roadway). There was a natural clear space, between two stands of white pine, where the skidder tracks went and this, so I thought would make a good place for a road. I knew this would be the most difficult as it was the wettest area after the field I had just finished. First, I dug drainage ditches on either side of the roadbed. The diggings I placed on the roadbed to build up the road base (as I had done previously). Now I had a raised road with drainage ditches on either side. I was surprised (and dismayed) to find that the road remained wet and muddy. I had noticed earlier, when excavating for the drainage, that I hit clay. I also noticed that the excavated earth above the clay smelled very manure-ish. Whether it was just rich in organic matter or was a respository for manure I'll never know. What I do know is that it would never make it as a road. So much for an easy time.

I ended up removing all of the organic topsoil, some 12-16 inches of it, for the width of the road plus the drainage ditches. Underground, water sits on top of and travels on top of clay as clay is relatively impervious to water. This is why my roadbed remained wet. My excavation cut a 16 foot wide trench up through the middle of these two pine groves. As you can imagine, I ended up with quite a bit of topsoil. I hesitate to use the word "nice" in front of topsoil because this is Maine and anything you do with your land implies "rocks". So, I had a pile of topsoil with lots of rocks mixed in. You can always use topsoil so this was in fact a good thing that I had a few small mountains of decent soil. Aside from being fun places for the kids to get dirty, I have used the soil for filling and leveling many areas, from field that I am restoring to the sides of the road I am building. It grows grass well (after you rake out the rocks of course).

So, now I have this 120 foot long swath of excavated future road. What next? Rocks.... lots of rocks. Serious, serious rock. Even after I thought I was done after summer one, I had to re-excavate and fill with (you guessed it) more rock during spring two.

On top of the clay left behind after scooping off the topsoil, there were clearly some areas that were much wetter than others. The only way to create a dry road bed was to create a raised road bed. I had plenty of rocks. I had big rocks from where skidders had gone through stone walls to boulders to rubble. My plan was simple. Big rocks on the bottom, smaller rocks on the top. Some of the rocks were so big, I could only push them or roll them into place with the tractor's bucket. Others I could manage to get in the bucket using leverage. Yet others I could pick up with my backhoe. It has an attachment called a thumb which allows you to "pinch" rocks between it and the bucket. The big rocks were a challenge, the small rocks have become a pain. These smaller rocks came from harvesting rock piles and stone walls. I'd free the rocks from years of soil accumulation with a hand held grub hoe, fill up a plastic bucket and then pour them into the tractor bucket. Once that was full, I'd drive to where I needed the rock, sometimes teetering because I was at capacity and empty the bucket. Most of the time, I emptied the tractor bucket by hand. There is a difference between just dumping mostly round rock and placing it by hand. Placing it by hand allows you to fit the rocks into place. This makes a big difference in the stability and quality of your road. Dumped rock will squish around and make more of a soupy mix. It relies on being driven on to pack it down. Placed rock fits together and doesn't have anywhere to go when driven on and thus provides a better base.



There were three distinct areas where the road was very wet. The above left picture shows the fill for the wettest area of road. Subsequently, this area received the largest rock. This area was at the very top end of the "v". The roadbed is about 14 ft wide leaving the outside margins as drainage swales. The banks on the outside edges of the swales were sloped and seeded. I still need to finish topping this area with small rock.

The middle photo was the second wettest area and located at the bottom of the "v". I built the roadbed with one-man rock on the bottom. When it thawed a bit in early winter, it got a bit soupy. Later on, as spring progressed, this section became much worse. So, I scooped out more soil and filled with more rock.

The last photo is a low spot right before the stone wall. It too needs more rock. Things came to a halt once the ground froze this fall. It's a bit hard to free the rock from frozen ground.

The areas of road that didn't need rock have received a topping of 3-4 inches of gravel. My thought was to get most all the roadbed covered in this much gravel so that driving on it would pack it in. I purchased about $1000. of gravel during summer 1 which covered most all of the roadbed. Next spring, I will invest in some more gravel and resurface the road with a few more inches. I figure that a few seasons of doing this should build a nice packed surface for us to travel on.

I'd mentioned that we had to move our driveway entrance because the state deemed it unsafe due to sight distances and travel speed. Whoever came out to mark the position of the entrance didn't look at the obstacles to road creation beyond that entrance. Perhaps he did and chuckled. There was a large rock pile and stone wall to move and a wet area of field drainage to cross. I cleared the roadway of brush and trees (and pulled out the roots). I moved most all the rock to low, soft areas for fill. Then I hit an obstacle. Ledge. Right in the middle of our driveway. It was a bit too tall to drive over and needed to be removed. I thought we would have to hire someone to blast.

Here is where good neighbors come in handy. Our neighbor across the street has 3 horses on a small lot. His pasture has been grazed out (no more grass) . When we first bought the land, he had asked if he could pasture his horses in our field across from his house. I thought it would be a nice gesture to agree and as a plus, it would help manage the field. At the time, I didn't know he worked for a heavy equipment contractor. He saw our situation and asked if he could fix our driveway in exchange for letting him use our pasture. One weekend, a HUGE excavator appeared, the ledge in our driveway disappeared and the wet drainage area was filled with large rock. I have since excavated a trench and placed a culvert, filled low spots with two truckloads of rock (it was too far to haul rock from my rock piles) and topped with a layer of gravel. As our front field remains wet, I have also exaggerated the existing drainage swales leading to the culvert. Here I had to stop due to wet weather this fall. In the spring, I will finish grading and seed.


The first photo is the driveway entrance, the second is the culvert where once there was a very wet area. This is where most of the large rock fill ended up. The last photo is the drainage swale between the driveway and field. You can see that it collects water nicely.

So far, a one-half mile driveway has cost me a bit over $1000. in fill. This does not include my labor, tractor hours or fuel. I have heard estimates of around $30,000. to create something on this scale. I'm not sure if this is accurate but for the same cost and my labor, I got a tractor out of the deal and I'm much more satisfied with the product.

Forest Stewardship

After spending a few months working on our acreage and road building, I started thinking about how best to manage our forest woods. It was clear that some of the white pine were getting on in years. It was also clear that many of these white pine trees were disfigured and didn't have much in the way of usable timber. This disfiguration is due to a pest called a pine weevil which destroys the dominant stem of a pine tree leaving one or more of the remaining side shoots (branches) to take over as the dominant trunk. Weevils can attack one tree many times leaving a tree with few to many "yanks" or bends in the trunk leaving little in the way of straight wood for lumber. My options were to leave the trees to age and fall or selectively remove some of them. Pine is not very good wood to burn for heat due to it's high creosote levels and low heat output (as compared to the favored harwood to burn in our neck of the woods-oak). As far as I know, this leaves one option which is to chip the trees for either pulp or biomass. As these last options bring in little revenue, getting someone to harvest for these options will be difficult.

But I digress. I want to focus on the stewardship aspect of forest management which is where the above thoughts led me. Last fall, I had taken a 5 week extension course sponsored by the Maine State Forestry folks. This course touched on many different aspects of forest management but advocated strongly the development of a Forest Management Plan (FMP). Briefly, an FMP is a document, written by a state certified Forester, that describes your land, the tree stands present, their overall quality and potential and provides a 10 year prescription for managing timber. If desired by the landowner, the FMP can be much more than a prescription for trees. More later on that. For a bit more information visit these web sites: (http://www.maine.gov/doc/mfs/certification/) (http://www.umext.maine.edu/piscataquis/Forestry/forestryassistance.htm).

In our state, having an FMP also opens the door to government cost sharing for timber/land management. Two expenses I will be looking to obtain partial reimbursement for in the next year will be the development of a permanent stream crossing and for mast tree (food for animals) release. So, not only do I get a professional prescription for managing our forested area but there is some financial benefit as well. Of course, the management is labor intensive (and cost intensive if you choose to hire someone else to do it).

First, I took advantage of a free visit by our local State Forester and then another free visit by a private forester who works for a local lumber mill. I wanted to hear a few different opinions before choosing a forester to write our FMP. I ended up contracting with the forester for the local mill for a number of reasons. First, I felt good about his knowledge base and felt that he would represent our interests. In my book, feeling good about who you are working with ranks at the top of the list. Intuition usually always rules my judgement (In one significant instance where I decided against it, I ended up getting screwed.). I also felt that his connection to the mill would have exposed him to many different loggers and he would be able to find a match between us and a good logger when it came to harvesting.

Development of our FMP began with a walk around our acreage with our forester Mark. We walked and talked for a few hours, he entered waypoints on his GPS unit and made notes. This time was well spent as I could direct Mark to the different types of stands we had, ask questions, talk about our plans for building in a certain area and identify the location of a future farm pond. He was able to get a feel for our needs and a good FMP is taylored to the needs of the landowner as much as the needs of the forest. Managing our forestland for timber was a priority for us but managing for wildlife was equally as important. This second aspect became clear later on.

Mark created a first draft and sent it to me for perusal and feedback. I read and re-read the draft and it didn't feel quite right. This document was called a Forest Management Plan and yet it was really only a "tree" management plan. I felt that managing a forest using what had been written was only partially right but I wasn't sure what to do about it. This was when I stumbled upon a document about a program called "Focus Species Forestry". This program was developed a number of years ago by Maine Audubon, the State Forestry Folks, the Master Loggers Certification Program and SWOAM, the Small Woodlot Owners Association in Maine. These are all the key players in forestry in our state so I became interested.

The Focus Species Forestry program differs from traditional harvesting (http://www.maineaudubon.org/conserve/forest/focusspecies.shtml) only in that it first identifies the Focus Species on a piece of land, then seeks to sustain the habitat of those species before harvesting. Harvesting can actually create needed habitat. Many folks think harvesting destroys habitat (and they are correct) but, it's also really the only way to create an early-successional forest. These beginning forest areas are important in our region for creating habitat for small animals that provide many larger predatory animals with food. So, in this case, we trade one habitat for another. Managing for one Focus Species means that you are managing for many other species that live within the same habitat and have similar needs. For instance, one of our Focus Species is the Snowshoe Hare. By providing an early successional forest with clumps of young fir trees, we are giving the Snowshoe Hare protective cover in which it likes to hide. This area is also important to other small mammals like squirrels and chipmunks as well as specific birds for nesting and protection. On a very simple level, if all our forest were mature hardwoods, these species would be absent and so would the animals that prey on them. Realistically this is not true, but the picture is a complex one full of many habitat and animal interrelationships .

This program provided the information I needed to fill in the missing piece of our FMP. It was easy for me to provide the animal information on Focus Species after having been out in our forest daily for almost a year. I had seen one Snowshoe Hare but I was surprised, come winter, the evidence of a significant population (tracks and turds). In the spring and summer, I regularly hear woodpeckers and occasionally see a large Pileated flying about. In warmer months, we have regular Whitetail Deer visitors that love the newly planted grasses in the field I have restored. They do not winter on our land as evidenced by the lack of tracks that are clearly present in the soft soil other times of the year. These three different Focus Species provided enough information to define specific habitat to create, manage and protect. It doesn't seem like alot of information but remember that by managing forest for these three species, we will be managing for a much larger spectrum of other critters. We were lucky in that our forester was familiar with Focus Species Forestry and could add the missing content to our Forest Management Plan.

After adding Focus Species information to our plan, the final draft arrived. A few typos were corrected and off it went to our local State Forester for approval. Once we receive approval, we will be eligible for cost-sharing. The downside of this is that I have to pay our forester to come identify what is to be done and pay him to come back and say that it's been done. In many cases, this will negate some of the funds I receive for doing the small work. I do understand why this has to occur. I wouldn't think of not having him present come harvest time.

All in all, I am glad we paid to have a Plan developed. It reflects our desire to be good stewards to the forest we plan to call home sometime in the future. In Maine, we get reimbursed for some of the costs associated with developing a plan, both directly from the State as cash and later, as a state income tax deduction. Our plan was initially quoted at about $400. We ended up paying $650., probably because of the addition of the animal component. The State will reimburse us up to 50% of the cost at a maximum of $120. and give us a $200. credit on our taxes. In theory, our outlay will be $330. for our plan. We will be purchasing an $800. culvert for a stream crossing this summer and cost-sharing will reimburse us $500. In essence, this savings will offset the remaining monies we will have spent.

On Road Construction-(1) Drainage

After purchasing our 55+ acres in the spring of 2006, I decided that my first task was to construct an access road. A crude road (path) was already there, most likely left from logging, but it was overgrown with weeds and briars and not at all negotiable by even a four-wheel drive truck. There were pockets that were clearly wet; water had no place to drain. My proposed roadbed also went between two slightly raised areas of forest; the roadbed sat at the bottom of a shallow "v". I didn't pay much attention to this discreet topography until I actually started trying to constuct a solid bed for an access road. The process has been very educational and reinforced several principals I had read about in a few books on Permaculture.

I will try to describe what I started with. After leaving a paved road, a crude car path ran through a 2 acre field. The state told us we had to move our driveway entrance due to safety issues (sight distances and travel speed). We had to move this access point to a much more inaccessible area which I will describe later. At the back side of the field the path entered woods and a clear stream crossing with steep banks was evident from a logging operation 10-12 years previous. Beyond that lies a second overgrown field transected by a stone wall. This field was in the early process of being taken over by trees and covered with briars and weeds. Deep skidder ruts criss-crossed this field and went up a shallow grade between two stands of white pine to the edge of a third field. Here the ruts ended when the path opened onto what was once another (fourth) field, now covered in 10 year old popple (quaking aspen) and balsam fir poles mostly. The second field and the shallow upward grade were very soggy. Initially I thought there was a small stream that crossed the path and went through the second field; this was not so. The path in its entirety was about a half mile long.

Shortly after purchasing the land, I bought a 30HP Kubota tractor with both a loader and backhoe. My goal for the first summer was to create a solid, dry access road. We decided to use the existing path as our access road This minimized the felling of trees and removal of roots plus this path was already compacted from previous logging access. At first, I thought that constructing a road would be easy and quick with my nice new tractor. A few days of work tempered my eagerness with reality. I realized that in order to build a good road, I needed to first focus on water movement, both above and below grade. If you read any good book on Permaculture (Permaculture: A Designers Manual by Bill Mollison is one of the biggies in this area of thought), it will talk about exploiting subsurface water movement to grow things. I wasn't yet thinking of growing things but I did need to think about moving water out from under my roadbed and away from it (see the next posting).

So, my first task was to manage the movement of water. Basic physics dictates that gravity rules. I needed to give water someplace to go downhill before I even started constructing a road. It was obvious to me that I needed to construct a drainage swale at the bottom of the shallow "v" grade and through part of the second (wet) field. A swale is basically a shallow ditch with graded sides. It provides just enough of a channel to both catch water and guide it away. A wet spring, followed by a wet summer (and then a wet fall) quickly turned my first task into a mud bath. Tractor tires, while nice and knobby for good traction can just as quickly make a puree out of a wet field. I found myself working the field until it rained again, waiting a week for the ground to dry out (if I was lucky), and then working it again. Yeah, I got stuck more than a few times.
Above is a shot of what the fields look like before their makeover. The weeds and briars were scraped from the field with the tractor blade and were buried. The larger brush was stacked to be burned later. I then used the back hoe to dig a one/two foot deep trench where I wanted the swale to be. The soil from the trench was used to fill in skidder ruts in the field. I then used the loader bucket to create gentle, sloping banks away from the trench. Most of the grading was done by back-blading with the front lip of the bucket. The soil was transported around the field in this manner, filling in the low spots and creating areas which sloped towards the swale. At this point, what had been an overgrown, briar filled field was now all soil. I’ll be the first to admit that I am somewhat of a perfectionist. Once the field was graded, I used an iron rake to hand rake the field. I collected and removed the rocks by hand and seeded with a conservation mix of grasses and clover (the deer love to graze here now). The field was covered with straw to keep the soil from drying out and the seed from disappearing. I now have a beautifully restored meadow. I even threw in some native wildflower seeds to see what would happen (http://www.americanmeadows.com).



Above are midway and after shots of one corner of the field to the left of the road. Note the swale running downhill in the second pic.

I should point out that I didn't resurface the field all at once. I'd get one part graded but another would be too wet to work. I'd rake an area and get fatigued so I'd seed and straw that and move on. So, I did it as I could, in about 6 pieces altogether. The finished section to the right of the road is shown below. Note the drainage swale that starts at the front of the pic and winds down through the field. I have only restored the upper half of this meadow. The rest will be restored next summer assuming things dry out enough. The meadow grew tall after I planted it. I left it this way till fall and then mowed it.


Now that the water had a place to go, I could begin the business of constructing a road.

On Looking for Country Acreage

My wife and I wanted to invest in a larger parcel of land; somewhere between 40 and 100 acres. We both still have no idea exactly of how much an acre really is, but our goal was space. Cost was also obviously an issue. I was very surprised at how two towns next door to each other could have such very different real estate values. I mean, this is the country and land is land, right? The simple answer is no.

In our current town, anything larger than 10 acres is difficult to find and surprisingly costly. We are very close (less than half a mile) to the next town and what a difference that makes in real estate values. This difference seems to have to do with perception. The first perception is the school district. Nuff said here. The second has to do with the proximity to grocery stores and urban centers. On our property half a mile away from our current home and in the next town (with the same driving time to shopping, etc), we paid much less per acre (and got much more land) than we could have in our current town. It really pays to do your research and compare land based on cost per acre of land (both listed and sold).

As I said above, my criteria for buying land was fairly specific. Most land in Maine has been harvested for timber at one time or another. I didn’t mind so much if the land had been cut. I was looking for land that had not been cut recently. The land we purchased was last harvested approximately 10-12 years ago. We purchased it from a logger who dabbles more now in real estate than logging. He was going to do some harvesting but we were able to get to him before that happened. As it is, there is not much standing on our property currently that can be harvested for marketable timber. There is, however, lots of potential with what is there as small tree stock for the future. Of course, when you are talking about trees, the future is much more than a few years away.

I was also looking for land that was of mixed habitat. Ideally, it would have some open space, preferably some field, and mostly forest. I was looking for diversity of tree species; both softwoods and hardwoods. Wood is a renewable resource harvested here in Maine; both for lumber and for a winter heat source. We are intending to build and creating a home heated by wood which is "home-grown" is appealing. It would certainly save on home heating oil purchases. We may also build a barn and other outbuildings after construction of our home. Having a source of timber that can be locally milled also makes sense to me.

I wanted land that was predominantly higher and dry although I don’t mind some wetland or swamp as these areas are important for aquifer recharge and animal habitat. As all of us in the country are dependent on wells for our drinking water, these areas are vitally important. I was also hoping there would be an area close to our house site that might be excavatable for a small pond for irrigation, fire suppression and again wildlife habitat.

Land that had multiple places to build on would allow options. I always like having at least one backup plan for anything I do. Having extra land that can be sold for house lots is a nice option to have if emergency cash is needed, especially if those lots are at the other end of your property and far away from your house. As the population density increases, land will become more valuable. Buildable land is always a good investment.

As we’d like to build a home with passive solar gain in mind, a south facing hillside would be nice. I also wanted land where there would be minimal habitat destruction around our house site during construction.

All of this sounds like a lot but we were very lucky to find a parcel of land within a half mile of where we live with all the above attributes.

There were concessions; there always are. Once we build we will be moving our kids to a different school district and all of us to a different county. The folks in our “new” school district have just voted to build a new high school. By the time our kids are old enough to go, they will be attending a recently built high school. As I said above, our travel time to go shopping or out to dinner will not vary. Our taxes should go down dramatically. I’m sure there will be other surprises but, right now, the trade-offs seem to be worth it.

Goals in Relocating to Maine

Our goals for moving here were several. First, we wanted a place in the country. Second, we wanted to be able to spend time with our two kids before they began going to school. Third, we wanted to acquire at least 50 acres. Fourth, we (okay, I) have always dreamed of building my own house. Fifth, we wanted to avoid working for “the man” if we could until we reached retirement age (10 years for me).

In one year, we have managed to fulfill almost all of our goals. We managed to save enough from the sale of our west coast property to buy a home here and invest the rest. The investments have been keeping the funds from slipping away quickly; they are, however, slipping away slowly. After losing 60% of my retirement savings by using an investment broker at Mass Mutual, I decided to do my own investing. Once my investment balance recovered, I removed everything and placed the funds at Vanguard (www.vanguard.com). Both my retirement and non-retirement funds are there. I earn at least 20% on my investments by choosing my own mutual funds and stocks.

My wife and I split our time equally; each of us spends 50% of our time with our kids. There is also time set aside as “family time” where all of us do stuff together.

The other half of my time is spent working on our land or doing miscellaneous carpentry. I started bartering my skills for my daughters riding lessons and a deck for the Horse Farm owners has turned into a job repairing two neglected barns. I am able to work when I want for lessons or cash and there have been other inquiries for my time as well from stable clients.

My wife has turned a hobby into a business. She started out making gift baskets for family birthdays, Mother’s Day, etc. and, with encouragement from family members, decided to turn it into an internet business (www.appletonbasketcompany.com).

I take the pictures of the baskets and do the internet marketing. Her sister does our web site and she creates and makes the baskets. We started slowly in October and received a few orders during the Holidays that paid the marketing bills. With that behind us, we are looking forward to a successful new year.

Owning a small business is a good way to establish some legal write-offs. Our cell phone bills and our internet bills are now business expenses. At $65/month and $47/month respectively, this adds up to $1344/year we can deduct. We will need a new computer soon and because we are using our basement as our company store, there are also some deductions there. Mileage is another deduction. One of my kids favorite parks is a few miles from my favorite lumber yard. Making sure those trips coincide isn’t a big deal and I can write off the mileage. Because we will be managing the timber and harvesting some of our forest land, there are deductions there I haven’t yet investigated. Maine also has a cost-sharing program where they will reimburse landowner expenses for pruning trees, etc. If you have something you can do for a small amount of extra income, the deductions you can take make this even more worthwhile.

As a former scientist, I like to evaluate and over analyze just about EVERYTHING I do (ask my wife). As a former educator, I enjoy sharing my knowledge and experiences so that others may benefit. Through this blog, I hope to chronicle my thoughts and my adventures as a modern homesteader and rock farmer.

Why Maine?

I had come to Maine many times as a child camping with our family. My brother went to college in Maine, worked here for a time after college, left for a while and came back. Maine folk are wonderfully good folk. I’m not saying they are better or worse than others. There is just something attractive about who they are and how they are. In many ways this is the final frontier of our country in the northeast. It’s still rural America. Maine is beautiful country with plenty to explore. It’s peaceful here. I won’t belabor the point further except to say that it feels right for us.

• I started with an AAA map, looked at metropolitan areas and drew mileage circles with a compass around each.

• I perched on the internet, mostly on www.realtor.com, and watched house and land prices for over two years.

• I flew out for a two and a half day power house hunting trip. I had a list of over 40 potential homes to look at in 10 different towns. We bought the first house I looked at.

• The house was still under construction. I walked in and met the builder and liked him immediately. He was building it himself.

• The area was beautiful. Rolling hills, small rivers, nice lakes… everywhere.

• The older I get, the more I trust my intuition. It works and so here we are.

History

I find it very helpful to reflect often and appreciate the paths I have chosen to take. Of course, I should take very little credit for those decisions as I feel they are mostly a combination of luck, intuition and my outlook at the time; all embraced by some sort of cosmic guidance.

I grew up in what was a small, quiet farm town in southeastern Massachusetts. Since the commuter train that connects Providence, Rhode Island to Boston went in, my small town has become a bedroom community of cul-de-sacs and half million dollar McMansions. The whole corridor between Boston and Providence has changed that way.

While I was growing up, I was blind to my parents desire to raise us in the country. They spent many years saving to get us there. It was their dream to live in an old house with a few acres in a small town. The three kids in our family are still drawn back to this place, this “home”. We come back for the smell of the old house during the summer’s humidity (this comes mostly from the ashes in the fireplace), the ever-burning small fire in the kitchen fireplace in the winter, , the creaky floors, the tick-tock of moms antique wooden clock on the kitchen wall, the pond in the backyard full of frogs…

My high school years were remarkably uneventful although I developed three wonderful friendships through a local church youth group. Together we became very good at being mischevious. I never learned how to study in high school; good grades came easily.

After finishing high school, I took a year off before heading off to college. It was the right thing for me to do. I had a job working at the local hospital as an orderly and that year helped me by allowing me to mature, play a bit (okay, play a lot) and save some money. I decided to go to a small liberal arts college in Wisconsin (Beloit College) (www.Beloit.edu). I started college with interests in art and science. I left with a degree in Biochemistry. As a New England boy, Wisconsin was a serious bit of driving from home. I ended up there at the suggestion of a private guidance counselor as the one assigned to me in high school was lame even on his good days.

Moving 1200 miles away to college helped me grow up and appreciate my intellect, especially at the college rathskellar. I almost flunked out my sophomore year because I never learned how to learn. I could listen and remember things but I could not integrate the pieces into the whole. It was demoralizing to have friends come to me for help and then get better scores on exams. I found it difficult to develop understanding from textbooks and instead learned to enjoy tinkering in a science lab. I found I was very good at explaining stuff if I could understand how to take it apart and put it back together again. I wrote an undergraduate thesis and graduated.

After graduating, I spent the beginning of a summer helping to restore an old playwrights house outside of Chicago and wondering what to do with my life. I had papered my office wall in college with rejection letters from all the biotech companies I had applied to. In late summer I received a call from my college mentor. He was going on sabattical to work in a research lab at the University of Wisconsin (Madison) and needed a lab technician. Little did I know that this was the beginning of my career as a professional scientist. After my professors sabbatical ended I looked for other positions at the UW but none looked the least bit interesting. I ended up moving back to my folks house and taking a job, again as a lab technician, at Brown University in Providence, RI. I worked there for a bit over a year and, to my surprise, received a call from Bristol-Myers asking if I’d come for an interview in upstate New York. I took the job in Syracuse and within 14 years, I had relocated to Connecticut and then again to Seattle. Then the big BM asked me to relocate again to New Jersey. I looked out the window to the west, across the waters of Puget Sound at the snow covered Olympic Mountains and decided that I wasn’t ready to move again on a corporate whim. I really hadn't "sold my soul".

I stayed in Seattle and became a high school science teacher. This was more than a 50% reduction in salary. I must say that I have never worked so hard in my life for so little (in terms of my pay). How sad that our priorities as a country aren't where they should be. Switching careers was fairly easy for me because somewhere along the way (while living in Connecticut), I picked up a Masters in Science and Environmental Education and certified to teach. Call me crazy but I thoroughly enjoy high school age kids. My first teaching gig was teaching both regular Chemistry and super-duper advanced Biology in the International Baccalaureate Program in a northern suburb of Seattle. This curriculum is kind of like college in high school. It was intense for the kids but probably more intense for me. I gave up my life for the next two years until I had all the lessons developed. An opportunity arose to teach in the Seattle Public Schools in the neighborhood where I lived so that’s where I spent the last three years of my west coast teaching career. I really enjoyed my stint at Ballard High the most because of the ethnic diversity that existed. I was impressed at the quality and professionalism of the faculty and the kids were fun, lively and enjoyable to teach to.

Somewhere in between switching high schools, I met my wife. Next I knew, we had two beautiful children. My view of our city home and life changed. The buses on the street became louder and dirtier. The police and fire sirens became more frequent. The graffiti on our garage door spoke of gang turf issues. I wondered if the pop-pop-pop in the alley behind our house was fireworks or gunshots. My wife shared these concerns. We had both grown up in relatively rural areas and wanted our kids to do the same.

Our new home had to be on one coast or the other; I needed ocean nearby. 9-11 changed most all of us in some way; I felt I needed to be closer to my kin. When I was in my 20’s and 30’s, Seattle was a mecca for fun and I could always fly home if I wanted to. Now at 40, with children and having a choice, I wanted them to have the opportunity to grow up with space to run, night skies full of stars and woods to enjoy; probably most of the same things that my parents wanted for us as kids.

We sold everything before we moved. What we couldn’t sell we gave away. I camped out on Craig’s List (www.craigslist.org) and Freecycle (www.freecycle.org) for months getting rid of what I could. Craig’sList allows you to post things for sale on the internet, Freecycle allows you to post things you have to offer for free. We donated the rest to local charities. We sold our vehicles and our property. Our house went on the market the day after we left. With wet paint still on my hands, we boarded a shuttle for the airport.