Don and I got up at 6AM to wrap the galvanized tin around the remaining trees we could protect before they started work on the west side of the property. This was not an easy job in the rain, but by 8AM we were done. Then we went up the road to take a picture of the staging areas. Because of the dark, rainy day, my pictures did not come out well.
The picture to the right is of one of the trees we tried
to protect. It's a fairly good sized hard maple, we'll see if it did any good. You can see trees lying on the ground beside it that have to be hauled out. The piece of equipment that does the most damage to the trees is the skid loader.The picture above to the left, shows the width of the path they have to clear of trees so their large logging equipment can get through. That path used to have big and little trees, now all gone . . .
The 2nd picture to the right is of our neighbors future drivewa
y that the loggers used to get to our property. Pictured is the skid loader and "the beast" parked for the night. They started work again this morning about 9AM.
The last picture is of the staging area where they load the "logs" (that were trees) onto the logging truck. Here they will also chip the unusable pieces into a semi-trailer. I think that's what the large orange machine may be between the truck and logs.
About 11AM their skid loader got stuck, and the backhoe had to get it out. After they finished taking the trees out, the backhoe came through and tried to clean up the ruts. They did a really nice job in the yard by the logging road, but some areas of the woods are still pretty rutted. Especially where Turkey Run leaves the Duck Pond to circle around our east hill, only to empty in the lower wetlands by the street.
Because we have lost so many trees, we believe it is going to be necessary to replant some of the woods. As I mentioned before, we have to buy a forestry management book to figure this all out. It's a little daunting to say the least, not to mention a ton of money.
I thought about giving up and buying a little home in Texas near Dawn and Andy, but Don says he's not quite ready to move. So it's figure out how to make the property prettier again, so we can continue to enjoy living here.
On the bright side, we received another .25 inches of rain, so all total I think we are going to end up with 1" of rain. It was badly needed.
