Solstice Thoughts On Gardening

I've been sitting here watching the doppler radar as they've been saying we're about to get walloped by a nor'easter. These are always fun storms... If you look at a map, most of Maine sort of hangs out over the rest of the east coast and occasionally the weather runs up along the coast from south to north, picking up moisture from the ocean as it moves along. Then, it runs into Maine. If it's winter, we get a bunch of snow and gusty winds. If it's warmer, we get a deluge and gusty winds. So, I've got this cool widget called Radar in Motion (don't know if there's a PC version) which lets me watch progressive doppler radar images. I'm a watchin' it come our way.....

On this, the 21st day of December, the shortest day of the year and the Winter Solstice, my thoughts turn towards spring and, with spring, the annual summer-long ritual I call garden. I don't mind winter; I actually love having four distinct seasons, each with it's own natural paint scheme, emotional state and sense of being. However today it seems fitting that I hunker down, play card games with the kids and peruse my seed catalog(s) for ideas on what to plant in our small garden this year.

I'd heard that last year was an unusually robust season for seed companies marked by a large increase in sales of plant seeds. I personally hope this is a benchmark change in consciousness towards a more sustainable future. In my eyes, nothing is more rewarding that reaping the fruits of your own labor.

I'm lucky that gardening is in my blood. When we were kids, my parents had a wonderful garden that produced vegetables all summer long. To this day, my mom still tends a small garden. Either mom and/or dad would go out before dinner and pick fresh veggies to have with our meal. They worked together in the kitchen to both freeze and can the excess and we enjoyed our own home-grown veggies most of the winter. Dad built a small, plastic-enclosed "greenhouse" in the basement where mom could start plants in the dead of winter. I can still remember the earthy smell of damp potting soil and the un-natural fluorescent bulbs providing artifical light for the seedlings.

Both sets of grandparents also gardened. My mom's mom was a master landscape gardener in the Boston area. My dad's father and step-grandmother had a wonderfully landscaped home in Connecticut built on a ledge-y area with pockets of plants everywhere and a beautiful rose garden for a yard. It's no surprise then that I find immense pleasure in both landscaping and in planting an annual food garden.

To the uninitiated, planting a garden may seem like a daunting task. I will tell you that once you enjoy something you have grown yourself, your view of food, especially the supermarket vegetable section, will change. There are a few choices to be made; organic or not; to start your own from seed or buy plants; to till the soil or plant in pots on your deck. Wherever you are, whatever you decide to try; the bottom line is the same. Growing your own food is a metaphor for life. A wise gardener will realize that you will always get out more than what you put in. What matters most is that you try.

Seeds contain little plants all scrunched up in the fetal position and encapsulated in a container. Yes, a seed is very similar to the womb of a mammal. While a mammal infant lives comfortably and grows inside it's maternal parent and is fed by the same, a seed lives but lies dormant until it's stimulated to grow by water. Once stimulated, it relies on a food source within the seed to provided it nourishment until it can get it's own naturally. So, perhaps a seed is more like animals that hatch from eggs. Yeah, I'm hinting at a whole bunch of cool, evolutionary biological similarities but I'm gonna stop here. Take a biology course if your intrigued. I'll stick to the metaphorical implications because I feel they are more powerful personally. When you garden, you are more of a part of life than you realize. And, if you garden each year, you get to experience and be a part of this miracle of rebirth each and every year of your life. It's no wonder gardening has such mass appeal!

Treat yourself to the classic, basic biology experiment. Go to your local hardware store and find an inexpensive package of bean or pea seeds. Get a clear plastic cup or similar container. Carefully poke a few holes for drainage into the bottom of the cup with a hot paper clip. Grab a handful of dirt (or potting soil), throw it into a clear plastic cup. Saturate the soil. Push a few seeds into the soil about an inch next to the side of the cup (so you can watch your plant grow) and cover the seeds. Place the cup onto a plastic can lid to catch excess water and put in the window sill over your kitchen sink. Water to keep your seed damp, maybe every third to fifth day or so depending on the soil you used. Watch your seeds eventually sprout and the roots and plant grow. If you have success here, you too can plant a real garden.

Where do you start? My advice is to start with just a little garden. Cherry tomato's are one of the perfect plants to start with. You can grow them in the ground; you can grow them in a pot on your deck. You can easily start them from seed or you can find plant starts easily once the weather warms. Try the seeds and if those don't work for you, buy plant starts. They grow up, so they need little in the way of horizontal growing space. Plan on some kind of support; metal tomato cages are cheap and work well enough.

Plants from seeds. I'd suggest strongly supporting your local mom & pop hardware store. Folks that work there usually have an abundance of real knowledge. Ask them, again and again if need be. They are biased, as are we all, and if you don't like what you hear, seek out a second or even a third information source. There is a difference in bagged soil types; look for a seed starting mix if you are starting seeds. This mix is mostly peat moss and many contain fertilizer. If you are motivated to be a purist (I am), there are mixes out there for those wishing to start plants organically. These may be harder to find and may still contain fertilizer from organic sources. Non-organic fertilizer comes mostly from the petroleum industry. Potting soil per se, contains more soil-like amendments but still has peat moss in it. Most all of these mixes have vermiculite, perlite or some substance that absorbs and retains moisture as container grown seeds/plants tend to dry out quickly. My favorite type of organic or natural fertilizer comes from the sea. It's liquid and may be fish emulsion or seaweed based. Caution: this stuff usually stinks. When you are using fertilizer, more is not better. Read the directions.

Contrary to what's in the seed starting mixes, seeds don't really need fertilizer till they are up and growing (a few weeks or so) and then they don't need much. Most folks I know start twice as many seeds as they need plants, then transplant the best looking seedlings to larger pots prior to planting them into the garden. This is when plants will need a boost from fertilizer, to help them through transplant shock. This is a natural lag that occurs when a seedling is ripped out of it's old environment and placed in a new one. If you've ever switched jobs or moved a residence, you know what I mean.

Plants from starts. You can avoid all of this by buying plants someone else has started. Yup, these are called "starts". You don't really have much of a choice in what you get (as compared to ordering from a seed catalog) but then if you are just starting out, this resolves a whole host of issues. You can completely ignore the previous two paragraphs and just prepare a place to put your plants.

Container gardening. If you are gardening on a patio or deck, you will want to get some containers. You can spend money on pots or be resourceful and find someone with a cat who buys litter in plastic buckets. If you choose to do the latter, make sure you drill or otherwise get holes in the bottom of your bucket for water to drain. Plants can drown if they stay too wet. Fill the containers with potting soil, if you can find soil mix made with composted manure, your plants will thank you. (PS. avoid bagged chicken manure, it's really high in nitrogen and will kill your plants). If you are not a purist, they sell potting soil with time release fertilizer. (I'm still a fan of using dilute dissolved fish or seaweed based fertilizers when you water.) Fill the container with potting soil which should come out of the bag damp. Using your hands, gently pat down the soil. Open up a hole to set the plant start in.

Garden in your yard. If you are planting in a new space in your yard, your soil probably needs some preparation. Make sure you will be planting in a space that gets at least half a day of sun; the more morning sun , the better your garden will grow. If it's a new garden and you are removing grass, it's a good idea to remove the sod completely. I've used sod chunks to fill holes in my lawn elsewhere. Turn the soil left from under the sod using a shovel and remove any larger rocks and roots. You may want to add some peat moss and some composted manure and a handful of lime as you turn and mix the top 10" of soil. This will usually be enough to get a nice mix of garden soil for your plant starts. If you find you like gardening, you will want to research composting your kitchen and yard waste. It's really the best way to "complete the circle", recycle and feed your plants (which feed you). Once you have your garden bed prepared, planting your starts is the same as planting in pots.

Transplanting. Take the pack containing the plant start, squeeze the sides to loosen the root ball. Gently invert the pack and the start should slide out of the pack. It's ok to gently pull the stem. Once the start comes out of the pack, look at the root ball. If the root ball is thick (you can see a white, thick tangle of roots) and the start is "rootbound" then take a knife and vertically score the root mass on all four sides. Pull the roots out of the ball a bit before setting your plant in the hole you made. Gently scoring the roots and pulling them gently apart will stumulate root growth. Tomatoes are different from all other veggies in that you can plant them deeply; up to their first leaves. The planted stem will grow new roots. There aren't any other veggies I know of that you can do this to, jut tomatoes. Other transplants need to be set no deeper than where their stem contacts the soil.

Gently and firmly, pack soil around your transplants roots and give each a drink of fertilizer water to saturate the root ball. If you make a circular dam around your plant start out of dirt, this will retain water and direct it right to where you want it to go. Give them at least three glugs, allowing the water to sink into the soil between glugs. Reusing a quart or one gallon milk jug is a great way to add fertilizer water to your plants. Space your plant starts at least 10-12" apart. The roots of your starts are set deep in the soil. Even though the ground may look dry, the roots of your starts are plenty damp. You shouldn't have to water more than twice a week, much less if it rains.

Directly sowing seeds. Lots of veggie seeds can go right into the ground once the gound is warm enough. Directions on the package will usually tell you when to plant. Green beans are an easy plant to grow from seed. Once you prepare your soil, take a stick, scratch a line and plant bean seeds according to the directions on the package. Note that bean seeds can be either bush beans or pole beans. The bush variety grows (obviously) as a bush while the pole variety will need something vertical to grow up (at least 8' tall). When I lived in the city, I put a hook into the side of my house and ran twine from the hook to stakes in the ground around which I planted pole beans. I was amazed at how tall they grew!

Weeds. If you have a garden in your yard and water the soil around your plants, weeds will grow. As it will inevitably rain, you will be faced with this issue anyway. My favorite deterrent to weed growth is mulch. Mulch is a layer of material over the soil which helps retain moisture and keep light from reaching the ground where seeds sprout. My favorite mulch is lawn clippings (as long as there is no chemical fertilizer or weed killer or pesticide on them). An inch thick layer of green grass clippings, spread on the ground between plants, keeps most weeds from sprouting. It's also a nice way to add organic material to your garden as it will decay during the garden season. So, whenever you mow, rake the clippings up and add them your garden. Otherwise, plan on getting out once a week to pull your weeds lest they take over your garden.

Plants that die. There's lots to learn about gardening and it takes time. You will have plants that die. Damping off is a disease where seedlings wilt and die for no apparent reason. If it happens, read up on it then and figure out what conditions you need to change. You can always replant! Overwatering is another common mistake. Count your successes rather than focusing on what doesn't make it. Tend your garden at least once a week.

Garden pests. There are an abundance of these. From cats that like to use your nicely tilled soil as a litter box to little red ants, earwigs, japanese beetles and slugs, your garden is a war zone! There are also as many beneficial insects that populate your garden zone (like bees). No matter how bad it gets, don't use pesticides! As a biochemist by training, I could tell you that these toxics are derivitives of things like mustard gas and nerve poisons used in early wars and that, if used in your garden, will get absorbed by the very plants you want to consume. Um, okay. Enough said. Wait to see what pests find your plants, then find a nice way to deal with them. There are lots of non-nasty ways of dealing with the critters that want to share your food. If I was a bug and saw a nicely cultivated garden with lots of my favorite foods together in one place, I'd want to tie on the old feed bag too.

Last thoughts. Obviously, I could go on for days or perhaps even write a book about gardening and there is still so much I personally have to learn and want to try. Once upon a time, folks planted food gardens called Victory Gardens. The sentiment captured in these words still rings true today in so many different ways. Start small, don't be disappointed, learn, have fun, eat and enjoy.

Getting ready for our first timber harvest.

We have two main stands of white pine mixed with some very large balsam fir. Much of this pine is what is called field pine here and has been damaged repeatedly by pine weevils. Weevils kill the leading stem (apical meristem) of the tree creating jogs in the trunk where a side shoot has taken over and grown. In severe cases, the upper branches can look like a basket. Many of these trees are at the end of their lives, some have already died and fallen. Within this tangle of wood, there are some decent, straight young pine trees and it is these we hope to nurture. This winter, once the ground freezes, one of our neighbors who cuts trees for a living, will come and harvest those trees I have marked. He will use a tractor to remove the wood. Unfortunately, he has just sold his oxen which he used to use. I was looking for as low as an environmental impact as I could get for our harvest. In the hierarchy of choices we make, I can accept a tractor for skidding wood. I'm hoping to remove about 40% of the canopy, leaving an open floored forest for new pine trees to start. The wood will be sold for pulp or biomass.

I will be the first to admit that I have no experience when it comes to marking trees for a harvest but I do have some "common sense" goals for harvesting our pine stands. I want to eliminate the most diseased trees that are slowly dying anyway. I also want to keep the straightest trees even if they have multiple trunks. This is for two reasons. The first is for potential lumber. The second is for forest canopy structure. By canopy structure I mean that I want the branches of these older trees around to support the younger trees as they grow. These two goals create my "marking" strategy. I'm also trying to leave "clumps" of trees within close proximity to each other, grouping as much as I can in three's in a triangular pattern. My feeling is that if I were to harvest leaving trees somewhat more evenly spaced, they'd be more prone to being blown over in the wind. I have no evidence to support this but I feel this type of spacing is more natural both for the trees and also for animal habitat.

In one old field area, I was having a difficult time seeing the trees thru the forest, so to speak. Our pine stands have never been managed (pruned) so, looking into this stand of pine trees, you would see just a tangle of dead branches. So, I have decided to prune the stand before we harvest. This is no small undertaking but makes determining which trees to take much easier.

The smaller branches are being pruned by hand with a razor saw and broken up by hand into small pieces. The larger branches are being pruned with a chainsaw and run through my chipper. I'm only pruning as high as I can reach but this gets most of the heaviest dead wood out of the way. There is also standing dead wood and the smaller of these are being taken down, cut into 4-6' lengths and will be used to create wildlife brush piles (see previous post). There are also some smaller hardwoods, some of which are being removed to keep this a predominantly pine forest.

As tree harvesting this winter will create a mountain of brush, it sounds silly for me to pre-clear and chip but I do have some well thought out reasons for doing so aside from being able to see what's what. One reason is safety. By removing and shredding branches, I feel there will be less obstacles for the person harvesting to deal with. Secondly, I view the brush from harvesting as "fertilizer". Once wood dies, it is mostly degraded by wood fungi. By leaving different sizes of wood pieces to decay, I am essentially creating "time-release" fertilizer.

I assume this is the same basic premis of leaving the unusable tree parts on the ground during a timber harvest. Heavy equipment drives over the brush and crushes it. Crushed debris would aid in protecting the forest floor from erosion and decays over time. Of course, the crushed and dried brush also provides great tinder for a fire. This may be why many choose to pile the brush and burn it.

I'm hoping the dead wood I am clearing and hand-breaking or chipping now will provide lots of food material for wood fungi. Once the trees I have marked have been removed and the green brush left on the ground, the already decaying material will have an abundance of fungi which will migrate to the newly placed material. This is purely speculation mind you, but as a scientist, it's my nature to treat pretty much everything as an experiment. I may decide to chip some of the leftovers from harvesting but I will see when I get there.

Mid-November Update: It looks as if winter weather has finally come to stay! Nights are in the low 20's and our days barely move above freezing if at all. I have finished cleaning up an area bordered by a stone wall that was probably once garden space. Farmers tended to "fence in" their garden area leaving the outside area for livestock. This area is nice and flat and looks good now that it's been cleaned up. I've been careful to leave one wooded area that is in thick early forest growth alone as it's prime habitat for small animals. This week, I've moved out side the stone wall where the terrain is sloped, strewn with large rocky outcroppings and much more rugged terrain-wise. I bring only my chainsaw to this area as most of the trees are either huge or dead and my goals here are different. I move much quicker as I'm pruning large trees spaced farther apart. I'm also taking down some of the smaller standing deadwood. I'm careful to leave many of the larger dead trees as they provide habitat for woodpeckers, owls and other tree cavity-dwelling critters. There are many "pockets" or shallow depressions in the forest floor and it is in these scattered pockets that I place the debris from pruning and cutting.

One of our neighbors makes wreaths for all of her friends (including us) and for the past few years, she's been coming over to our land to "tip" the balsam fir trees. As I've been clearing some of the smaller of these in an area that will become our yard, I leave her neat piles of brush to gather her tips from. Once she's done with her wreaths, I'll mow the branches with my field mower. The smell of balsam is wonderful in the cold, crisp air!

Forest Road Work

Halloween has come and gone and the kids have recovered from their annual overdose of sugar. We have begun November with nights getting down into the low 20's; some of our days haven't migrated beyond the mid-40's. The ground is starting to freeze but is still thawing during the day. It's just a matter of time before the ground will be frozen till spring. I have yet to till the garden under for fall (again) and it may just have to wait till next year.

With the bridge complete, my efforts have turned to the repair of some of the forest roads (ie. skidder trails) that traverse our woods. Our property was severely cut about 12 years ago with little regard to much of anything except getting as much wood out as possible. Deep skidder ruts are frequent as harvesting took place on unfrozen ground. I have spent some time pruning the trees on the sides of these roads, making brush piles for the critters and leveling and grading the trails so they drain water. It's too cold for seed but come next spring, I will put conservation mix (basically grass seed and clover) down where there is now bare soil so that I can keep these roads mowed and looking nice. Saving this work for spring is not an option. The ground here freezes deep and in the spring, it takes a long time for the ground to thaw and to become dry enough to be workable. I have found that trying to work in the mud just makes more mud. So, my options are limited to dryer times which means typically summer and fall. Some of my trail are through naturally wet areas which narrows my work time even further.

All of the birds have migrated save the chickadees who twitter about the branches and give me advice while I'm out working. I've seen lots of deer tracks on our land but hunting season started this past weekend and I have a suspicion that a few of our "neighbors" have walked right by the POSTED signs onto our land with their guns. I'm neither for nor against hunting but I do feel that animals should have pockets of land that are a safe haven against human predation. I'm also an advocate for property owners rights which includes the right to decide who can access your land. For me, it's all about respect. Unfortunately, this basic value seems to get displaced by a certain amount of senselessness which coincides with the arrival of deer season. 'Nuff said.

The roads (skidder trails) on our property were at least placed with some sensibility. My goal is to repair and maintain some of these roads which will allow tractor access to most of our property. On our 55 acres, we have a centrally located developed gravel road that runs pretty much up the middle of our rectangle-shaped plot. This road has stone wall bordered field on much of either side of it.

Out of the far corners of the fields, there are secondary roads and it is these which I am repairing. There are breaks in the walls where skidders have broken through leaving scattered piles of rock. These walls are being rebuilt to create nicer looking breaks and the trails repaired and graded. These secondary roads will allow access for sensible timber harvesting for both the hardwood and softwood on our land (read: firewood and lumber).

One stretch of particularly wet road is getting a layer of corduroy (see previous blog). This is an ongoing experiment as I have no idea how long the poles I am setting as corduroy will last. The road continues to get filled with fir poles and topped with a layer of fine gravel. The "paving" of the road progresses as I get to clearing more of the fir trees from old field areas.

Update: October has ended with an unusually warm spell and a bunch of rain. I've fixed two of the worst roads but still need to harvest more fir poles to finish about 25' of corduroy in my wettest area. I've spent my budget of gravel for the year and still need to top the newest 25' of corduroy. I may also need to purchase a culvert to complete drainage of this area. This will wait till next spring at least. I will be able to place the rest of the poles this winter as I'll be clearing more land once things get colder.

In anticipation of a snowy winter, I have also begun creating and opening up some trails for cross country skiing. These are low on the priority list but they are part of the grand scheme of things as well. I'm hoping for a nice window of opportunity, with cold weather and frozen ground, before the snow flies.

Building a Forest Bridge-Bridge Deck

With the steel superstructure nicely in place (whew!), it's time to finish the bridge. Half of the hemlock beams I ordered from a local sawmill arrived yesterday. The beams are 8" x 8" x 14' long. The ends are not cut square and they will have to each be drilled with 5 holes to accomodate the galvanized carriage bolts that will attach them to the steel superstructure. Each beam will be cut to length and temporarily set in place. The bottom of the beams will be marked through each bolt hole (in the steel beam), rolled and drilled. The beam will then be rolled back (top up), the bolts pounded through the beam, then the bolt tails will be set into the holes and the beam bolted into place. There are 26 beams.....

One week later...
The first half of the beams are in place..whew! They are too heavy to pick up alone (they are WET). They are almost too heavy to move at all. I placed them on the bridge steel with the tractor and then rolled them into place by hand. To get the overhang even on both ends, I have to bump the beams with my chest... The rest of the wood should be here at the beginning of this week.

Two weeks later....
The bridge deck is finished! The running boards were cut and nailed in place yesterday. The side rails were cut and placed but I need to locate 20" long carriage bolts to secure them to the bridge deck.

At the beginning of last week, I cut and stacked old railroad ties against the closer end of the steel and wood of the bridge so that I could backfill against them to raise the road grade to bridge level. I had to stack three ties on top of one another so the ties were drilled and 1/2" rebar pounded through them to keep the ties aligned.

To contain the fill on the sides of the ramp, I moved and stacked some very large rocks on either side leading up to the bridge. About 6 yards of gravel brought the road level about up to bridge level so that I could drive my tractor onto the bridge. With a bit of careful engineering, I placed two ramps at the other, yet to be filled, side of the bridge and got my tractor to the other side of the creek where I had to repeat the same operation to bring it to deck level.

Add a few loads of gravel to bring the road up to bridge grade and the bridge is done! I'm very happy with the way everything turned out. I was worried that a 20 ft. long, 14 ft wide bridge would look massive in this space but it ended up looking just fine. I have yet to find reasonably priced 20 inch long galvanized carriage bolts to secure the side rails to the deck. It's not a real high priority as I don't expect too much wild driving on our forest road.

There's a tinge of fall in the air...

I love the end of summer (okay, Jeff, which season don't you love?). I'll admit I enjoy the passing of the seasons.

The kids started school last week. Our youngest climbed on the bus for the first time with his sister and I'll admit I shed a few tears.

It's been an odd summer. What was supposed to be summer was wet. What was supposed to be spring was hot. Despite the strange weather, the tomatoes are coming in by the pound (I planted 6 different varieties) and the kids and I made a first batch of spagetti sauce using the Squeezo that I inherited from my folks. It seems to be missing the tomato screen which I will have to get. The first batch of sauce had a fair number of seeds in it which I re-screened through the pasta colander. The sauce was made with some of the last Walla Walla Sweets that I grew from seed for the first time and dried basil and thyme, also from our garden.

The garden was prolific this year and I managed to freeze some produce for a taste of garden fresh in the midst of winter. I'm getting better at it. Grass mulch keeps the weeds down pretty well but they still managed to get ahead of me late August. I also managed to get a second planting in of beans and lettuce. My goals this year were to both freeze and can stuff from the garden which I have done. There isn't much to show for my efforts but it is a start. We're up to our ears in tomatoes and cucumbers and I have made one batch of fresh gazpacho and will make another for the school's welcome back dinner next week. I'm contemplating pickles for next week as well as some stewed tomatoes for winter soup stock.

There's a tinge of fall in the air; there has been since the third week of August. Some of the soft maples have started turning and losing their leaves and there's a hint of yellow in many of the other tree species we have here in our area. Folks round here are saying that we're going to have an early winter. I'm not quite sure what that means, whether its just the cold temps or if it includes snow. I guess we'll see.

I've made a verbal commitment with a local farmer to harvest some of our poorer pine this winter. He uses oxen to haul the wood which is nice due to its minimal impact on the forest floor. After fixing skidder damage on our land, I'm leery of large equipment though if wood is properly harvested over frozen ground, there should be none of that type of damage. Given my choice, I'd much rather use this sustainable option. The farmer lives around the corner so he and his oxen will walk to work each day. Little fuel will be used to harvest and buck the wood. The logs will be yarded by the oxen to a point where they can be picked up and taken to a local mill by truck. Given the price of fuel, everyone here is looking to minimize fuel expenses which is fine by me as this means that folks are being forced to be a bit more sensible.

Quietly and quickly it seems, most of the birds have disappeared; heading south for the winter. I first noticed that our hummingbird feeder wasn't getting drained the last week in August and I didn't hear their high pitched squabbling. We had hummingbird babies for the first time since moving here. There have been a few flocks of Canadian geese heading off that way as well. We don't see too many as we are pretty far east and out of the flyway. There are still a few Mourning Doves around and of course the sparrows are still here too. Most all the others are gone and, if you listen, the crickets of late summer rule the airwaves.

The nights are good for sleeping. Open up the window, add an extra layer and sleep well in the coolness of the night. We almost had an early frost. One of my neighbors reported a frozen layer on her car. We didn't get it but soon it will be time to put the garden to bed.

Building a Forest Bridge-Steel Superstructure

With the footings in place and the stream bed re-finished, the 5 - 20 foot long, 1 foot tall steel I-beams could be set. You can see that the rebuilt stream bed has filled in and looks nice.

When the footing blocks were poured, 14" long steel anchor bolts were set into the blocks at locations that would secure 4 of the 5 beams. My intention was not that these bolts would rigidly secure the bridge to the footing blocks but hold the beams "in place" allowing some deck flexibility. Though I provided detailed drawings of bolt locations, the bolts ended up in different places than I'd anticipated. I had to cut the existing bolts off and drill about 12" into the blocks to epoxy half-inch threaded rod where I needed it to secure the beams.

Things don't always (don't ever?) go as expected and I like to have at least one alternative plan brewing. Initially, the beams were going to be set in place and the 3 sets of cross braces welded as the beams were placed in position. After rehashing this idea, I decided to move on to the more laborious and costly "plan B".

I rented a generator/welder (as opposed to hiring someone with a portable welder). Renting a portable stick welder was less expensive and, based on my limited welding experience from two welding classes, I figured I could do what I needed to. Plan B called for welding angle iron onto the beams (these would be pre-drilled to accept three bolts); then the cross braces would then be bolted to the angle iron as the bridge superstructure was assembled. This allowed me to weld the braces on to the beams while they were flat on the ground; a much easier task for one person to tackle by themselves.

Making the angle iron brackets took a while as I don't have any real metal working equipment in my workshop. 24 pieces of angle iron were cut with a sawzall. In each of these pieces then had to be drilled 3 - 5/8" holes.... yup, thats 72 holes in all (whew!). I have a small table top drill press for woodworking projects and I had to coax this little machine to drill through 1/4" steel. I wasn't finished drilling once these holes were done, I still had to drill (coax) an additional 72 matching holes through the cross braces. This approach added a bunch of time onto this project but in the long run it did help ease things on the assembly end. Keep in mind, I'm doing all this work by myself. The beams weigh in at over 500 lbs each and each of the cross-braces weigh about 20 lbs. So the strategy was to make the assembly job as easy for one person as I could and bolting was easier than vertical welding for me.

I decided to paint the I-beams instead of leaving them to rust (which they were already doing). A gallon of Rust-Oleum Rusty was about $30. at a local retailer. I put our generator in the back of my truck and used an orbital disk sander to clean the surfaces prior to painting on two coats of primer. One coat of brown topcoat applied with a small (4") disposable paint roller kit finished the beams. I don't know if the time I invested was worth it and this paint job will last or if it will inevitably make the steel last any longer but it satisfied my perfection-ist side and the bridge superstructure sure looks nice!

The I-beams were set, one by one, on top of the cement blocks, starting with the middle one and moving out to the sides. Sandwiched between the bottom of the beams and footing blocks were strips of tire tread cut from used radial tires (cut with a Sawzall). I figured this small bit of rubber would help absorb miscellaneous bridge flexing from traffic.

The top of each I-beam needed to be drilled with 26 bolt holes (130 holes in total). The bottom of each beam also needed to be drilled with two holes on each end to bolt to the footing block. The easiest way to do this was with a mag drill. A mag (magnetic) drill is a small (but heavy!) portable drill press that electro-magnetically secures itself to metal. I used a regular metal cutting 5/8" drill bit to bore through the beams. These holes will secure the bolts that hold the hemlock beams which create the bridge deck.

Steel is not as forgiving to work with as wood. All of my holes were precise to 1/16" of an inch and even then, I had to finesse the beams to get the bolts through the cross-ties and angle iron. First, the center three, drilled and painted beams were placed in position using the cross-ties as guides to precise placement. A shot of spray paint was squirted through the bottom holes to identify placement of the anchor bolts on the concrete blocks. The outside two beams were moved, holes drilled, threaded rod cut to fit and epoxyed in place. The center beam was not attached to the blocks because it sits over the joint between the two and the holed would have been too close to the edge of the block. The rubber tire pieces were similarly marked, holes drilled and placed over the rods. The beams were then placed and loosely bolted. The cross ties were also placed and bolted loosely.

The last two, outside beams were similarly placed and attached. When the entire bridge superstructure was assembled, all bolts were tightened. Scratches and hardware were touched up/painted to complete the superstructure. Though is was more costly (by about $500.00) and consumed more time than I had planned on spending, I am very pleased with the results. The first load of hemlock beams was delivered yesterday and it's on to finishing the bridge deck!

Building a Forest Bridge-Groundwork & Footing

Our stream crossing to date was wide enough to get my tractor and truck across. However, our finished bridge will be 14' wide and this necessitated removal of some trees and widening of the road. It also left me with one big-ass root to remove from a 7 trunk swamp maple which was right next to the stream inlet. Even with my backhoe, it took me 4 days of surgical digging and root cutting with a hand axe to get that bugger out. I also needed to reconstruct the stream inlet with large rocks and regrade the road bank. We had a bit of a drought going and I was lucky to be able to work while there was very little flow.

Prior to placing the first two blocks on the far side of the stream, I used my back hoe to excavate a trench to set the cement blocks in.






I placed a 4" slotted drain pipe the length of the trench (sloped downhill) which will drain to daylight on the down stream side.









Around the drain pipe and under the blocks is 3/4" crushed stone. This is all wrapped in water permeable filter fabric.










On top of the fabric is a thin layer of gravel which was raked and packed to level. It may be overkill but this drainage layer under the blocks will avoid any chance of frost heaving (which at 3500 lbs each probably won't happen but I'd rather be safe than sorry). This also allowed me to provide a level surface to set the blocks on. A logging truck with a grapple was used to pick up the blocks at the cement plant and to set them in place once we got back to our bridge site. Due to the reach of the arm on the logging truck, I am unable to do both sides of the stream at the same time. So, I'll have to get the truck to come back to set the second two blocks when I am ready with my second hole. Final tweaking of block position was done with my backhoe.


Once the first two cement blocks were in position, the down hill (stream) side was bermed with rock. Large rocks were carefully placed against the blocks and packed as tightly as possible, wedging them into and against the soil left from excavation. These were topped with smaller rock. This area will be covered by bridgework and will be much less accessible after the beams go on so now was the time to do this.


The uphill side of the blocks was backfilled first with one-man rocks (an old expression meaning those that can be managed by "one man") again packed tightly, then a layer of crushed stone which filled the voids between the large rock nicely, then gravel spread in thin layers and hand tamped till level with the top of the blocks.

The area around the first two blocks will not be tractor-accessible once the second hole has been dug so now was the best time to do this "finish" work. I was lucky enough to have a pile of rocks close by left by the farmer who originally cleared this area years ago. In Maine, we have no shortage of stone...

The second set of blocks was set and finished like the first. I ordered a load of small 1-2" round stone and used this to re-finish the stream bed which I had gently smoothed with my backhoe prior to digging the second trench. We're having a bit of a dry spell and the stream has been dry for two weeks now so I was able to work this area easily. With the blocks now set, I can place the 5 steel beam on them to create the framework for our bridge.

Building a Forest Bridge-Design & Planning

We have a small creek which crosses our road. I am able to get over with both my truck and tractor but most vehicles couldn't get across due to steep banks. The creek runs most of the time but does dry up occasionally (it dried up last summer but not the previous two). If we hope to get any other type of traffic across, we needed to build a bridge. Thinking off into the future, this small bridge will need to be able to support: logging trucks and associated equipment, cement trucks and (hopefully not) a fire truck. A little bit of research defined the heaviest of these to be the logging truck so the bridge will need to be designed to carry in excess of 70,000 lbs (it's been designed for 90).

Our other option was a culvert which we chose not to use for a few reasons. First, it would have required digging up most of the streambed which did not excite me. Second, our state (Maine) dictates that a culvert must go from the streambed on the upstream side to the streambed on the downstream side. For us, this meant a very steep incline as the levels of the stream are different by about three feet. Our little stream lies in the headwaters of the Medomak River Watershed which is one of the few in our area that hasn't had much fish habitat restoration done on it. If we placed a culvert at this steep angle, it might preclude fish migration in the future if there is any chance of it happening at all. Of course this assumes that funds will support barrier removal on this body of water in the future. The third reason was aesthetics. A small bridge is certainly more appealing than a culvert (tho it is a bit more expensive).

When I started planning to build our bridge, cost sharing from our local Forest Service was an option. That was two years ago and those state funds have dried up. Our local state forester directed me to the NRCS (Natural Resources Conservation Service) which is under the larger arm of the USDA (yup, the US Dept of Agriculture). I wasn't real excited about dealing with the federal government and had to sign lots of paperwork. Of course, I had just missed the deadline to get any funding at the beginning of the year and, while congress has approved the most recent Farm Bill this spring, the bureaucratic wheels grind slowly and I wouldn't see any funding till this fall which is when I plan to start harvesting some trees (more on this later on). They were kind enough to arrange for an engineer to visit our stream and he provided me with the necessary size and load details so that I could finish designing the bridge.

Realizing that we'd have to pay for all of this ourselves, I began the process of researching design options as compared to cost options. The easiest and most reasonably priced structure sinks retaining wall blocks halfway into the ground, five steel I-beams sit on top of the blocks spanning the stream and hemlock beams cross atop the I-beams forming a bridge deck. I could have used wooden timbers to cross the stream but these have a more limited life-span and I would have had to rebuild the bridge every 10 years (this is according to NRCS guidelines, realistically, it probably would have lasted much longer than this). My wife has a hard time visualizing things so I used Google SketchUp (sketchup.google.com) to design a 3D model.

As we will be harvesting timber this fall, I filed a Permit By Rule with the State. The details are submitted to our DEP (Dept. Environmental Protection) and only if they find fault with them do they contact you. So, if you don't hear anything within two weeks, you can go and build. I had done my research and provided them with all the details and I had assumed there wouldn't be an issue. They do ask that you send before and after pictures once your project has been completed.

The Ingredients:

Retaining wall blocks will provide the base for the bridge and our local cement company (State Sand and Gravel) makes these at $50 per. These blocks are 2' x 2' x 6' long and weigh in at about 3500 lbs. They were willing to pour in anchor bolts for me so that I can physically secure the I-beams to the blocks. These blocks are a bit heavy for my pickup truck and they do not deliver. So, the good folks at State Sand and Gravel suggested finding a local logging truck with a grapple arm. This way, I could pick up the blocks at the plant, transport them to my bridge site and place them exactly where I needed them to be. Being a state with plenty of logging activity, it was pretty easy to find somebody local willing to do this for me.

On top of the blocks are 5-20' long steel I-beams spaced equidistantly. These are the most expensive part of the bridge at $500 a piece. They are 12" high, weigh about 500lbs each and are easily managed with my tractor. I requested quotes for my steel at three local establishments. I looked at prices for just the steel and for steel + fabrication. Each steel beam needs 26-5/8" holes drilled in the top plate to bolt the hemlock cross beams to as well as a few holes in the bottom plate to bolt the bridge to the cement blocks. The specifications also call for 3 sets of 8" tall x 33" long steel braces welded between each I-beam. One of the companies wouldn't do fabrication but had the best price. The second wanted to charge me over $2000. and their beams were also two hundred more than the first. The third wouldn't get back to me even after I called them twice (nertz to them!). To save two grand, I decided to drill my own holes and do my own welding. I have a neighbor who works for a marine contracting company. He suggested using an annular cutter which cuts plugs in steel instead of boring holes and should be faster. My local rental shop can get a Mag drill (a vertical drill press that attaches to steel with a magnetic base) for $50. for the weekend, the bits cost about $25. each over the internet and I have a generator that will supply electricity for the drill.

We have a local sawmill that mills hemlock. The design calls for 8" x 8" x 14' long beams spaced 1 1/2" apart. I need 26 of these cross beams as well as 2" (x 10") running boards to sit atop the deck. They also carry old rail ties that I will put horizontally in front of the steel I-beams to transition from gravel road to bridge. Mills usually charge by the board foot for their lumber and the wood deck will run about $1200. although (over the phone) they said they'd give me a bit of a break due to the volume.

Hardware, mostly in the form of galvanized 10" carriage bolts will come from my local mom & pop hardware store. Buying in bulk from them was much less expensive than buying from the local big box stores (I checked prices at both). It does pay to shop around.

The Goodness of Spring and a Corduroy Road Begins

I've always been passionate about the outdoors but I'm not really quite sure why I've become so enchanted with the passing of time this spring. I've truly been enjoying the transition of our dormant landscape to one that is awake and alive.

The leaves on our trees are changing from the bright neon green of newness to that darker shade that means serious photosynthesis is going on. The apple trees I trudged through the snow to so diligently prune responded marvelously with full crowns of wonderfully fragrant blossoms. I could hear the hum of many thousands of bees as they too enjoyed the fruit (pun intended) of my labors. The 3 apple trees and 4 walnut trees I purchased and transplanted have leafed out; the two hearty pecans weren't so hearty. The weather changed overnight and the days warmed into the upper 60's even low 70's. The blackfly swarms are gone but a few of the buggers persist to occasionally fly into my mouth, nose or eye. They have been replaced by mosquitos which, at least, respond some to liberally applied bug spray. The honeysuckle is almost in full bloom and I am anxiously awaiting my last favorite spring smell; the week of wild rose bloom which fills the air with its amazing fragrance.

At home, the garden is mostly in. I couldn't wait until after the full moon to plant which is what most folks around here swear by. As usual, I have more to plant in an already full garden. This is the first year since we moved over three years ago where I feel I am finally "gardening".

Over the winter, I built a small coldframe/greenhouse out of old storm windows someone had left by the side of the road. This was assembled outside in the garden just after the ground thawed. It's designed to be taken apart and moved so that it can be reincarnated as (perhaps) part of a larger structure (read: chicken coop) at a later time.

My garden compost pile took two years to get going and I have compost to use for the first time this year. I added a second bin this spring. The many pickup truck loads of horse barn gleanings that I used to mulch between my rows of plants in the last two years has successfully improved the body of most of my soil (it was pretty sandy when I started).

I have been faithfully organic with my garden believing it to be the only way to grow your own. Ever the scientist, I've decided to try seeding between my rows with a low-growing crimson clover to suppress weeds and provide a green manure crop during the garden season. I've also added greensand (potassium and other minerals) and Calphos (calcium and phosphorus) when I transplant and will also side dress with these as my plants bloom. After many (many) years of experimenting with various incarnations of drip irrigation, I now swear by T-tape as the most cost effective way of watering row crops when the soils dry. With increasing food prices, my goal this year is to put by as many of our veggies as I can come harvest time.

On our 55 acres, I've been continuing to clear the windfall of dead trees around our extended yard area. The dead wood is cut into 16-36" lengths and moved, with my big orange wheelbarrow (aka the tractor), to low places in the woods where I can stack the wood to decay. I decided I needed a break from the tedium of this chore and went to work on rebuilding a corduroy section of access trail which goes through a perpetually wet area.

My first attempt at "fixing" this section of trail two years ago was a disaster and I'm fixing the mess I made back then. I had moved the soil layer out of the road bed into piles alongside the trail. I scraped down to clay thinking the road would be solid underneath (wrong!). They wet clay gets real soft and squishy after being driven through by lugged tractor tires. This would be fun to play in if I were a kid or weren't trying to make something useful out of it.

I'm removing the piles of scraped topsoil from beside the trail, taking it out to our back field bucket by bucket and spreading it out. I'm adding this good rich soil to an otherwise ledge-y and uneven area. It'll get raked and seeded with a grass/clover mix.

The extensive back-and-forth, heavy tractor traffic, from wet trail to field, has packed down the soil so much in some places that I've had to find small rock to fill hollows that have become dangerous to drive over with a full bucket (read: tip over). The small rock comes from being picked out of the fresh damp topsoil that I have spread over the field. Hand raking levels the newly placed soil to get it ready for seed and finds me my rocks. Yup. It's labor intensive but it's also pretty cool the way all these tasks can be connected to create more than a "whole" if you kind of follow me.

On my soon-to-be corduroy roadbed, I've removed old wood of varying lengths and states of decay from a previous attempt at corduroy, flattened out a section as much as I could in the muck and mire and trenched the uphill side of the road to intercept some of the surface water that is ultimately the issue.

I've started placing 10' long balsam fir poles in the trail bed and also started to place gravel to cover the poles. I've put so many down that I 'm going to have to start driving on top of them to gain access to the other side (to remove more soil, etc.). The gravel gets raked out to get it between the poles then driven over to set everything. I'll add another layer of gravel as things settle in and to keep the poles from getting chewed up by the tractor tires.

I'm on to another round of tree harvesting as I've used up my stockpile of poles. All the smaller diameter trees have been removed and now I'm on to the larger (and heavier) ones. This is probably good as the next area to corduroy is also the muckiest.

Spring Comes Slowly

Spring comes slowly in Maine. As I take my son to preschool, we drive along a bit of ridge that goes by Sennebec Lake. This gives us a panoramic view of the hills and fields and, if I look over the treetops, I can watch the color change almost daily. It's like someone has taken a paintbrush and, ever so gently, tipped the tree branches with color.

The Swamp Maple are usually the first to show color with their branch tips then flowers hinting of a burgundy color against the sky. The next are the Popple perhaps as much as a month later with a flourish of iridescent lime on their tree tops closely followed by the rest of the Maples with more burgundy. One or two of the trees together would be hardly noticeable but acres of trees together on a hillside create a spring patchwork of color.

Mother's Day comes next weekend. An event we, in the midcoast region relish not for celebrating mom, but for the official arrival of the blackfly season. According to Wikipedia, there are over 1800 different species of blackfly and I'm willing to bet we have most of them here. Many of the blackfly species rely on blood as do mosquitos. Blackflies being smaller and sneakier than mosquitos are harder to squash; they are often gone when you feel their bite. So, the semi-enjoyable tradeoff of being bitten and splattering their little blood-filled bodies against your extremeties just isn't there.

The people that blackflies are attracted to often fall into two categories; those that are bothered and those that react. I am a member of the former. While the little buggers often annoy me by occasionally biting, they pose more of a nuisance by flying up my nose or into my eyes. My 6 year old daughter, poor kid, is a member of the latter. They come looking for her in droves, bite her everywhere and she reacts to their bites. These bites end up looking like chicken pox as the bites swell into welts and make her itch like crazy for over a week. We easily go through a bottle of calamine lotion for her each spring. They say you build a tolerance to their bites and for her sake I certainly hope so.

As spring progresses, so does the migration of the birds. The first noticeable spring visitors are the red-wing blackbirds. A few arrive early, followed by the hoards that sit in tree tops noisily chattering to each other. The robins trickle in slowly as do the blue jays. As I work out in our forest, I can follow the migration of spring by listening to the increasing diversity of their songs. Each spring, I am treated to visits by a mating pair of cardinals. I'm also acutely aware of the woodpeckers that bounce from tree to tree. We are lucky enough to have a pair of pileated woodpeckers that I hear and even see from time to time. The most annoying winged songsters by far are the killdeer. They lay their eggs in field areas on the ground and then spend the next 6-8 weeks squalking and fluttering on the ground everytime they sense a threat (which seems to be almost 24 hours of the day). Our only reprieve comes when their hatchlings leave the nest or their eggs get squished by the horses in the pasture next door.

The ground thawed early this year, it really never had a chance to freeze deeply. So, the ground dried out and I tilled the garden earlier this year. I've inherited my dad's old Troy Bilt rototiller that has got to be at least 30 years old. It had been left by my folks garden, right where it quit, a few years ago. I've been tinkering with it for almost two years now; they built those original tillers to last forever. This poor thing needs a bit of rescue work done. I seem to get it going just long enough each year to till the garden once each spring and then it stops, waiting for me to take it completely apart once again. Lately, it's been the ignition system. I can't seem to find a way to keep the condenser wire from eventually getting sucked into the flywheel. This is a big problem because they don't make condensers for this engine anymore and there are only so many times I can rescue this tiny little device with shrink tubing and electrical tape. I will put off the expense of a new engine as long as I am able to tinker.

Our first planting of peas are up. The kids and I have planted a few varieties this year. We're opting for mostly shelling peas this go round and even trying some tall pole peas this year. Our pole beans last year were prolific and I'm hoping this pole pea variety follows suit. I built a small green house this year, nothing fancy but more space to work and set out plants to harden in the spring. It's take-a-part-able so I can maybe move it and add a chicken coop to the backside later on.

The garden has been rearranged this year into mostly straight rows. Initially I was artsy fartsy with my garden layout but it was impractical when it came to laying out the irrigation. We are lucky enough to get regular rain in the summer here where we live. There are occasional times when a bit of extra water helps. I am a big fan of drip irrigation and mulch. I've experimented with just about everything over the years and I've settled on T-tape as being the most cost-effective solution for getting the right amount of water where it's needed. That and grass clippings (fertilizer and pesticide-free) for mulch around my plants. This year, I'll be planting a green manure crop (red clover) between my rows to both squelch weeds and add nitrogen and biomass to the soil.

We're still getting the occasional night below freezing which is ok by me. The cold nights tend to squelch the blackfly population and I can get work done early in the day out in our forest. The cool nights also favor the plants that enjoy cooler weather (like peas this time of year). The days are warm enough without becoming hot and uncomfortable. As much as I'm looking forward to summer, I do enjoy the cooler days of spring.

The "You Rot!" Pile

I am a thinker. I will wake up in the wee hours of the morning and will not be able to get back to sleep because I start to ponder. (You will note the hour of many of my posts is early AM.) This "thinking thing" also happens when I'm out working in our woods. Sometimes those thoughts get kind of weird; thus the title of this post.

Learning about and following Mother Nature's paradigm for decay has become something of a, well, I hesitate to call it a passion, perhaps obsession is a better choice of words. Decay is nothing more than a feeding frenzy of microorganisms and fungi that find their "niche". In biological terms, a niche is an environment where a particular organism thrives. Create that environment "and they will come". I've realized that in clearing land naturally, what I've really been trying to do is create mini habitats for particular species of organisms.

In areas that I want to reclaim quickly, I have been using the biology of surface area. This means that by shredding and chipping, I am increasing the amount of surface area that microorgansims and fungi have to work on. As long as these areas of chipped/shredded brush/wood stay predominantly damp, I will have created an environment conducive to rapid decay.

My brush piles are more like time release fertilizer. Initially, they provide habitat for both ground dwelling animals and for small birds. As time goes by and the lower logs decay, they become habitat for the organisms of decay.

There is a third modality that I am using and this leads me to the "You Rot!" pile. Too many hours alone in the woods Jeff? Perhaps... Both from previous logging and blowdown, I have an abundance of fallen wood in varying states of decay. The newer blowdown (2 yrs old) has peeling bark where insects have colonized between the bark and the wood. The bark keeps the inner wood damp and the insects thrive even if there is little contact with the ground. The wood, pine, fir and popple, shows the initial stages of decay as the wood is beginning to get soft and punky. The older pieces of downed wool on our property go from this initial stage to being completely rotten. All of this wood is too big to chip.

I started taking some of this wood to a low spot (a skidder rut) that I eventually wanted to level. I cut the logs into shorter lengths, moved them to this low spot and then lined all the logs up in the same direction, packing them together as tightly as I could. I did this one year ago as an experiment.

I noticed a few weeks ago that my pile of logs was just about completely decayed! Cool! I knew this would happen but I didn't know it would happen so quickly. I was careful to mix younger (less decayed) logs with more decayed pieces thinking that the decay organisms would spread and apparently they did with vigor. I was careful to place this rot pile in an area of partial shade as I knew being damp was a criteria for decay. At any rate, I've now put two more layers of partially decaying logs on top of the first wanting to keep a good thing going.

I'm in a bit of a quandary as this pile is now in an area I want to level this spring and I have a feeling that if I cover the pile with soil, decay will slow down or even stop. What I will do for now is cover the pile with a layer of shredded brush in an attempt to better keep the moisture contained as I have a feeling we may be in for a dry summer.

Bottom line. The "You Rot!" Pile rocked and is a great technique for getting rid of large pieces of useless wood you wouldn't otherwise know what to do with. The wood decay organisms thrive and multiply in a frenzy of activity as long as you provide them with the environment they need. Depressions in the ground provide an ideal location for this process for their natural ability to retain moisture throughout the year.

(Gee, this almost sounds scientific!)

Corduroy Roads

I'd learned about corduroy roads long ago in high school as part of a course in colonial technology (Thank You Mr. Holmes!). In colonial America, well travelled roads could get quite muddy after rain and especially during winter thaw in areas where the ground froze. Wagon wheels were narrow with little surface area and were prone to sinking quite deeply into the mud. One of the solutions to this issue was to "corduroy" a road. Small tree poles were laid down, across the road, side by side. The good news was that this would keep the wheels from sinking into the mud and getting stuck. The bad news was that this provided both a bone-shaking ride for wagon or carriage occupants and it could also rattle a wooden wagon or carriage to bits if one wasn't careful. A solution to this was to cover the corduroy road with gravel.

I just happen to have a few wet spots where this simple technology is going to be put to trial. I'm a bit wary as I'm going to use Balsam Fir poles for my corduroy and fir seems to decay fairly quickly out in the woods. However, from what I have heard, if I cover the poles with gravel, this corduroy road will last indefinitely. I've an educated suspicion that the fungi responsible for decay require a certain set of optimal conditions to grow, reproduce and perform the process of wood digestion. Change the balance of these conditions and you slow, perhaps even stop the process of decay.

I personally do not know if the decay process is anaerobic, aerobic or both. That is, if decay organisms (mostly fungi) require air or if the process will continue on without air. So, if I bury the logs thus removing much of the exposure to air, will there be little decay? There is also the issue of moisture. Being in a wet environment, the logs will be very wet most of the time and this may also aid to retard decay as fungi seem to favor damp conditions.

I've also read recently two books by Rob Roy (http://www.cordwoodmasonry.com) on Cordwood Masonry. He feels that, in order for decay organisms (fungi) to gain a foothold in wood, the wood needs to remain damp. If wood can breathe and dry out after getting wet, decay is not an issue. Suprising to me was that he recommends Balsam Fir as one of the species that works best in cordwood construction. Apparently it can last as long as cedar (the most preferred wood for cordwood construction) in this type of construction method and does not shrink much when it dries as compared to other wood species.

So, while my smaller diameter trees are going to corduroy some of my wet access roads, I'm now thinking of harvesting my larger Balsam Firs for a cordwood construction project. Perhaps a Cordwood Sauna is in our future.....

And as far as my corduroy road experiment goes? I guess time will tell.... I'll update here of course.

The Winter That Was....

Well, here it is the last day of March and there is still snow 2+ feet deep in much of our woods. Granted there are many spots that are bare and the size of these areas is increasing daily but the fact remains that this has been a long and snowy winter (they are forecasting more snow yet again for tomorrow night).

My cross country skiis are still leaning against the wall on the front porch hoping for one last trek into decent snow but all of the tell-tale signs are here that spring is about to push old man winter out of the way; at least until next fall.

One of my goals this late winter was to prune all of our wild apple trees (at least as many as I could in the areas I've cleared). I tend to become a bit possessed when it comes to pruning and I will prune everything I find with branches on it. I guess I figure I won't have to come back and do it again soon if I do it while I'm there. Well, I was pruning some maples about 3-4 weeks ago (when the snow was over 3 feet deep in some places and there was no bare ground) and I noticed that the fresh cuts were beginning to weep sap. Sure enough, the maple sugar buckets began to appear on the maple trees shortly thereafter. Last Sunday was Maple Syrup Sunday in Maine. Many of the Sugar Houses open their doors to visitors and it's a spring ritual that my kids and I wouldn't miss! At the very least, we have to get our dish of vanilla ice cream covered in fresh maple syrup. We sit at a picnic table or on a woodpile and savor this tasty treat that marks the official transition from winter into spring. Last year, pretty much all the fresh maple syrup we bought and took home went into topping ice cream as a daily treat for weeks after!

Two weeks ago, in the morning, I was waiting for the school bus at the end of our driveway with my kindergarten-age daughter when I heard a bird song that made me turn my head up towards the top of a pocket of popple trees. Woop-woop-a-dee. Woop-woop-a-dee. It was the first red-wing blackbird of spring; singing solo in what would soon be a chorus of voices two weeks later. Sure enough, yesterday saw the same tree tops covered in noisy voices; chattering to each other in the squawky commoners voices they use in groups intermixed with the "woop-woop-a-dee" they use to announce their location. We have other birds that migrate through and repopulate our trees and shrubs in the spring but none so dramatically announce their presence like the red-wing blackbirds.

Yesterday, my daughter and I went for a walk in our woods to see what we could see. We stumbled upon three sets of huge wild turkey tracks and made a game of following the tracks from bare spot to bare spot. I can imagine them poking about in the warm soft soil, looking for the first bugs of spring or some tasty new shoots of greenery. For them, a nice change from pecking at frozen ground. Sometimes, when I am out working, I can hear their warbling calls coming out of the woods from a distance. It's a hauntingly unusual sound that makes the woods intimidating and inviting both at the same time.

When I drive, I like to look around (a bit too much for my wife's taste). This time of year, if you look carefully from a distance, you can see the buds on the treetops changing color. The swamp maples are usually the first buds to turn to a burgundy red that will later develop into flowers and leaves.

The plant starts in our bedroom window are doing fine this year. I've managed to position the table just far enough away from the window sill so that the cats find it awkward to jump there. Of course, it might also be that they got a taste of the hot peppers that were started first and have decided not to take a chance with the eggplants, tomatoes and onions. I do seem to recall a few chili pepper starts missing their top leaves. I'm sure to give the seedlings their daily exercise as I go through my morning ritual of turning the flats so that the younguns have to stretch their necks in a different direction each day to catch the suns rays. Their first leaves are slowly giving way to their first set of true leaves and I look forward to the day when it's warm enough at night to put them out in the cold frame and then, finally, when the kids and I plant their feet in the garden soil for the summer. This annual ritual is a necessary labor of love for me and helps to sustain me when the warm day of spring still seem far away.

My thoughts also have shifted. From winter chores to spring chores. I've about finished pruning all the apple, maple and choke cherry trees that I'm going to prune. I've decided to start taking down some of the larger fir and popple trees around our house site. The fir will be cut into 10 foot poles to use later as corduroy on some wet trail areas. The popple will be cut into four foot sections and picked up by a friend for firewood for next winter. In exchange, he will put a bee hive on our property next year. Some of the removed trees will be replaced by the beginnings of an orchard; to compliment the wild apple trees already there. Once the ground is free of snow and the soil has dried, I will mow the now abundant rows of tree prunings and chip the piles of brush. For now though, my excitement for spring must be tempered by patience as mud season is upon us and we must all wait for the waterlogged spongy soil to thoroughly melt, drain and dry. We can only hope that mud season will not be as long-winded as winter.

What to do with all that brush..

In clearing land and in pruning trees, there is a significant amount of brush that gets generated. The old school of thought was to burn it to get rid of it. Burning results in a significant shift in carbon; from where it is useful in your ecosystem to where is disappears from your land as a byproduct of combustion (carbon dioxide). The best bet is to keep the brush around and maximize its use as both habitat and as a "time-release" fertilizer.

I have two different ways of dealing with brush depending on the location of my work. In an area that will be used as yard or extended garden, I will shred and chip. In areas of mostly forest, I will cut the logs into managable lengths and construct brush piles.

Shred and Chip.
I've tried to send whole fir/pine trees through my little tractor powered chipper. If it's any warmer than 20 degrees, the needles release their pitch and the result is a constantly gummed up exhaust chute. So, on trees that will be left standing, I prune branches with loppers or a pruning saw. On trees that will be taken down, I will use my chainsaw to remove the branches by skimming the surface of the tree. The branches, up to about an inch thick, are cut into 3-4 ft lengths and placed in rows. Once I have a number of rows, I will use my field mower to shred the branches into mulch. Running over the branches does a very nice job of shredding them into mulch. The mulch can either be left in place or moved to an area, such as a trail or low spot. I usually stack my branches in an area where they can be mulched and left. I then trade the mower for my chipper and chip the poles (up to 4 ") over the top of the mulched branches. I feel these shredded and chipped trees, in a few years, will decay and add to the soil layer. By increasing the surface area (through shredding and chipping) of your plant matter, you have provided more opportunity for the insects and microorganizms that cause decay to do work and do their thing.












Logs and Brush Piles
Brush Piles
In areas that are "managed forest", I will make brush piles. Well built brush piles not only provide a slow-release fertilizer as they decay over time; they also can provide habitat for a number of different animals. According to several sources, a well built, habitat-oriented brush pile begins with some 6-10" logs placed parallel to each other on the ground. There should be about 12-16" between the logs and the rows should be about 6-8' long. A second perpendicular row of logs is placed on top of the first. Heavy brush goes on next, then lighter brush. The logs provide habitat for ground dwelling animals and the brush on top provides habitat for birds. Ideally, the brush piles should be located at the edge of a field area, in the transition area between field and forest, as this is where the animals that live in your brush pile would feed. Most small bird species feed in field areas. I've built several variations of brush piles and will be interested to see which ones are the most preferred.

Logs
This is the tricky part as I have lots of trees blown down by some recent strong winds. It would have been nice if these trees were hardwood and usable as fuel but they are mostly balsam fir which is not a good fuel source or source of lumber. Balsam fir does decay relatively quickly and I will take advantage of this. After the branches are removed, the remaining trees are cut into manageable lengths (about 3' feet for me). These are stacked close to the brush piles for later use. I plan to lay these logs in low, moist spots where they will decay. As it is the middle of winter and we have almost two feet of snow on the ground, placing them in these areas will have to wait till we are snow free.

One of Life's Gifts

I can't not write about our family's latest adventure. It always amazes me how life brings you magical opportunities if you are open to receiving them.

My wife is an animal nut. She has a bleeding heart for animals that no one else wants (as evidenced by the array of critters in our home). I'm sure she gets some of this from her dad who, by the way, once drove from Arizona to California and back to adopt a dog he heard needed a home. Cathy works at a local vet clinic part-time and somehow heard about a family of 6 horses that had been pulled off of a truck headed for a Canadian slaughter house (www.freewebs.com/sixhorsessaved). She contacted Carole (the woman who saved the six horses) and volunteered to help fundraise (horses are expensive animals to keep). Their idea was to get celebrities to sign T-shirts and then sell them on their web site to raise funds for food, etc. So, having lived and worked in the Hollywood area for a bit, Cathy sent out shirts to celebrity-type folks she knew were animal lovers.

One afternoon, the phone rang. It was Priscilla Presley (yep, as in Elvis). She had signed and put one of Cathy's shirts back in the mail to us a few days before and the shirt and horse story got her to thinking. Elvis had loved horses. They had always been one of his favorite parts of Graceland. He would get up every morning and look out his bedroom window to see what was going on in the horse pasture. Horses, like people, age and die. Elvis bought horses for everyone he cared for and there was only one of those left; one having passed just a few months ago. Priscilla felt that horses were part of the fabric of Graceland and that there should always be horses there. She offered to adopt two of the six horses to Graceland.

This story is full of the drama, excitement and disappointment that make life real. One of the two horses (Max) left Maine one cold, wintry day. Eighteen hours later, the trip stopped in Virginia as Max had to be cared for. Standing for that length of time in a moving horse trailer was a bit much for him. So, he was stuck in Virginia trying to rest and get better but in the meantime, the horse carrier bailed and left Carole without any way of getting Max to Graceland.

Back to us. The plans had been made to announce Max as the newest family member of Graceland during Elvis' birthday celebration. We had booked plane fare, made hotel (we just had to stay at the Heartbreak Hotel!) and car arrangements. In fact, we were pretty much on our way the day the trailer stopped in Virginia for a veterinary exam. We arrived in Memphis with the knowledge that Max would probably not make it to Graceland for Elvis' birthday celebration.

To my knowledge, Priscilla had not been back to Graceland for Elvis' birthday celebration ever. So, this was a very special occasion indeed. According to what I have heard, there are two places no one ever gets to go in Graceland. The second floor of the Mansion is one place, the horse barn is the other. We were welcomed into the horse barn by the barn manager and her staff. It is very apparent that Max will be well taken care of and will be very happy in his new home. His stall is waiting and his name is even on the door to his stall.

For Elvis' birthday event, 10-20 (I'm unsure of the exact number) members of Elvis' Insiders, drawn at random, were invited to visit the barn with Priscilla. The event was videotaped, Priscilla shared some of her fondest memories of Elvis and of having horses. She also told the insiders about adopting both Max and Merlin to repopulate the Graceland stables. Merlin is Max's brother who will later be moved to Graceland when they and he are ready. Priscilla is a wonderful storyteller! It is apparent to me that her memories of Elvis and of those years of their life at Graceland are still very much alive within her. The details she shared were wonderful, full of love and conveyed much about life at Graceland and about the special place horses held in Elvis' heart.

I've never really been a huge fan of Elvis. I respect him for who he was and his impact on not only the music industry but on the people who love his music. I went to Graceland mostly to support my wife, her part in the story and to take care of our two kids (ages 4 & 6) while she did her thing. We felt we needed to go and to bring them as this was a "once in a lifetime" thing; ie. one of life's gift's that you sacrifice whatever you need to to go and experience. Yes, we paid our own way; flights, hotel, rental car, meals, etc. We did participate in a few events gratis (Thank You EPE!) but we were there to celebrate Max's adoption and arrival at Graceland. It was a bummer Max didn't make it on time but we celebrated none the less (he has subsequently arrived!).

Priscilla. Wow! What a wonderful, sweet, sincere, caring person she is! After the "barn event", she hung out with us for almost two hours. We enjoyed an absolutely delicious home-cooked buffet prepared by one of the barn staff's moms. Priscilla talked with the girls for a long time (Our sister-in-law Colleen came with us. Jackie, who's farm currently houses the other 4 horses from the family and her sister Sandy also make the trip). I didn't get much of a chance to chat as the kids and I were out playing and visiting with the other horses. When it was time to leave, we took a few pictures (we promised we would not post them). One will be on our next years Christmas card. Priscilla insisted on taking pictures with our kids. She picked them up and put them on Elvis' saddle (which was on a sawhorse) and stood with them for pictures.
How cool is that?

When we were there, I sort of took everything in stride. Every now and then, now that we are home, I get a little shiver when I realize what we experienced this past week. I smile a little smile and savor the memory of seeing my little ones, sitting in Elvis' saddle being hugged by Priscilla Presley. Thank you so much Priscilla for sharing yourself and your passion for life with us and our kids. Our meeting you has truly been "One of Life's Gifts".