Rustic Wood Chopping

Over the last couple of weeks, the North Eastern States have gone through an extremely severe ice storm. What compounded the situation was the bouts of relatively warm diurnal weather after the storm. Snow would melt during the day and freeze overnight, thus causing much damage to the local flora(as well as roads and powerlines). Of much notice was a large white pine tree in my backyard. The geological processes of thawing and refreezing seemed to have caused a large section of the tree's branch structure to snap off on friday night. Now under normal conditions, a wood removal company would be called over to haul away the broken subsection. But there seemed to be no reason why I should pay someone else to take away such a fine supply of wood. Alas, American society seems almost to have been made for such wasteful activities.

Thus saturday was largely spent with the act of wood chopping. I decided to split and cord the broken wood without the use of power tools. Taking only my home-forged axe, I set off at once to work. The smaller branches and pine needles were first sequestered and applied to one of my leaf mulch piles. In due time this acidic material will decompose with the leaves and create a fine organic fertilizer for the growing of berries and tomatoes. The larger section of wood proved to be a tougher job to tackle. With my iron age axe, I hacked away at the pine wood for an hour until I had about 60 lbs of small pine logs. These I set aside directly under the now smaller pine tree. I have yet to decide what to do with this stockpile of wood. One possible use could be as a base for the growing of shitake and other mushrooms. But I suppose some of the larger logs can be used for woodworking as well!