Mabon Moon of the First Snow
Fire mitigation means removing some trees. Putting solar panels on the roof means removing some trees. Turns out removing trees is something I know how to do. So, every day or so until I’m finished, I’m cutting down one tree, limbing it, cutting the trunk into firewood, stacking the firewood and putting the branches out for chipping.
A complication here that I never faced in Andover is that slash is bad. That means I can’t make brush/slash piles for the critters like I did in Minnesota. Each limb removed from the tree has to be moved into a location accessible by a chipper. That’s a lot of extra work. But it’s good work and I’m looking forward to it.
Got started yesterday. The first lodgepole I cut down stood directly in the way of backing out of the garage. It doesn’t now. I know, this may seem callous, cutting trees down, but in actuality I’m thinning a garden bed, leaving more room and therefore more nourishment for the trees that remain.
Removing shadows from our solar panels is important, too. Shade has an outsized impact on electrical solar generation due to an unusual characteristic of silicon panels. Just a bit of shade shuts down the entire panel.
Most significant of all is fire mitigation. Lodgepoles are a pioneer species, that is, they come in after a fire, grow up, shade other species, then die back. They tend to grow close together and many get spindly, unhealthy. 30 feet from the house all trees have to have branches cut off to ten feet above the ground. This helps prevent fire from reaching the tree through ladder fuels like shrubs and tall grasses, slash. Within the 30 feet defensible space perimeter, the trees also to have adequate space between clumps to ward off crown fires.
The Splintered Forest guy taught me that lodgepoles need to be in clumps for their own health so the ten foot between crowns rule applies to small clusters of lodgepoles, not independent trees. Weaker lodgepoles will blow over easily due to their shallow root structure unless they have friends to break the wind.
Late fall, early winter work outside. Good aerobics. Especially when I cut the trees down with an axe like I did yesterday. With a lot of huffing and puffing. I’ll use the axe when I can because I like the handwork aspect, but the chainsaw will allow me to finish the task in a timely manner.
My limbing axe works great. With most of the branches on a lodgepole I can stand on the opposite side of the trunk and flick them off one handed. Standing on the opposite side of the trunk makes it much less likely that the axe will find its way into my leg.
