Downed Tree

25 October 2013

03 December 2013

This was a live tree, victim of a wind storm while I was in Cape Breton this summer.  I waited till this last week to get down to chunking it up - which was a bit tricky as its' top was tangled in another tree leaving it at about a 30 degree angle.  I measured off, with my saw bar, about nine chunks, then started cutting through from the top of the trunk - when about 2/3rds of the through (and if done correctly, just before the weight of the tree starts to putting tension on the cut and binding my saw blade)  I started cutting through from the bottom.  When I observed it starting to give, I carefully gave two or three quick bursts of power to the chain - leaping back as it fell to the ground, with the still hung portion of the tree again dropping to the ground now leaving the uncut trunk at about a 45 to 50 degree angle. Repeat three times leaving the branching top with good wood still hung and now rather scary to attack - so I leave it for another good wind to complete its' journey to the ground.  The wood pile is the output of the sawing and rough splitting.  Since this was basically a live oak when downed I will leave this pile with only a small plywood covering here in the woods till maybe February or March of '14. 

Indiana Blue

03 December 2013

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Earth, Sky, and Water

02 December 2013

 

The Morning News

03 December 2013

The North East Flats - II

30 November 2013

The Susquehanna Flats were famous throughout the late 19th century and through the first half of the 20th as one of the locations for the greatest gatherings of ducks, geese, and other water birds in the world.  Closer to hand at the little town of North East were their own local flats (and at that time the river exited through what was known in my youth as the 'old channel' with extensive flooding marshes on either side).  Today - as above - there are some ducks and geese but the greater flocks are the ubiquitous Sea Gull that spend most of their day at the river but on high tide depart to forage at the great landfill located on Beacon Hill, and the old and new channels are merged into one large man-made body of water with attendant marinas and shore developments that have destroyed forever any vestige of the appealing rural peninsula jutting into the bay.  

Beacon Hill, so named for the ancient signal fires that indigenous Indian tribes fired to pass signals up and down the coast to other 'beacon hills' both north and south, later became a modern 'Beacon Hill with a small tower light to guide the early planes in their flight.  This later was bowdlerized to 'Bacon Hill' with its' own legend of feral pigs etc.