Early on a frosty morning. It was prettier than my pictures capture. I spent the day cutting around the little longleaf, as you see in the picture.
I cut a path along the SMZ after that. We are planning to burn the middle acres this winter and I want to back the fire down to the little stream, but I also want to make sure that we can get around easily so nothing goes wrong, hence the path. It was mostly clear, since the big trees shade out most of the undergrowth, but I cut through a few fallen trees and lots of green briar. Green briar is like natural barbed wire. It hangs from the trees and can stop anybody trying to walk along the stream side. This is bad enough when you are just walking; it might be a bigger problem when you are carrying a burning jug of diesel/gas mix.
First three pictures are from the morning. The frost made pretty pictures. I planted the little longleaf in picture #1 last year. The loblolly were planted in 2016 and are doing well. Picture #4 is the SMZ. We can burn down to the stream. We did this last year on the other side and it worked well. Last picture is the end of the day. It gets dark earlier now.