Site Discussions

As has been commented, using the correct tool for the job is most important. I’ve been splitting wood for close to 40 years here in the Northeast. I’m near 50 now. When I was a youngster just helpin’ my dad, we had a 90 year old friend of the the family that had spent some 70 years in Adirondack logging camps as a logger. He was most often a river driver whose responsibilities included freeing log jams with two or three tools he carried while being ready to maintain his balance and make it back to shore by rolling the logs under his feet to stay upright and not be killed. He gave my dad some tips which had to be seen to be believed as to how effective they were. Splittin’ was one of ‘em. My dad, no matter the axe or maul, couldn’t split some tough old beech no matter how hard he tried. Our friend’s tips were these: 1.  refinement of technique makes any sort of woodworking or wood processing easy and enjoyable. 2. When splitting, the maul or splitting axe should be treated like a whip and hence a shaped handle is far superior for safety if one can be found for a maul. Usually because the maul handle has to be thicker and stronger it ends up being straight, the shaped handles are left to the cutting axes. The lead hand stays fixed at the end, and the other hand slides to meet the lead hand increasing the arc of the swing, aiding in the physics involved, and combining with hip motion to snap the axe or maul downward and into the wood for splitting. I remember watching my 75 year old 80 pound grandmother who also had excellent technique swing a 6 pound maul and split an entire half cord of wood in just about 20 minutes!
3. Accuracy is key. More work is saved by being accurate than any other.
4. Aim only for cracks that already exist. You don’t open a door by pulling where there isn’t a handle do you?
5. Like mentioned earlier in the forum, a slight twist just as the axe head impacts the wood pops the wood apart instead of sticking the head down in the separated pieces. This technique takes lots of practice to perfect. Be careful as too much twist can make the strike glance away. The twist is subtle and only about 10 degrees at most.

These are the tips I remember and I’m still practicing myself. To witness a 90 plus year old man split with absolute ease (among other things) who had spent his life in the forest and also crafting the wood he harvested was an incredible experience. So much masterful craftsmanship and arts get lost as we rush ahead with technology. Practice and keep on splittin’!

I discovered Eastern Larch (Hackamatck) had been used to roof my barn when it was built in 1825 and was for the most part still in good shape when I re-shingled it in 1972.

Being the only deciduous conifer it is very rot resistant and much prized by boat builders for knees.

In 2007 I put a metal roof over the wood shingles I used in 72 and the boards were all still sound.

When nailing its good to pre-drill it to prevent splitting it.

I have many wild garter snakes and regularly rescue babies from the lawn.  What can I do to help facilitate their chances for survival?  I’m in a heavily populated marsh and old growth forest area with an abundance of a variety of frogs and a variety of predators.  How can I make my property more habitual for the babies survival?  They are so very cute.

The conclusion of the article seems to point to increasing natural beekeeping and the use of things like the Warré hive.
This means smaller colonies, natural comb building, often with smaller cell sizes,  and renewal of comb every year. 

Very good. I’ve never thought of it from this perspective.

I’ve got two pet skunks that were rescued from wild as orphans. My little one was found clinging to it’s dead mother. They make awesome pets, though they’re not for everyone. I spend a lot of time with them, and they both sleep in bed with my wife and me. They haven’t been de-scented, but only the little one has sprayed when the cat jumped on his back.They’re a riot to have around. Don’t let the wild ones eat too much cat food, the high protein is bad for their kidneys. Great little animals to have around.

This is great!  I teach AP Environmental science and plan on using your article as required reading.  I am glad some people still understand.  Capitalism is not politics, it is free enterprise evolution.  Well done.  May I have your permission to use this in my classroom?

Interesting riff, Dave. I was with you up to paragraph 4, where your analogies threw me off. The apex predators are, as you say, the developers and biomass industries who would liquidate the forests if it were profitable and legal to do so. That’s their job in a capitalist system—short-term profits for investors rather than good jobs or sustainability. It seems to me foresters, with their long-range perspective, deep understanding of forest ecosystems, and appreciation for the importance of maintaining balance in the system, including with harvesting activities, are not so much lords of the manor as gatekeepers—thanks mainly to the regulations giving them a degree of authority within the forest industry. In a true “free” market, you would have neither foresters nor regulations, only robber barons.

Seems to me our capitalistic ecosystem would work better if we had the equivalent of “foresters” managing all our natural resources for long-term sustainability and economic equity between workers and investors. Instead, all we have is a flimsy patchwork of regulations—but thank goodness for those!

Hi Dave—

What a fascinating comparison! 

Unfortunately another analogy from the former Soviet Union may be emerging.  The USSR planning authority designed many “one product” cities.  A soap factory here, a ship-building plant there.

With the reforms, the inefficient, dinosaur-like city-plants were opened up to foreign and domestic private competition.  Many of the plants failed and so did many of the cities.

Fast forward to another analogy.  A new name for inefficient, non-economic businesses is “stranded assets”.  Think PSNH’s old generation plants.  Or what many people are saying about oil companies (the oil in the ground will no longer be economic to remove if carbon externalities are priced in, and the companies will have no value).

Who pays for stranded assets?  For PSNH, the public gets hit with the bill.  For oil companies, losses in value will likely be borne by the owners (shareholders).

If the Northern New England wood industry proves unable to transform so as to maintain profitability and becomes a stranded asset, where will the loss fall?  Will the losses be socialized and redistributed to any significant extent?  If not, should timberland owners look to the increasing risk of disappearance of many wood markets and cut and sell what they can now?

The public already supports the industry with biomass subsidies.  Will the public appetite for paying for stranded wood industry costs continue?  Are there any sound proposals for other future paths to avoid USSR-like results?

Tough questions…

We have luna moths all the time but I never knew what the caterpillar looks like. Now I know why we have so many of them and where they are coming from. Excellent site.

Thank you for the post. Good to know I’m not the only one blown away by nature’s endless surprises. I took a picture of the unknown, fabulous moth and hustled inside to search for the type. Now, reading this prompts me to go back out to the garden to take a closer look at the primroses themselves.

Jeff performs work for the company that I work for and I can’t say enough great things about him.  He is the best at what he does and when he fully retires the industry will lose the best mind it has.

Thanks for sharing this useful information about pest control. Spraying pesticides by planes, trucks or by hand is a common method of pest control. But is important to have proper knowledge of all the pesticides as some pesticides may cause health problems, as well as harming wildlife. For more help you can call professional pest control experts.

Richard- try removing half of the vines to give the other half a chance to mature.

This is my first year attempt at raising Silk Moths. They have come full circle and just spun their cocoons. I have a question, many of them clumped together in twos and threes to spin their cocoon connected to each other. Is this normal?  I have only ever seen single cocoons before.

Opossums allegedly came to the Pacific Northwest when a soldier from Virginia was homesick, so his parents sent him a mated pair.  When he was transferred, he let them loose.

They are also helpful in the garden, as they eat slugs, snails, and even mice.  I am raising two who were orphaned, likely when their mother was hit by a car, and rescued a third in the middle of a highway, near the middle of nowhere.  The wind shear as I passed over her originally caused her to grip at the road, cutting up one paw quite a bit, and her tail.  I took her to a friend who is nursing her back to health, and spoiling her rotten (not that mine aren’t spoiled, as well).  I hate that people think they’re dirty, nasty, disease-ridden vermin and don’t think twice about not just running them over, but going out of their way to run them over!

I rescued a wild chippy from my cat and it has a neat tidy little cage with a hay base in which is makes burrows and I have a bowl full of seeds and a glass of water for it, and the things I noticed were that it uses paper towels to hide its bowl of food [I am guessing its a form of camouflage?] AND [now THIS one REALLY blew me away] it all on its own learned how to fold a paper towel neatly into 8 layers [ 3 folds = 8 layers ] and set it in one corner as a bathroom of sorts.

When I take the dirty one out, I just put a clean paper towel in there and it [again] folds the paper all on its own and puts it right back in the same corner.

Are there any studies known to have been conducted on just how intelligent these little critters are?

We have lots of shrews up this way…myself and other households find drawers and boots stuffed full of dog kibble!  They tour the kitchen and dog dish whether we are there or not, at all times of the day.  I caught one easily by putting a dog kibble in a mousetrap.  Interesting to me, our Blue-Heeler/Husky cross dog kills mice, squirrels, groundhogs, even houseflies in a flash…but she shows absolutely no interest in these shrews strutting in plain sight, decimating her food supply.  I cannot smell the shrews, But do you suppose it is smell that is deterring our dog?

As long as the crayfish are coming from clean water that you can catch and eat fish out of then you are fine to eat them.  Do not eat them from any questionable water as they feed on anything including dead plants and animals/fish. 

As a big fan of this fascinating rodent I loved your article! I work at a high elevation state park in VT and campers this year have been harassed by young reds stealing food, running up legs, scampering off with kids’ small toys, and chewing holes in tents. There are more than I have ever seen, and they are certainly bold!