I hate felling a tree. I hate it on two counts; first philosophically because I love trees and want to preserve them, and secondly, it is such a dangerous operation, but because we burn firewood for heat, I sometimes have to do it. Because this is a logging community and there is usually a huge amount of waste that results in industrial logging and in the past I would just go to a logged out area and saw up the trees that were laying around that were still useable for firewood. I would still like to be able to do that but there aren’t that many cutblocks close at hand any more, and those that are have already been stripped by others looking for firewood.
We do own the piece of property on the mountain slope across the road from our house, and I have noticed that some of birch (the best firewood) have dead tops. This is a sign that the the trees are slowly dying and their wood will soon turn punky and become useless, so I decided to cut some of them down for firewood.
I am not a very skilled faller with a chainsaw, but I managed to get 5 of the trees down where I wanted them, and only have one hang up on another tree. I didn’t de-branch the trees, I will just let them lie for a month. Even though they are sawed off they will probably try to leaf out. This will draw some of the water out of the trunk and should help the drying out of the eventual firewood once I buck them up.
Like I said, I hate sawing down trees, but I rationalize the operation because I do need the wood, and these trees were starting to die and rot anyway. Below is a photo of a birch whose top is dying.
You can view my paintings at: davidmarchant2.ca
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