The Walden Effect: Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

Root mass autopsy

close up of a root mass within hours of tipping over


A mild storm last night took down one of our large walnut trees.

Nice of it to fall away from the driveway instead of over it.

Anna did a quick root mass autopsy which revealed a rotted out tap root. I'm guessing this will provide enough firewood to keep us warm for a couple of months or more.



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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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root mass autopsy
I was wondering if you dig out the stump/root and have a big hole to put a galvanized trash can in for a small root cellar. Would that work on your property or is the ground too wet?
Comment by Mona — Fri Aug 10 22:33:58 2012
Pits and mounds
Mona --- You can't tell in the photo, but this is along the wettest part of our driveway. The hole created by the root mass is two thirds of the way full of standing water currently.... :-)
Comment by anna — Sat Aug 11 06:20:26 2012
Firewood
Seems a shame to use walnut for firewood. Maybe you could swap it for some seasoned firewood to someone who wants lumber?
Comment by James Slate — Sun Aug 12 01:30:46 2012
Walnut for firewood
James --- We run up against that a lot since our only common hardwood in the accessible parts of our property is walnut. Trying to haul one prime log out through our swamp just never seems to be worth anyone's while, so we go ahead and burn it.
Comment by anna — Sun Aug 12 08:24:33 2012
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