Spring Clean-up Begins

Last October brought us a surprise 6 inches of wet snow.  It was quite pretty:

Unfortunately, the leaves were still on, so it pulled a lot of trees and limbs down, leaving some of us without power for several days.

So now with the occasional day of nice temps I'm attacking some of the downed stuff on my property.  I have a chain saw, but the last time it was used was the winter before Dad died in 1998 - it was his and it came to live at my house and I've never had it looked at to see if it's still functional.  I use axe, bow saw, sawzall, and loppers instead, and I really don't mind because the exercise is good for me.  The only serious problem is when I get to something that's really too thick for the sawzall - I tend to bend and break blades that way.

Slowly but surely, downed limbs are becoming piles of limbs and logs.

And since I plan to put in a wood stove, those piles of logs are becoming next winter's fuel.

Next step will be to borrow the neighbor's chipper so that the debris coming off these branches can become mulch.