Nor'easter in Putnam County, NY—late October, 2011

This was a brutal lesson of Global Warming. The land is devastated from the 12 inch wet snow on trees in full Fall foliage. The ancient red oaks took it with dignity and dropped only enormous aging branches mostly (except the neighbor's, that took out a series of utility poles—including ours, see below) but the sugar maples were splitting and falling after the snow bent them in arcs to the ground. The interesting thing was that the mulberries just bent in fantastic shapes and then popped right back up after the snow melt.

The possibilities for the fallen victims are:
chip and mulch some
build more hugel beds (the ground is not frozen and it's fresh green wood with leaves)
saw for firewood
mushroom inoculation of fresh logs

any other suggestions?


pictures:
Sunken Mine Road early in the morning
The driveway (the photo's title is deBrie—debris—after the little fuzzball Lhasa Apso on it named Brie)
The matchstick oak of the MacMansions'
Fresh venison burger and filet in marinade with no power (X-rated for some)

although the storm was a tad early for your area the heavy wet snow is not, it just so happened there were still leaves on the trees, which meant for the extreme heaviness so the limbs and trees broke. We get that a lot here in Michign (just west of you) and October snows while the leaves are on have occurred my entire 60 year life from time to time, so it isn't necessarily a sign of global temperature changes, just a cycle that happens from time to time.

well your use sounds good, some of the branches and logs could also be used for twig or bentwood furniture, fences, trellises, arbors, plant supports, hurdles, etc.

if your decor is rustic, also a cyliner made of tying small straight sticks together can cover things like ugly  plastic pots  or even glass vases to set candles or flowers in..quite pretty.

I've even seen picture frames made of branches..have fun

Brenda Groth wrote:
although the storm was a tad early for your area the heavy wet snow is not...

...so it isn't necessarily a sign of global temperature changes, just a cycle that happens from time to time.

My understanding is that the stats for our area broke all historical meteorological records...

yes I heard that too, we have broken some records in our state the last few years too..

Climate change plus La Nina, I believe. Wonder if it'll be like last winter (snowy in VT).

I have fond memories of summer camp in Putnam County. Camp Moonbeam which later became Welmet. I was also a counselor at Surprise Lake.

CJinVT wrote:
I have fond memories of summer camp in Putnam County. Camp Moonbeam which later became Welmet. I was also a counselor at Surprise Lake.

Sleepy little county. We are on Lake Oscawana with several historic camps in our past (Camp Ruddy for swimmmers used to be around the bend where Johnny Weismuller spent a summer) and one still surviving in Peekskill Hollow.

we scarcely saw an inch here in nassau county LI,
dust a light dusting,but enough to kill the last of the beans and afew other things.

i love hiking up in that area, Fahnestock ,breakneck ridge and storm king mountain are a few faves 
beautiful pictures thank you

cini McCoy,

The possibilities for the fallen victims are:
chip and mulch some
build more hugel beds (the ground is not frozen and it's fresh green wood with leaves)
saw for firewood
mushroom inoculation of fresh logs

any other suggestions?

Logging / Woodworking

We had a 100 mph, 30 minute wind event, where we live along Illinois shore, Mississippi River Bluffs (vicinity Andalusia, Illinois) in July 2008. It did extensive damage to our mostly timber farm of oaks, walnut, hickory, black cherry, sycamore, green ash, black locus, honey locus....etc

We have to give credit to that event that lead us to pursuing permaculture with much more passion.

Besides your listed possibilities we pursued having marketable damaged trees logged and saving the remaining for our own slabbing (Alaskan Chainsaw Mill) and using for our woodworking.

http://hines.blogspot.com/2011/01/hines-farm-woodworking-activity.html is one link of many, at our Hines Farm Blog which illustrates the use of storm damaged trees for our enjoyable hobby/future source of income. We love making DIY tools to better utilize our salvaged timber --> http://hines.blogspot.com/2011/12/hines-farm-homemade-diy-band-saw-sled.html --> http://hines.blogspot.com/2011/11/chainsaw-saw-milling-slabbing-logs.html --> http://hines.blogspot.com/2011/12/chainsaw-slabbing-logs-12-9-2011.html

Regards and Respect to All,
Monte & Eileen Hines

Picture of a couple of our future:

hugel beds

--> http://i.imgur.com/1fuHz.jpg