Clearing the Trails

Lucky me, Santa Claus (Carroll) left me a "D" axe (Lee Valley) or Swedish Clearing Axe according to the catalogue (see link), for small brush clearing and it is an excellent tool for that purpose. It is great for limbing small branches. For larger branches that are greater than a 2 cm. (3/4 in.) diameter, a small hand axe is still better.

So with new axe in hand off I went to clear the trail. There were many more sad looking prostrate cedar saplings across the trail, and in some areas entire groves of 7 m (22 foot) cedar trees had their tops broken off also because of the snow. Managed to snowshoe and clear the trail all the way up to the end of the established trail, which ends at the northern boundary of the property.

There are many more obstructing branches in the trail, likely in part because the branches are weighed down by snow, but also because the hiker is raised as much as 30 cm. (1 foot) by the snow under foot.

One of the two bird feeders that we hung up, was spent and full of empty sunflower shells. Looks like the handy work of the red squirrel. The other has not been found by neither bird nor squirrel, yet.

It was overcast and warm today, -1 deg. C (30 deg. F), and by 4:30 p.m. - the days are already seem to be getting longer, yay! - it started to get dark and it was time to head back. Good thing that I wore a brimmed hat that kept the snow on the shaken trees from falling into my collar.