Tag Archives: Fiona

To The Woods

Leave a Reply

Today our weather station recorded a high of +10C, which is unusually high for January. I spent the afternoon in the forest clearing trails that were first partly blocked by trees that fell during a storm called Dorian in 2019 followed by an even more severe loss of trees from storm Fiona in 2022. Looking after my mother took priority over the past few years and I just never had much time to get out with a chainsaw.

Mild weather and little snow on the ground means I have quickly pushed through some big tangles of trees the past few days and am now making good progress.

Black sleigh holding a green chainsaw and white bucket sitting on a snow-covered forest trail with cut logs on either side and standing trees in the background.
My little sleigh with chainsaw and supplies sitting in a newly-cleared section of trail.

The fresh air was wonderful, one of the many joys of a battery-operated chainsaw, though I did fire up my ancient Stihl for a bit to tackle some bigger trees. I haven’t used it much in the past couple of years and was surprised that it sparked up pretty quickly, even using some old gas. I should be nicer to it.

Black and white map of the land we occupy showing trails in white.
Map from a field day held here in 2009. Today I was working near #8 and then started the section halfway between 5A and 6.

Today I found evidence that snowshoe hares somehow get onto fallen logs to get close to the tender ends of cedar trees. After many years of seeing very few hares, there has been a spike in the past couple of years and the forest is filled with tracks. I’m guessing there are more places for them to hide in all the fallen trees and brush, but I also remember old timers talking about a cycle “rabbits”, an ebb and flow of them over a decade or more. We are certainly at a peak.

The end of a cedar branch that has been eaten off by a snowshoe hair being held in the hands of a fair-skinned person with snow in the background.
Snowshoe hare food.
A large tree leaning across a forest path, with cut logs on either side of a snow-covered forest trail and standing trees behind.
A couple of large trembling aspen that I can easily climb under and may have to wait for someone with more nerve and a bigger chainsaw to tackle.
Snow in the foreground, sky in the background, and both standing and fallen trees in the middle.
Heading home. Still lots to be done.

Powerless

I am writing to you from a house without electricity. This is the third time since post tropical storm Fiona blew through here at the end of September that our power has gone out from wind knocking trees over onto the line running along our lane. The electricity was out for nine days after Fiona, and this time it’s only been 22 hours, a dawdle.

We (have to) have a generator to keep the furnace, water pump, refrigerators, and a few lights going, but we usually only run it a few hours during the day, not constantly. It’s a Honda 6,500 watt that we bought in 2003 and it has given great service, even with shamefully little maintenance. It lives in our outbuilding and feeds underground to a sub-panel in our basement. I’m hoping very soon to replace or augment it with a battery backup system that would ideally be able to connect to our solar panels, which are grid tied and essentially dead during power outages.

Thankfully our internet provider stopped trying to restring our fibre line above ground and decided last month to bury it most of the 1,000 feet from the road to our house. When the generator is running, or the backup battery on the modem is in use, we can be online and make landline calls; this is a big improvement from pre-Fiona.

I’m not sure how we are going to deal with the remaining trees in our lane. There are dozens of white spruce to be cut, each about 60 years old and 60 feet tall, and it will be a big job, more than I can handle, and potentially dangerous near the power lines. We will also look at paying to have our line buried, though I have no idea what that would cost.

Since Fiona changed the structure of our forest, so many trees are exposed and keep snapping off or falling over in strong winds, and a few onto our power line. I’ve not been able to find the words to describe how Fiona destroyed parts of our forest. I still can’t believe how quickly the woods I knew so well were flattened.

I am aware that these minor hiccups and inconveniences are insignificant bumps on a privileged, gilded road. Many will never have the luxuries we have right now, even without electricity. It could be worse, no doubt about it, but it has been tiring and disorienting.

I developed a bit of a mantra to get through the days and weeks after Fiona, the endless lugging of brush and cutting of massive trees: At least a tree can only fall once. If they could only leave the power lines alone.

To keep sawdust out of your work boots, take an old pair of socks, cut off the foot, and use them as gaiters. A hack learned from my forester pal Bruce Craig, put to much use the past three months.

Stoic Week 2022

Modern Stoicism are offering their ”live like a Stoic” week again this year starting October 24, and you can still sign up. I’ve been participating in this free program for many years, and while I probably couldn’t call myself a devoted Stoic, Stoic Week has given me tools that I believe help me feel more balanced and happier. It is now a rare morning when I don’t think upon waking: “Today I will encounter things I can control and things I can’t control, and I will try to deal with both calmly.”

I have not yet written about my family’s experience with post tropical storm Fiona, but I was surprised at how I was able to emerge from our house after the storm, faced with weeks worth of cleanup and an altered landscape, and just look at it all but not pass judgement. It was what it was. I have said many times over the past three weeks: ”At least a tree can only fall once.”

For someone who has always predicted, planned and prepared to try to stay ahead of problems, this calm and, dare I say, Stoic outlook was proof that at least some of what I’ve been studying these past few years has worked. Stoicism is not at all about becoming emotionless or robotic; it is about finding balance and perspective, and learning how to ride out the storms of life, both literal and figurative.