Making firewood.
One of my fall projects has been cutting down beetle infested spruce trees. It isn’t something I wanted to do, but dead trees pose multiple hazards and I don’t want to test the coverage of our insurance policy.
I love trees, so it’s sad to see so many large spruce trees disappear. Oh well, at least there are cottonwoods, birch, and smaller, healthy spruce on our property.
If you are wondering, spruce bark beetles are native to Southcentral Alaska. Their population is cyclical and one of the first big outbreaks that I witnessed happened in the late 80’s. Fast forward nearly thirty five years and they’re back with a vengeance.
How bad is the outbreak? According to the Alaska Division of Natural Resources, 1.1 million acres of spruce trees in our region have been affected.
To give perspective, that’s larger than the state of Rhode Island.
What it all means for me, is I still have a dozen trees to drop and get rid of. Here’s one of the many loads of slash that ended up at the Soldotna landfill. Thanks Ron, for loaning me your trailer. It cut my work load in half.
If you haven’t seen what a spruce bark beetle ravaged tree looks like, here’s a close up view. The beetle will burrow under the bark, sap will ooze out, and eventually the bark flakes off. They mostly attack the oldest, and tallest spruce trees.
Although I’ve dropped a lot of trees, my work is not done. This spring, I’ll be finishing what I started. If anybody wants to lend a helping hand, I do have an extra chainsaw. I’ll also let you keep all the firewood you want. As my dad would say, that’s a heckuva deal! 😆
A Message From Jane