Clearing land

As this has been such an open winter ........ so far anyway ........... and the man and woman power is available .......... we have been outside clearing the section of our property directly in front of the house. It's being done the silviculture way, as opposed to undesirable clear cutting. When June arrives the cleared area near that clump of maples will be covered in lupins and I will be capturing more digital pictures similar to these .........
Pretty aren't they? I love to take breaks while doing this work and wander off into the deeper woods, or explore a path that a woodland creature has made. Yesterday I trimmed lower branches off some spruces and firs, and also some dead wood off the maples. Our temps have been so balmy, for the most part, this month that the maples were starting to put out tiny suckers on their trunks. I had sap on my hand as I brushed the end of a branch from a fir tree as I toss it away. That means that the sap has started to rise in that tree already. That's not good. New growth will come, and then the cold weather will find us and kill off the new growth. Hopefully, not the tree too, or do damage to it.

"If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen." - Henry David Thoreau

I would have enjoyed meeting Mr. Thoreau.