Fall Colors

and Wood for Winter

a bonus post this week…

my beloved ol’ stomping grounds in the Adirondacks

“Let the glory of the Lord endure forever; Let the Lord be glad in His works” Psalm 104:32

Western Oregon

Western Oregon can’t hold a candle to the fall colors of the Adirondack Mts, the largest state park in the lower 48 states. The Red Alder leaves in Oregon don’t even change color at all; they just drop off while still green. The Bigleaf Maples turn yellow, but not orange or red.

However, we do have vine maples, and also our barberry bush and blueberries turn beautiful shades of red and purple in the Fall.

vine maple

individual vine maple leaf

they’re not all the same color

barberry bush with vine maple tree behind it

blueberry bushes with fresh sawdust -they like acid soil

winter’s coming, and I still need to get more firewood in - should have been done by the time of fall colors, but was behind this year because of the harvesting, cooking, and canning of this year’s bumper crop, which I wrote about a couple months ago

logging 101

This tree started going the wrong way, leaning downhill, and pinched my chain saw blade - resulting in an imprint of the chain (below) caused by the half ton weight of the tree pressing on it. I had to use a “come-along” fence stretcher and 75’ of cable to pull on the tree so it would fall uphill, and still had to pound a wedge into the cut before I could finally topple the tree. As you can see, it broke into three pieces, not counting the branches which I had cleaned up before the picture. Strangely, the three pieces lined themselves up together nicely. It all landed in a briar patch, so I had to put a little circular saw blade on my gas powered Stihl weed eater and cut the blackberries back enough to get at the wood. Red Alders die when they’re about 60 years old, and make good firewood, already dead and dry, but you have to get them off the ground quickly because they’ll rot by the end of one winter.

I have a path down into the woods, but it’s rough enough and steep enough to make it a toss-up whether it’s easier to use a wheelbarrow or to just carry the wood up the hill to the woodshed. It’s 175 steps, uphill all the way. It’s very aerobic; I have to stop a couple times to catch my breath. You can see another dead Alder behind me…

Bev thought the little log was a great thing to sit on while I took a breather. You can see a couple Bigleaf Maple leaves at her feet.

tune in next Thursday for the regular weekly post…this one was just for fun