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Nobadays
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# Posted: 30 Dec 2019 08:21am
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We've been at the cabin since the middle of December but just now getting to burning slash. It seems we have either had other projects to do, the weather was too bad and then the pickup break down... not knowing when it would be ready have kept us from touching the piles off.
As you can see in the picture, we have one huge pile of slash and two burning areas.... the one to the left behind the pile we will light today. Between the burn pile in the foreground and the main, snow covered slash pile is a small pile pulled from the big pile to begin today's burning. It has been a chore to pull the slash from the big pile on this side as most of the material was added from the far side... easy to pull it off on the far side.
You might ask why move it so many times.... well we couldn't burn last fall as it was too dry and there was just too much slash to put on one or even two burn piles so.... more work but we can control the size of the fires as we add fuel. We didn't want numerous black spots throughout the property so we cc'd chose to haul it to these two burn sites. YMMV
We have hired one of our neighbors to come help today and I think we can get it all burned with two fires going.... and help. We had to shovel snow off and around the piles yesterday, as well as paths to pull the wood to the burn piles. Almost 3' of snow. We figured though that after almost 5 hours of work we had burned at least a third of the slash. It will be so good when the snow goes off to just finish cleaning up what will be missed under the snow. With this huge pile burned we will have our whole acre cleared of dead fall. Still 23 standing dead, but hopefully those will be solid and make firewood.
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Nobadays
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# Posted: 30 Dec 2019 07:40pm
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Neighbor came over this morning.... after he got his snowmobile to start.... -11F at their place only -6F at our cabin which is about 500' higher on the hillside... they are in the floor of the canyon and lose sun about 2:30pm and we have full sun until 4:30 - 5:00pm.
Anyway... we put in 7 hours burning at two burn piles pulling limbs and logs from the big slash pile. It was a lot of work! We still have several firs that need the limbs trimmed up higher and lots of juniper brush to pull next spring. But... one of our other neighbors has a great big chipper he said we can use! Sweet... no more slash burning!
Here's a picture... the big pile is gone and you can just see the second pile smoldering in the background.
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ICC
Member
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# Posted: 30 Dec 2019 09:16pm
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I'm doing some of that too today. Great day for it. 24 " of snow cover. 5 mph wind. Fire Marshall said to go ahead.
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Nobadays
Member
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# Posted: 30 Dec 2019 09:40pm
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I talked to the county sheriff the other day.... he's our go to guy for permission to burn.... and he said go ahead! At that time there was less than a foot of snow, now we have around 3'. Supposed to get a bit New Year's day/night but nothing measurable.
Good luck... stay safe!
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Brettny
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# Posted: 31 Dec 2019 07:37am
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Waiting until it's covered in 3ft is snow is waiting to long to me. I would have waited until it started to thaw at this point.
That's not that big of a pile either. Short of catching a dead standing pine on fire it would be very hard to get out of control with even 1in of snow on the ground.
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Nobadays
Member
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# Posted: 31 Dec 2019 08:37am
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Yep waiting until May when the snow goes off would have been easier.... but now when the snow goes off I won't be looking at that "little" pile of slash (let's see... the feeder pile was 12' across, 8'-10' high and almost 30' long, plus 2 burn piles about 10'across and 6'-7' high.... I thought you were in NY not Texas where everything is bigger!)
Oh... not a "pine" tree in sight from our place... 
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