Last year, after spending a few hours over at the neighbor's place (roughly 6 miles away and across the area's major highway), we decided it was time to get serious about brush removal. They have a sizable clearing and we could actually be outside chatting mostly comfortably.
The cabin is built on a piece of Potlatch land, which is a paper company in Minnesota. Before I bought the land about 10 years ago, it had been heavily thinned and what grew up in place of those trees was maple scrub brush. It is a thick brushy cover plant which effectively kept the wind out and the mosquitoes in. We were hoping that if we cleared a good amount of that brush from around the cabin and other outside gathering areas, we'd have a bit of relief from the bugs. And, we do!
Here's a view from behind the cabin toward the fire pit. The wood shed is just out of the frame to the left.
While clearing brush, we also felled a couple sick birch trees and bucked them up to start drying for the coming winter. It doesn't look like a whole lot of wood but the cabin, being small and well insulated, doesn't need much either. We should get a good year or two out of this modest supply. In the immediate vicinity there are another 2-3 birch which should probably be taken down, too. We should be set for a while.
As a side note, I've never known birch to be this tough to split. I had grand ideas of using the Gransfors for a nice afternoon's work. This stuff is tougher than oak and elm I've worked in the past. I got my maul stuck in a knot and literally had to beat it through the log with an 8 pound sledge hammer (I had forgotten my splitting wedges at home!). Finally, I had to tip the round to finish the process with a hatchet because the round still wouldn't split and the maul was still stuck even after the blade had penetrated all the way through. That's warm work, I tell ya'.
Luna was not impressed.
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