Purging the Dead in 2020

When snow left early in the spring of 2020, though not for good, we began working on the never-ending cutting of the dead pines which are everywhere in the woods surrounding the Lodge. Our best guess is that they must have perished due to overcrowding when all of them started to grow at once as a result of my Grandfather not being able to till the land and keep his garden there any more. There are more dead pines than live ones and we chip away at them when we can. Before bugs; ticks, mayflies and mosquitos come out, it is a great time to work the woods. We got close to 200 trees down, burning and chipping the branches, cutting the trunks into 2 foot chunks and laying them to define the paths. Since we were confined to the Lodge due to Covid-19, it was a perfect project. Got us outside, gave us plenty of exercise and the results were amazing.
New growth is happening on the trunks of the trees and green forest plants are emerging throughout the wooded areas. Though we still have much more to do, the progress made this spring is very rewarding.