Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Cleaning up and Making Mulch!

Having planted over a thousand trees since building our home here in 1983, a number of the trees have survived and thrived! Each year pruning, trimming, natural die back, high wind & snow damage results in a continuous supply of brush that are collected and stacked around the property. Once a year I rent a chipper. The wood chips are blown into the back of my pick up truck. I can then centrally locate the chips into a single pile on the old basketball court.





Later on the wood chips are distributed to the various beds around the property to hold in moisture, reduce the proliferation of weeds as they rot down and generate a rich, organic soil in which shrubs and perennials thrive.



(Coffee bean burlap bags are experimentally laid down as a weed barrier before being covered with the wood chips.)



Saturday, June 11, 2011

Take a Hike!

Earlier this week, I along with seven other Finger Lakes Trail volunteers and two work crews from the Monterey Correctional Facility constructed two bridges on the Finger Lakes Trail in the Birdseye Hollow State Forest (Steuben County). The bridges were constructed out of white oak planking, fastened to utility poles that crossed the main creek. Boulders were located and skidded into place to create a retaining wall on the main bridge's east bank and stream run gravel was bucket brigaded to each of the bridge's access points.


The synergistic results of all our efforts are pictured below.




Main Bridge (38' span)


Bridge crossing the west overflow stream bed (20' span)


Take a Hike!


If you care to see more photo's of bridge building in progress go to the following FLT photo gallery site: