Samhain                                                                           Moon of the First Snow

The moon hung right between Orion’s shoulder blades when I got up this morning, a quiet wonder. Now it sits, a daytime moon, above the peak of Black Mountain, a ghost of its luminous night time presence.

Filled up with gas today and with our King Sooper discount bought gas for $1.69 a gallon. $1.69. A long time ago when I saw those numbers flash by on the gas pump. People are joyous about this, economists say it portends well for the Christmas shopping season.

I say bah, humbug. Cheap gas is something we don’t need. Dearer gas, gas the price of which includes the externalities of its destructive extractors and processors, pricey gas, that’s what we need. Just like we need costly coal and kerosene. Even natural gas should cost more. The methane leaks from shale oil fields are contributing a distressing amount to global warming, making natural gas a less friendly transition fuel.

Word from our solar folks that the panels may go on as soon as the week before Thanksgiving. That’s good news because it means we’ll have less chance of not getting our net meter installed before January 1st, the cutoff for the onerous demand charges about to be instituted by our friendly mountain electric company.

Today, like Saturdays across this land, has been and continues to be one of errands and small projects. Groceries gotten. Light bulbs replaced. Boxes moved.

Kate’s painting the pony wall in her sewing space because it’s something she can do one handed. Not being able annoys her, makes her mad at her green casted hand. Only three more weeks.

Mabon                                                                       Moon of the First Snow

Two more trees down yesterday morning. Much easier without the snow load. My slash piles near the driveway are part of the process. Last year when I came out for the closing on October 31st there were signs for slash collection. What was slash, I wondered? Now, almost a year later, I have created substantial piles  of it myself. It’s tree tops, branches and the occasional thinner or split portion of the tree trunk. It gets collected because removing trees for fire mitigation and leaving slash on the ground makes a greater fire hazard than the one you had before.

(slash in the upper right portion of this photograph)

My current plan is to have the slash chipped by Splintered Forest, but I might move it myself with some help. I’m close to having the southeast sector of our woods thinned. As we drove out yesterday, I noticed a black X marking a tree I need to cut for the solar panels. When it’s down, I’ll move on to the southwest, both in the front.

Mabon                                                                            Moon of the First Snow

It has snowed all morning, a heavy wet snow. It clings to the lodgepole branches, their burdens bowing the green needles toward the ground. The sky creates submission to the earth.

This is even truer than I imagined. Fire mitigation requires cutting down many trees and I’m doing them a few at a time. Today two. The first one I felled, using the chainsaw this time (a lot easier than with the axe but not as satisfying), did not go where I planned. Usually I’m accurate with placement, but the snow laden branches overweighted the tree at the top while a burl at the bottom broke in a way I hadn’t anticipated. Instead of landing to the left of the basketball goal, it swayed, crossed over the backdrop (to my, oh, no. then, oh, good.) and dropped instead just to the right of the goal. (see picture above)

I’m no pro, but I am an experienced amateur so I don’t like it when luck determines a fortunate placement. Right was as good as left, thank goodness. The second tree fell right where I wanted it.

Another factor I hadn’t considered when felling the trees during a heavy snow was the additional weight on the branches. Trees have to be limbed before the trunks can be moved and each limb had an added amount of water. That made moving each branch more difficult.

Felt good though to keep advancing toward a culled woods. Splintered Forest will come out and chip my slash once I get it to that point. Over the weekend I’ll cut up the downed trunks into firewood sized logs, stack them between a couple of trees well over 30 feet from the house and let them season until next winter.