Wordless Wednesday

Still Snowing!

My faithful companion doesn't seem to mind the snow, as long as I'm the one breaking trail. It's almost time to get out the snowshoes. The snow is about a foot and a half deep now and it's getting hard to slog through it

 Pile #3 did not burn as spectacular as the other two mainly due to the large number of fire wood blocks in it. I told every body "If you don't take it, I'm going to burn it." I couldn't even give it away, cut, but not split and beside the road.

 I will have to shovel off this pile before burning. There are about 3 half ton truck loads in this pile.

It was a good day to go out and toast my buns by a rip roaring fire.

Happiness is a Big Fire

Brooklyn enjoyed the heat, but soon moved away. This is early this year for the Pyromaniac to be active. With lots, and I mean lots, of snow, I was able to get an early start on my 6 brush piles.

 Once it burns down, I will go around and kick in the ends and all that will be left is ashes.

 Biz was my steady companion and moved forward and back as the heat built and diminished. She is used to fires from the previous years on the Acreage. As you can see, it is snowing very heavily.

 Once the snow melted off one side, she would turn around and do the other side.

 Tucker came over, but stayed back a bit farther than Biz. i think she remembered the smouldering horse hair from last year.

Prepared to get bored with fire pictures because there are still 5 more piles to go. This was a small one!

A Nice Fall Day

It was a really nice day, with the ground drying up from the previous snow. It was too windy to ride a horse, but I did get a good ride yesterday. The fall colours are great, except most of the leaves are now off the trees. It was a good day to clean up the dry gulley to the left of the first picture and below.

 I am trying to encourage grass to grow in the area, but am fighting the dogwood shrubs and a whole bunch of willow suckers that just sort of refuse to die off. In the spring, if they come up again, it's time to hit them with a herbicide, much as I hate to do it. I am also clearing out the old dead-falls that I didn't clean up a couple of years ago. I don't like the balsam poplar trees much, as they don't dry out and are very heavy. They call them Bam  trees in this area, but I think it should be spelled with a "D".

There are still a few areas to finish cleaning up before the major snow fall hits on Saturday. The weather gurus have been wrong before, and I hope they are wrong again! I need some more horse time in before it gets slippery.

Child Labour...

is a good thing!  This allowed me the time to clear out the raspberry canes from last year and to do a few odd jobs around outside. At 12 (Sunday), he is getting old enough and big enough to take on more responsibility.

When his thumb got sore (hand throttle), little sister took over. They both have been dying to run the quad for quite a while. It is my acreage work machine, so is not a toy. With 2 diamond harrows on back and flat terrain and strict instructions to keep the speed way down, it worked out OK.

There are only a couple of spots that need to be touched up. It is surprising how much green stuff was hiding under the horse poop. Another month and the horses will be back in this field munching away.

That's It for This Year!

From this....

 And this...

 to this...

 And this... in only one week!

The snow is almost gone. Yeah!!  The mattock took out the bulldozer humps and buried trees. The quad and harrow leveled off the final rolling bumps and turned the humus into the soil. All that remains to do now once it dries up a bit is to move the free firewood out and toss down some hayseed. Did you get that? FREE firewood...donations accepted declined. I almost forgot. Burn the stumps and roots next winter.

My Favourite Tool!

I love it when a tool stands the test of time and actually works as it should


I was using a pick ax and a 6 pound regular ax to remove stumps and roots and to level about 600 feet of bulldozer refuse left over from when the developer pushed a road into the acreage. The mounds of dirt were generally piled up on top of the trees that they knocked over. I bought the closed road from the County and started out to clear up the mess. I was browsing through the local supplier store and came across this baby. Does it work! It cuts roots, levers out the old stumps and also levels the ground, just as advertised. I can now think of many other uses such as drainage ditches, road improvements and other things that need to get done. At $26 it is about 15 minutes of bulldozer work, less the set up time, and is on call anytime I need it. It's also cheaper than a gym membership.



Here is what Wikipedia says :"  Mattocks are "the most versatile of hand-planting tools". They can be used to chop into the ground with the adze and pull the soil towards the user, opening a slit to plant into. They can also be used to dig holes for planting into, and are particularly useful where there is a thick layer of matted sod. The use of a mattock can be tiring because of the effort needed to drive the blade into the ground, and the amount of bending and stooping involved.



The adze of a mattock is useful for digging or hoeing, especially in hard soil.

Cutter mattocks (Swahili: jembe-shoka) are used in rural Africa for removing stumps from fields, including unwanted banana suckers.

As a simple but effective tool, mattocks have a long history. Their shape was already established by the Bronze Age in Asia Minor and Ancient Greece., and mattocks (Greek: μάκελλα) were the most commonly depicted tool in Byzantine manuscripts of Hesiod's Works and Days.

Mattocks made from antlers first appear in the British Isles in the Late Mesolithic. They were probably used chiefly for digging, and may have been related to the rise of agriculture. Mattocks made of whalebonewere used for tasks including flensing – stripping blubber from the carcass of a whale – by the broch people of Scotland and by the Inuit.

Getting Ready for Seeding

Maybe I'm rushing the season, but with 2 nice days, the snow is going fast. I still have this area and an equal amount behind me to improve by digging the stumps out and leveling with a pick ax then harrowing to get it level and safe for the horses. After this, the remaining treed part of the acreage will remain as is providing shelter for the deer, moose and the rest of the critters.

My helper is overheating (from hair, not work) and likes to get her belly down in the snow. I guess she does help by making big sticks into little ones.

The holding pasture is starting to dry out again. Biz should have been a boy horse because she sure likes to spend time in the mud. I spent 2 hours grooming all three horses yesterday. You'd never know it by looking at her.