Annual Firewood Cutting

We went firewood cutting up on the base of Mt. Adams in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest last week, and it was extremely fun, to say the least, as we picked wild huckleberries and wild blueberries.  The berry fields were picked clean, but all over in the forest they were thick, so we got a bunch of berries in the end.

Dad laughed at me, because I took pictures of absolutely nothing, but random pine trees, but I did so you could see how thick the forest was.

Driving down the wood-cutting road...

As we were driving we saw this cool old corral thing with a little cabin, and we drove around it to get a better look.  I took the pictures while inside the truck, so they are a little blurry.

Dad was insistent about getting only Red Fir, so we had to drive all over because everything that was down was Whit Fir.  We finally found a Red Fir log that wasn't rotted, and started cutting.

A huge mushroom growing on a stump

Two cool Oak trees that grew in a weird twisty shape

Back on the road...

Another tree we found next to a creek

A huge tree had blown down and I got Dock to stand in front of the rootball for size comparison (Dock's 6 feet tall).

Then on the way home we had a beautiful view of Mt. Adams.  I took these pictures while we were driving by.

We also passed this pretty white farmhouse next to a creek

An interesting A-frame shed thing

A barn

A cool log cabin

That was last Friday.  Saturday we drove all the way back up and stopped by Goose Lake.  It was really pretty and an ideal camping spot.

Mom and I

Going to the lava beds

Lava

A piece of lava

A little fir tree growing out of lava rock

A strange plant 

Then Dad took us to Thomas Lake.  You had to walk about a half mile to get their on a pretty trail, and it was very fun.

The trail

Thomas Lake (another ideal camping spot)

There was a ton of cute, chubby tadpoles in the water

 Going back down the trail

On the way back to the truck we saw the tip of Mt. Saint Helens!

You can barely see it here

Wild Blueberries

Wild Huckleberries

As we were picking I happened upon finding this spot where the ground dipped significantly and there was a carpet of moss growing.

Then we stopped by a big tree hoping it would be Red Fir but it ended up being Hemlock.  Dad said we would take it anyways.  We began to cut it up when we ran into trouble.  Every single chainsaw that we had that worked got stuck (We had three)!  

While Dock took the chainsaw that didn't work and started to mechanic on it, Dad and I got the chainsaws out by taking the actual saw off the bar (leaving the bar stuck in the tree)... 

Working the bar out of the tree, and taking a little tree trunk to pry the chains out.

Dad putting the chainsaws back together

Lifting them into the truck was hard work.  The rounds were huge!

The berries

There were also wild strawberries everywhere, but none had berries until the area by the tree.  The berries were delicious! I have never had a better, sweeter strawberry than these wild ones were.

A cool bunch of grass

I was hoping to be able to upload videos of me playing violin but I can't through Blogger, so I'll have to go through YouTube, and I don't know when I'll get around to doing that, so that's post-poned. 

We'll be going wood cutting again tomorrow, so keep watching for more posts!