A WALK IN THE WOODS

September 20, 2025. Come on over! Here’s the path we made, what, 10 years ago?

Actually, this is looking up the path, but I wanted to take some photos this afternoon to show you what’s happening with the woodland, so bear with me, K?

Here’s a look through the area, and maybe you can see the branches on the ground and the blue patches on the foreground trees? Marked to be taken down.

And here’s the machine responsible, captained by Josiah of Advanced Landscape:

The good news is that the thing, which includes a saw, two fluted wheel rollers which strip the bark from a log, and of course, claws to grip and move the log, is practically silent. Can’t annoy the neighbors. I tried to send you a video of the thing in action, but that proved to be waaaay ahead of my skills.

But what about all those trees on the ground? A neighbor gave me the name of a man associated with a Philomath Youth Group, who came by to see if they might be able to use the wood. They have a project to collect and split wood, to be sold to the benefit of kids in town. He was a little surprised at the scope of the project, but rallied and said that they would be most happy to take whatever was available. That is great news for us, as we would otherwise have to pay a logging company to take the logs to a mill, where they would be chipped, and then sold. Any revenue would then be subject to taxation, and that’s not fun.

Then what about the remaining slash? Advanced Landscape Management knows of a process of producing biochar from slash wood. This is a system using pyrolysis, a process of heating a material in the absence of oxygen, which converts it into a carbon-rich substance, useful to enrich soil. There’s a machine which can do this, and ALM will undertake to secure one that’s large enough for this job. This won’t happen until next summer, but it’s exciting to think that this whole project can have a doubly beneficial outcome.

Okay, whew. Anything else going on? Well, yes. The food dryer I mentioned last time? It’s been a star of the kitchen, drying a year’s worth of prunes. Now wondering how to keep them. We’ll probably unleash the vacuum sealer for this duty — then into the fridge? And speaking of prunes, I did can 4 pints of them, so there’s that. And as for the apples? So far 4 pints of applesauce, more due to be created this afternoon. Plus a supply of frozen chunks. Don’t worry, let it snow. Right?

Yesterday on my morning walk down the road, I came to a pretty abrupt halt when I saw that there were cows at large on the driveway. I knew that Ryan (cow guy) was planning to move the cows that day, and there he was, hiking around in the west pasture, calling the animals. The Ye-Haw thing, and the herd was galloping about. It’s a spectacle not many, I think, are privileged to see, and I felt lucky. But I was, at the same time, relieved to see them go, as they’d been knocking about with our water supply. That is, tipping the tank so that the well just kept pumping water onto the ground. Yikes. You’ve heard stories of farm water problems before, but this time the problem was caught in time. Turned the electricity off the fence, closed the barn door, metaphorically, and again, let it snow.

Saturday night. Time to make dinner. We made a Costco run this morning, purchasing, among other things, some sausage to be used in a recipe for ‘Sausage and farro skillet with mushrooms and delicata squash.” Calls for “quick-cooking farro, which, who has that on hand? Actually, I kind-of do. It’s “cooked groats,” but should work. Right? I know. Who has cooked groats on hand? Crazy. But I don’t have mushrooms on hand, and hey, delicata squash? Yes! Larry’s garden. We’re golden.