We’re sawing up those poles Will saved from clearing the new forty

It’s getting cold. Tonight it’s going to be down around zero. Today, however, was beautiful — sunny and pretty. You may remember that Will carefully saved nearly all of those small trees he bulldozed while clearing part of the new 40-acre pasture. He and our friend, Eric, stacked them in two huge piles outside the horse pasture. That was more than two years ago. Those poles are pretty well dry and if left much longer, they will start to rot. We needed wood for both kindling and the kitchen range. We decided to start cutting them up; at first Will was going to go at it with the chainsaw. But even with a rack built to cut them more easily, it’s hard on his back. I suggested using the table saw he put together for edging the boards off our bandsaw mill.

Basically, it’s a gasoline-powered mini-buzzsaw. He wanted it gas powered so he took a good Briggs and Stratton motor off an old snowblower and rigged it to belt drive the heavy table saw our friend Tom gave me years ago. It works great for edging the boards and is more portable because we don’t have to worry about having a generator to plug it into. And it works great for cutting those small, long poles. Most are about 3 inches at the butt. The larger ones get tossed into a pile for chainsaw work, later on.

Will stands on one side with me on the receiving end. The pickup is parked off my right shoulder. As the poles are sawn, I pick up the pieces and toss them into the pickup. We are VERY CAREFUL around that saw as the blade is unprotected and dangerous. (So is a buzz saw, only the blade is five times larger!) So far, we’ve stacked four pickup loads of this little wood on our enclosed porch, right handy for the kitchen range and nearby for kindling for the living room stove. We’re real happy to get such good use out of a throw-away snowblower, a discarded table saw, and wood most folks would pile on the field and burn as trash. And our house is warmer too!

Yesterday, I went out and dug the last of my gladiolus bulbs from the garden (through four inches of new snow). The blooms were gorgeous this summer and I wanted to save them as they sure don’t over-winter here in Zone 3. I was afraid they would freeze in the ground and that would be the end. I was tickled to see that most bulbs had multiplied to at least two and often three very large corms plus all of the little cormels attached to the bulbs. (Those mini-bulbs are planted in a row, like beans. The first year, they make nothing but leaves. Sometimes the second year they’ll bloom a bit and by the third, you’ve multiplied your flowers by an amazing number.) Now they’re in the greenhouse, laid out in a shallow plastic box to dry before going down into the basement to store over winter. Looking at all those bulbs, I can hardly wait till spring! — Jackie