The Walden Effect: Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

Lumberjack lessons

Falling tree

I've learned a lot about firewood this year. For example, this gem courtesy of Kayla's father (slightly tweaked): Tulip-trees are always longer than they are tall.

Cutting firewood

Or how about this one: If you want to create a sugar-bush/goat-pasture hillside, cut down your trees before putting up your fences.

Goat shaking her head

Here's a word to the wise: Let the goats eat up the poison ivy before sticking your head into the thicket to cut up logs.

Cutting tulip-trees

And I'll end with: An hour a day fills up the woodshed (with a little help from your friends).

Now, if we can just remember to starting cutting firewood in March instead of June next year, we might finally have a fully dry stash of combustibles when winter rolls around. In the meantime, I'll just enjoy the fact that we're nearly on quota for this coming winter, and that the hillside above the starplate coop now has a canopy open enough to let goat-friendly herbs grow on the forest floor. Here's hoping the sugar maples and black birches we carefully left behind will also benefit from the extra light and will produce plenty of sugar next spring.



Anna Hess's books
Want more in-depth information? Browse through our books.

Or explore more posts by date or by subject.

About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



Want to be notified when new comments are posted on this page? Click on the RSS button after you add a comment to subscribe to the comment feed, or simply check the box beside "email replies to me" while writing your comment.


Is there a five,ten year or longer plan for wood? That is will there be a rotating supply for the future growing in time? Good idea on let them eat poison ivy. Any trouble touching them after they have brushed up against the leaves?
Comment by Jim Mon Jul 20 07:18:20 2015





profile counter myspace



Powered by Branchable Wiki Hosting.

Required disclosures:

As an Amazon Associate, I earn a few pennies every time you buy something using one of my affiliate links. Don't worry, though --- I only recommend products I thoroughly stand behind!

Also, this site has Google ads on it. Third party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on a user's prior visits to a website. Google's use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to users based on their visit to various sites. You can opt out of personalized advertising by visiting this site.