huge pile of branches put up for kindling

well we had an arborist here 3 years ago and he cut a lot of dead branches off a huge oak tree out front..but we were way too busy to get the stuff removed from the pile..so they just sat there..ugly and a home for critters..

well this weekend i went out and started breaking up sticks and cutting up larger branches and stacking them on the pick up and in wheelborrows..we had the pick up bed entirely full and 4 wheel borrow loads and got them all stacked into the wood shed neatly overnight (Ron did that).

so now we have more than a cord and a half of kindling wood put up..there is still a tiny pile of sticks..monotonous picking up sticks..but will get that cleaned up before winter if i can ..rain moving in today for the entire week. Also got the lawn mowed so i'm 2 steps farther ahead toward winter ready.

Sooooo.... did you find any critters?  Snakes, spiders, you can tell us....


I'm impressed with your facing-of-the-pile! 
Because of an Indian summer I'm still in shock over falls sudden arrival.  I haven't adjusted yet.  I do have to get out there  maybe this week.

Thanks for the motivation.

~Jami

the chainsaws probably scared all the critters away out the back side..tee hee..i did find one small grass nest, very small..not much bigger than a hens egg..with a depression in the center  similar to a bird nest..not sure what was in it, maybe a hummer.

but nope..didn't find anything in the pile.

we have lots of piles around the house..we tend to keep large piles for the wildlife..but this one was intended to be cut up.

also our neighbors just rented an industrial chipper for 4 days last week and chipped up dozens of huge piles on their property (wish i had those chips but they used them)..so i imagine a lot of critters got displaced during that..feel bad for them just before winter..but as i say..we have a lot of piles around here that they can find new homes in before winter.

in the edge of our woods i pile things that we don't like to break up for kindling..like roses adn thorney bushes...and then we also pile some of the perennials that we cut down from our garden along the edges of tghe fiels..kinda so the seeds of the flowers will spread into the fields..but also so that animals can use the piles..the deer really love mallow family like mallow, hollyhocks, etc.

we also have stone and cement pikles, compost piles, leaf piles..etc.

we did get all the kindling into the woodshed and it has provided us with some quick start for our fires now..thank God..as we were out of kindling in there..