Still Cutting

I have a goal to cut a little bit each day and to knock off BEFORE I get tired.  Tired chainsawing is dangerous chainsawing.

I cut until the chain was dull.  For some reason, running the tip of the bar into the snow on the other side of the trees dulls the teeth quickly.

I subscribe to J.E.B. Stuart's dictum, the way to win is to get there first, with the most.  In this case, it means releasing the desirable trees and then cleaning up the mess later.  Leaving a mess is not a total negative.

The rabbits and deer love eating apple twigs.  They polish the bigger stems as white as freshly cooked spaghetti.  They pick at the aspen and hybrid poplar twigs but will eat them after they are hungry enough.

Before.  Row of oaks to the right of the row of hybrid poplar.

After.  There is bunch of deer and bunny food on the ground now.

There is a tiny little bird's nest at the base of one of the branches.  There is also a dab of snow that looks just like an egg.  This spruce tree was in the right-bottom corner of the pictures shown above.

The irregular discoloration of the wood in this freshly cut poplar indicates it has been invaded by rot organisms.  If I am lucky, they will produce edible mushrooms like oyster mushrooms (Yum!)

Thick corky bark on Burr Oak (Q. macrocarpa) makes this species resistant to quick, hot fires.  Native Americans used to burn the tall grass prairies and create vast parks dotted with oak savannahs.  This is the oak that was populated most of those savannahs.