A Week Behind Stihl

 26 Sep 2009 12:39:00 am

This week we were contracted with the U.S. Forest Service. We spent the week closing roads that were made illegally by a.t.v’s in the Chippewa National Forest. Closing these roads was a little more than just putting up a road closed sign. In order to effectively close the roads we were asked to fell trees on the roads in order to make them impassible by the a.t.v. users. So that is what we did. We spent the week cutting down trees in the middle of the woods, what a good time! In total we closed around 25 or so roads, mostly in the south portion of the forest, east of Leech Lake. Hundreds of trees, sadly lost their lives.

A couple of the trails we closed led straight to a deer stand. Bow season opened last week up here, so I am sure this weekend there will be a couple of ticked off hunters… but when you fight the law the law wins. Enjoy the pictures of me cutting down some Aspens, they were probably between 60 and 80 feet tall, good size trees that are pretty loud when they come crashing down.

Oh I almost forgot, there was some excitement at one of the roads. We usually make several piles to make it clearly not worth the users while to try to clear out the trees. The hope is that the road will not be used and succeed naturally back to become part of the forest once again. Anyways, we had two pretty good size piles built up on this certain trail. Mark and I had just decided we were satisfied with the pile we had made, so we shut off the saw and waited for Joe and Peter to finish their pile at the mouth of the trail. They ended up felling one more aspen, and we huddled up in between piles to talk it over for a second before we moved on. As we were gathering, I heard Mark say owww, and cuss a few times. He said “ I think I just got Stung By A…”, right about then I started to notice a hum in the air. As my mind started to realize what was happening Joe transferred his thoughts to speech before I did, he yelled BEES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The four of us darted for the mouth of the forest road, having to hurdle the pile of trees that had just been created. I, of course, found myself in the back of the line…Well here it comes I thought, I am screwed… Sure enough twice on the head and once behind the ear I got zapped. I think they were yellow jackets, or hornets…Whatever the bastards were they packed a punch and I was sore the rest of the day. But It was pretty funny seeing the four of us running out of the woods in full chainsaw gear.

Take care all, hope everyone is doing well!!!

Posted By : paul | Category: General | Comments [[2]] | Trackbacks [0]

  katch Up

 20 Sep 2009 10:14:40 pm

Haven't blogged in a while, sorry to all!!! I will get back on the picture taking stat!!! We burnt and sawed up some state parks in Minnesota last week, this week we saw some more. It's super nice outside, though I can feel fall in the air. Hope all is well thanks to everyone for making my trip home so awesome...

Take care peoples

Fish From The Tippy

Posted By : paul | Category: General | Comments [[3]] | Trackbacks [0]