Currently:
35°F
Current: Cloudy
Wind: SE at 3 mph
Humidity: 58%

Yesterday I cleared more brush, cut up a fallen tree, split the wood, & stacked it for drying. It should be good for next winter, and I am already filling the woodshed for next winter with trees that have either fallen on thier own or from clearing for orchard land.

Very luckily there is intermixed mature alders that will now provide an abundance of nitrogen into the soil as the roots die back. This is normal for alder trees, it is what they do in forests. Sadly it cost us tax payers millions of dollars to learn this in Alaska. Seems when we cut down stands of old growth forest the alders became rampant up there in the Last Frontier state. When the tree dies, due to some sort of symbiotic relationship with a bacteria that loves to give off nitrogen due to how it consumes whatever it does for food.

So, by cutting the old growth alders down, I get a free nitrogen boost in the soil for the surrounding of where the tree was. Free fertilizer.. think about that from nature by helping nature along with what it was going to do anyway!