On February 7th, we posted an article about "De-vined Clearings" and talked about our plan to clean up the overgrown hillside with it's vines, fallen trees, and overgrown bushes. Well, a lot has happened since we began this project last month! In these photos, (above and below) you can see the massive amounts of forestry that we have been working on removing! Using the Kubota tractor, Farmer Steve can lift piles of cut vines and trees with the forks and carry them down the hill where we have all been working together to minimize these masses.
What happens to all of the brush and logs? Well, we have a rotary mower that can be driven on the hillside. A rotary mower acts a giant lawn mower that runs over the large bushes and fallen brush and chops it up as a lawnmower would the grass. What's left of the brush are just small remains that, over time, decompose and new grass will grow in it's place.
With the large trees that have fallen, we again, use the forks on the tractor to pull these logs off the hill and our family then uses chainsaws to cut them up into smaller pieces before they are split into firewood for our homes and private bonfires. We have also been working on reusing and recycling smaller pieces of lumber by making cedar coasters and stackables that you can find in our online market place!