Lumberjack

After a handful of trees were down, it started to get real crowded in the plot so I chopped the trees up into 175 cm sections to be hauled over to the north side. I was thinking I could reinforce the northern wall with the logs.

But before that, I took a couple of selfies...

Cheese!

Fuck you, Greta!

Here is what the north wall looked like after the first day. I ran out of gas and also my own energy after dragging/tipping/rolling the logs over to north side.

Not bad..

From the other side

Cutting down sugis

Over the weekend I took my Husqvarna chainsaw along and went to work with the trees in the bamboo plot. Here are a couple of shots of what the plot looked like before I went to town.

Before! Took this from south side

Same spot, viewed from east

I figured I should start with the easy ones and work my way up, so I cut down the smallest sugis which leaned inwards first. Not so many of those though so I quickly got my hands on the heavier stuff...

A couple trees down

Here is a pic of one of the biggest ones.

Big log

Thanks to the chainsaw being new, it went pretty smoothly, except for one of the smaller ones that was leaning outward. I hadn't brought my wedges so it fell over in the neighbor's plot. Luckily it didn't hit any trees or caused any damage so I quickly chopped it up and cleared it away.

A count of the rings showed that all these trees, regardless of their girth, are more or less of same age, about the same age as me.

I took some nice pictures of the rings while I was counting so I dump them here...

Rings

more rings

I chopped the logs up for later

Close up of rings

Xmas work

Over the holidays, we had quite a few nice and sunny days. I went to the woods almost each of those days, but the working pace and duration differed a lot. Worst/shortest were the days when some neighbor also would show up and start burning stuff in their plot. The smoke does not go well with physically taxing work so I would start panting after maybe an hour and just have to give up and go home.
Anyway, what I did was I stacked all the bamboo in the middle of my plot so that later I could be able to fell sugi trees and also reach along the north wall with a hoe and dig without having to move the bamboo too much. I also cleared all the branches and extra big bamboos that were lying along the north, to avoid misunderstanding about where my plot begins. Some of the more heavy duty bamboos from there I moved all the way to the other plot and laid along its borders.

Taken from south west corner

Even though I haven't really started doing anything in that plot, it already looks much nicer with the borders.

And this is the south east corner looking north 

Back to the bamboo plot, I was ready to go up the north hill and chop down bamboos that look threatening. Which means pretty much all of them.

Bamboo plot. Taken from west side looking in to north

The bamboo plot is really starting to look clean. One sign that it can almost pass as workable land was when I met Mr. O and he asked me: "So, what are you gonna plant in your land?"

A bit closer. This is where I plan to dig and plant first 

Taken from east looking north

However, after a couple of days I started realizing what a tough tough task it is to clean the north plot of bamboos. First, my electric chainsaw is starting to act bad. The batteries only hold about half an hour of charge after charging for 2 hours. And it doesn't have the same power as before, plus its chain is starting to go dull. So each time I went with a "fully" charged chainsaw I could just cut down 10 bamboos and then have to do the rest by hand saw.
Second, the number of bamboos in that particular area is way more than I thought. And third, the bamboo that are standing are pretty old and thick and very hard to cut down by hand and very heavy to haul uphills afterward.
All of this made me adopt a new strategy/policy when it comes to the north neighbor.
What I have cut down so far is fine, I also spent one day to cut down all the younger bamboos there (i.e. thinner than ca. 15 cm) so that no more addition should happen. And every year I will keep cutting down the new shoots. The remaining old ones will eventually die and start falling one by one, which should be manageable. When they dry up and die, they are not as heavy, and if they fall one at at a time, the risk of them falling over to the south is low, and in those cases, risk of them hitting something is even lower. So whenever I find a fallen bamboo I will just return it to the north.

After cutting some of the bamboo 

Same thing, from farther away

The north neighboring plot is pretty much in the same messy state I found it. But now it doesn't lean over my plot as much, plus with my plan it should actually empty itself of bamboo and replace them with some other more bush like plants. And the new bamboos I hauled up and laid there recently should discourage the random bamboo shoot foragers who pop up there cause that area is pretty dangerous to walk in. It wasn't safe before neither but now it actually looks as dangerous as it was.

Cleared the branches

Finally, moved all the branches from north side of my plot and stacked them along the slope of my other plot.

The slope, before

Two birds with one stone. The other plot's north border is more distinguished, and I also cleaned some garbage from my other plot and buried under the new branch wall. At the same time, north border of my bamboo plot is clear and I can access the bamboo logs that are lined along it.

The slope, after

Hauling over all the branches over to the other plot was such a boring job but somehow I finished it within a couple of days.

The bamboo plot, after

At the same time, I started stacking bamboos a little more to the south, inside the plot. My plan is to be able to drive behind the stacks along the north "wall" with a small backhoe/digger. The whole plot is now clear from bamboos and weeds, and I also made the borders nicer. All I need to do now is to move the stacks more towards the middle (already started with that) and after that, cut down all the bamboo in the neighboring plot to the north (as agreed with the owner) and dump them right there.
After that, I shall cut down all the sugi trees (except one) and when that is done, I can start digging out bamboo roots starting in the north, and then plant tree saplings row by row, starting in north.

Nice east border, taken from south east corner

Below is a picture of the whole plot taken from afar. I have taken a couple other pictures from the same spot before so it is easy to compare the progress so far. For example going back almost a year ago the picture from same spot showed a plot overgrown with bamboos.

I hate bamboos

Back to reality

OK, so I am still cleaning the bamboo plot. A couple days' work and the plot is now almost all clear.

Just the stuff in the north left

After I stacked the bamboo neatly and bunched the branches/twigs next to it, I was left with a whole lot of too short or too heavy or half rotten old bamboo that I can neither burn nor stack nor just leave around. It was A LOT. So I just dumped it all over the bamboo lands to the south. No one is maintaining those parts anyway, plus the bamboo on those lands fall over every now and then and I felt like I am returning years' worth of all that back to those plots.

Looking south at the dumpy bamboo lands

Believe it or not, there was barely any difference between before I dumped my bamboo in there and after. It almost looked the same after.
As for the branches and bamboo I have stacked in the north, as mentioned before I have to put them somewhere else for now, so I can access the north bamboo plot to cut down trees.
Looked around and suddenly a genius idea hit me: I'm gonna haul over all the branches and most of the stacked bamboo to my other plot, and line them up not on my land, but on the public strip of land to its north.

This is where I will be dumping my stuff

I had a look just to make sure it was doable, and yep, as the picture shows, there is room in the north of my west plot. I just clean it up a little and start moving shit there.

Zoomed in a bit more. This is the slope.

There's already some garbage dumped there anyway. A couple of rusty small gasoline/oil cans, lots of plastic and foam boxes here and there. So I guess it is an accepted dump site. It is "public land" meaning that it is owned by 200 people so I assume it's all on paper and no one owns it actually... 

Looking over to the other plot

Just a few pictures of the other plot as it is right now. Pretty messy... but I have to start thinking about it sooner or later.
First a map I kinda made...

nice ain't it?

The big O in the middle is Mr.O's land. "East Plot" is my bamboo land where I have been working so far. And "West Plot" is my other plot. The red line is the path which belongs to the city, and the green is the 1-2 meters wide sloped strip owned by like 200 people.
Now the pictures, of W.P.

Took this pic facing west from O.

Here are the logs my nice neighbor dumped in my plot

standing in the path, facing N.E.

Not only logs to clear out but also heavy weedage

Taken from the path, facing north, from the S.W. corner

You can see in the last pic the difference between the field to my west (clean land on the left in the pic) and my plot (the messy rest)
There's a whole lot of work to do here. Luckily it's not a bamboo land cause I cannot take any more dealing with bamboos....

Re-planning just a little bit

I've been cleaning the forest little by little, and thinking how to proceed...so here is a summary of what I have decided so far.

The plot as it looked in middle of November

The north part is getting a bit messy, cause I have moved everything that needed postponing over along that border. There is lots of bamboo branches that I put there from the middle of the plot, then there are 2-3 neat stacks of bamboo, and behind those we got more bamboo which I originally put there to use as separator/wall.
With the branches and the stacks, it is easy to misunderstand where my plot begins cause the slope which marks the border is now hidden beneath/behind all the stuff. So I decided I should clear all that, and put it all somewhere more appropriate.
The branches should go all the way around the plot's borders, and the stacks of bamboo of course should be burned. But while they are waiting their turn to be burned, they should be moved a little more to the middle.
I went over to the owner of the north grove, who is an extremely old guy who mumbled and swallowed every other word when he talked. I explained the situation for him and asked him permission to cut down bamboo that looks like it will fall over onto my land, and he said OK. But he wanted to know how far in I will be cutting, and I said 10 meters (cause the bamboo are 10 meters tall, so to be safe from falling bamboo I should clear 10 meters in) which scared him, so he said no, 10 meters is too much as his land is 10 meters deep, and I should cut only bamboo that threatens to fall. Hmm, his land is at least 40 meters deep on the map so I am not sure if it is the Alzheimer talking...
There is actually a 2 meter wide strip between my land and his land which is public land, so I guess 10 meters measured from my land would mean 8 meters into his land, so I will not be cutting 10 meters, which should keep him happy. I told him that he can check the progress and let me know if it is not to his liking. I think I am being very nice to offer to clear out his messy land, which he clearly doesn't have the energy to do. He said he doesn't want to sell the land by the way, he he.

fallen bamboo reaches middle of my land

I started to fell a few bamboos on the edge, and as they fell I could see that they reached a couple of meters past where the barrel is now. So yeah, I will need to cut that far in.
There is another reason I need to tidy up the north part of my land. As it is now, I can almost not enter the old guy's land as I am blocked by everything I put there. I can kind of climb into his land from the sides, but those paths are extra messy and difficult to get through.

Just an example of how messy his grove is

I'd rather just walk up from the middle cause I have cut away a little there already and cleared a kind of path.

View of my land from inside the grove

Once I move away all the stuff from there, I should only have a tiny bit of wall to climb to get into the grove, and can cut all the bamboo there and put it neatly among the rest of the mess inside the grove.

The wall/fence I made originally

The fence I made before is actually pretty tidy. Too bad it is hidden behind all the crap I put there.
Anyway, that is what I will be doing in the weeks to come. Eventually when I run out of bamboo to cut I shall move to cutting sugis and later to digging the ground.

The plot, beginning of December

I have not burned anything in a long while because I am waiting for a good mask/filter to wear to protect me from the smoke and particles. The surgery mask I wore before so far blocked nothing so I got a bad cough for a couple of weeks.
As bonus, here are a couple of pictures showing how new life is breaking down the old fallen sugi trees and branches.

Sugi stump

The sugi stump had all sorts of mushrooms and moss and stuff growing out of it, and just turned to mush when I kicked it lightly. Good job nature.

Sugi branch

There is this kind of weed that grows on the surface of the fallen sugi branches. It has very shallow roots running along the surface, and the leafs are pretty long.