Cleaning up after the hurricane

It's over a month now since Hurricane Sandy and I am still out there with the chain saw. Actually most of the trees I am working on came down in prior storms over the past few years.

My friend Lee comes down each year to get some wood to burn in his fireplace. There is plenty available this year.

Your hero at work with his electric chainsaw, a Worx 16 inch corded model from Lowes. It's powerful enough for the size of logs I am dealing with but not all that heavy. It's easier to use than a petrol model and I like the way it turns off completely when I release the trigger. It uses a fair bit of oil for the chain but in a way that is a good thing since it forces me to stop after about 45 minutes. I'm really pleased with it.

Most of the wood is a mix of poplar which is a light softwood and black locust that is a heavy hardwood. There is a bit of cherry.

The pile keeps getting longer and longer.

Part of the yard has quite a bit of long grass and it is obvious that the deer use it at night as a resting place. They are probably upset that I am removing all the cosy protection.

The white thing in the top of the picture is our well head. Our water comes from over 200 feet down from an aquifer that comes all the way down from the Adirondacks in New York State.

By the way, Marianne has been a great help picking up wood.

This will be a challenge, even if it is poplar.

We have also cleaned up where the deck came down. This is the view down from the back door.

There is still one section of the deck remaining. I'm not touching it and will leave it to the blokes who are going to fix the roof and build the new deck. They should be starting either late this week or next week depending on the weather.

The stuff that will go to the dump.

I have salvaged some wood and most of the Trex decking. I am thinking of building a path from the front steps to the driveway using the Trex. The copper pipe is from the deck railings. 

All of this wood cutting has been terrific upper body exercise. At first I could only do about 15 minutes cutting but now I can do considerably more.

To be honest, I was not looking forward to cutting up this thick poplar log which at a minimum was 15 inches in diameter. To make it easier, I bought a new chain for the saw and it went through the wood like a hot knife through butter. Eventually I got it done but now I have to pick up the heavy pieces and cart them over to the wood pile.