Winter

I love winter!  It's just amazing to be up here and living in the woods with lots of trees and lots of snow.  It has  snowed almost daily and that has been a beautiful experience for me as I have always love the snow.  We have been out snowshoeing around the many lakes up here as well as out into the NHAL Forest along Plum Creek.  Near the confluence of Plum Creek and Plum Lake we saw otter trails!  I knew that they were up here, I just hadn't seen any signs of them.  Just awesome to see different parts of the whole dynamic picture.  Looking out at the outhouse, it's coming down pretty hard.  I bought an OtterSled yesterday.  What an amazing tool for wood moving in the snow!  I have extensive experience with these sleds and have rigged up a sort of harness for use with it in moving wood.  I feel that this one tool alone gives me an advantage as far as making my goal of working through the winter a reality.  Most clients would like to have the wood produced from my operations taken away, and this tool makes the removal a lot easier.  Because of the weather however, the driving conditions are pretty bad for big trucks... It's a good thing that I don't have a big truck and that my Subaru has 4 wheel drive.  I can work up here in winter and am outfitted for it.  Indeed the trees (especially Oaks) like to be worked on when they are dormant.  Kinda reminds me of people who would rather be "put out" for a surgery.  Oak pruning is great in the winter and when the weather isn't too bad, it can be downright fun.  It's great to swing through the canopy any time of year, but making cuts on Oaks and Elms should ONLY be done when the trees are dormant.  That statement is supported by much research and there are municipalities in the state do not allow any pruning of these species during non-dormant periods. So I am off to move some wood from a removal I did last week.  I have just been waiting for the right day... SNOWY...