Recent content by Swampwalker

Ionia county

I’m in west Michigan. We’ve had badger on and off our place for quite a few years. Maybe 8 years ago I set up a camera on a den entrance in the side of a ridge on our place and kept the camera on the den entrance for about a year. At first I got regular pictures of the badger for a while and...

I spend the most time doing TSI/firewood cutting. I cut about 10 cords of firewood each year and since running out of dead ash about 6 years ago I’ve been concentrating on TSI when cutting my firewood.

All my tractors have been open station so I guess I may not know what I’m missing. Being retired a lot of the times I have the luxury of being able to just not get on the tractor if it’s too hot or cold. Part of me not getting a cab is what SwampCat talked about in an earlier post. I enjoy...

I switched from a regular geared to a hydro tractor a couple of years ago and for the type of things I use it for I’ll take the hydro any day. For me it’s way nicer when doing loader work or when using the forks or grapple on the loader. The hydro just makes things easier and thus more...

The EAB came through our part of Michigan about 20 years ago. When we bought this place 12 years ago most of the ash was already dead. Our swampy creek bottom, which occasionally gets flooded, was probably 60% black ash. The remaining trees in the swamp are mostly red maple with some sycamore...

I’ve been heating with wood for about 30 years now. The outdoor wood boiler takes about 10 cords a season to heat the old farmhouse however the last couple of years we used about 8.5 cords. Due to the amount of poison ivy in our woods I do all my cutting during the winter. I’ve gone through all...