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Adirondack Lifestyle ™: Jun 27, 2010

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Lake Placid Log Peeling Weekend

Although it sounds like one of the sporting events we have been known to host in Lake Placid, this weekend's logging event was not an athletic competition. But, as you will see, it can sure keep one fit!

No, the log peeling weekend meant it was time to get the next round of trees prepared for their final resting place on the second floor of my new home.

Pictured above, laying on the right side of the table saw awaiting its fate, is my favorite balsam. It will make a fine post and will always remind me of the December day a blizzard blew it down before my eyes.

As you can see in the photo below, spruce trees are best peeled when they are green; freshly fallen, and the bark can be easily removed with the help a bark spud.

The bark spud is not a light tool, but it appears to work fine for Ed.




The peeled log releases a wonderful, fresh spruce fragrance which permeates the woods while we are working. (Taking pictures is working.)

Another very cool aspect about peeling logs is the chance to discover what hidden things go on under a tree's bark; what it is muttering under its breath.
It was a bizarre learning experience for me the first time I heard woodboring beetle larvae chewing their way through a tree. When a tree is infested with wordborers, one can hear an Alfred Hitchock-like crunch-crunch-crunch, chewing sound rumbling out of this supposedly inanimate object.

Obviously, it is best when a tree is not infested with beetles, rather has a few artisans in residence to create the worm trails and character for nature's work of art; the posts for a home.
"I think that I shall never see
A poem as lovely as a tree......"
Joyce Kilmer

Grateful photographs of beautiful trees courtesy of Joann Sandone Reed