Clearing land is not only hard work but also spiritually draining. Even operating a chainsaw is something that I will admit is exciting but also dangerous, stinky and destructive. Not to be negative, as this was a critical part of the overall plan, 2014/2015 was a tough, albeit mild, winter. It is also noteworthy to mention that although I had to tear down, sort and stack roughly 160 trees, we also saved and planted hundreds of baby trees that were nestle amongst the fir, alder, wild cherry, cedar and hemlock that covered our property. It is also worth mentioning that we only cleared roughly 2 acres of the 5 acres that we live on!
In order to do all this, I purchased an excavator, which still to this day I find to be a wondrous piece of equipment! Without it I don’t think we could have achieved even half of the amount of work that was done through the winter and into the spring of 2015. Although I had never operated an excavator before, my wife will tell you that we soon became good friends. In fact this machine probably saved my life more than a few times … but don’t tell her that!
So with our trees sorted and stacked, I managed to sell 3 loads of logs to a local log sort and recover the money that it cost to buy the excavator. I also managed to save enough logs to be “site” milled into all the cedar and fir that would finish our future home, sheds, chicken coup, goat pen, and shop. We managed to mill over 10000 feet of fir and cedar 1×4 and 1×5 along with posts, beams, FACSIA board, benches, window boxes and sills along with all sorts of other things.