thick forest image

Forestry Project Update

topdogRural Living

With just under a month remaining to finish our forest-thinning contract with the DNR, it's starting to look like we'll make it with a week or two to spare.

I've been out there just about every day for a few hours at a time stacking slash piles and feeder piles, and on weekends, The Missus joins me for a burn.

To show you some progress, here's a Before/After photo of one small section. The photos don't line up exactly, but it gives a good idea of how much work is involved. This section is about 60' x 60' and represents about 2-3 hours of cutting and removing. Move the cursor over the image to see the change.

Today we finished up a four-day burn in an area that previously was so dense you couldn't see 20 feet in front of you. This is how it looks now:

April 16th viewing south

Now we can see at least 150 feet to our next area of clearing.

As of today, we're about 100 feet from the southern edge of our property. We previously worked that area about 25 feet in, so we've got about 75 feet to go.

My knee is killing me today from walking up and down the hill on uneven ground, so I'm taking tomorrow off to sit on my butt and contemplate a sedentary lifestyle.

I really am starting to like the results of our work. It's as if we just gained 4 acres that we didn't know we had. I'm going to shoot a walk-through video when we're done.