Picking up tree branches and trunks

Before our recent snowfall I was working at picking up the tree trunks and branches I had cut this year in the pastures.   When snow came into the weather forecast near the end of October I started to work harder.  I almost made it.  One more day - or maybe two - and I would have had all the branches in the pastures picked up.  I did get all the trunks picked up and stacked in the NE corner of the middle pasture.

A number of tree branches were big enough that they would make good firewood for my woodstove.  I had a number of piles to pick up and stack.

Here is a stack of cut branches I had cut in the Spring.  Because the cattle like to rub in the dirt I fill back into a hole after I burn a tree stump, I placed this pile of cut branches over the dirt.  Now that the year is over I could take the cut branches and stack them in the patio to use as firewood.  I hope the grass will grow next Spring completely covering the dirt that is left.

Not all branches were thick enough to use as firewood.  I took these branches and placed them in a part of the pasture I don't harrow.  I can use them when I burn a tree stump next year.

Here is one of the stacks of trunks I had to stack and restack this year as the cattle insisted on knocking over the pile of trunks.  For the stack of the trunks in the corner of the pasture, the cattle only knock over a trunk or two on the one corner of the stack, not the entire stack of trunks.

Partially stacked.  I took the photo to show the trunks from the last tree to fall over this year.  Well, at this point.  Yesterday I discovered another dead tree had fallen over in the middle pasture.  Another tree trunk to chainsaw next Spring into smaller pieces.

Last year I had worked at downsizing this stack by splitting most of the trunks into firewood.  This is mostly what was left.  Before taking this photo I had hauled off six trunks for splitting this year as they were looking like they were starting to get softer and deteriorating.  I kept these trunks to restack last, and to be on top.  That way they will be the first to be split when I get to splitting trunks from this stack.

I finished stacking the trunks the evening before the snowfall.  Just before the snowfall.  I didn't get the photos taken until after our seven-inch snowfall.

Of course the cattle had to check out what I was doing when I took these photos. And you can see some small cut branches in the stack.  I need to dry these branches out, so they will remain here until next Fall.  And, by placing the branch stack at the corner of the stack of logs, and using metal posts to hold the stack of branches, maybe this will stop the cattle from knocking the corner section of the stack of trunks down.