Just plain gorgeous.

If a photograph is worth 1,000 words the photo (see above) is about 994 words shy of keeping up.

I figure most people see: forest, land, snow, sky, stumps, and slash. (Sorry GnR fans). Slash, in this case, are the tops of trees left on the forest floor after a cutting meant to return nutrients to the soil.

I doubt Deval Patrick is in a hurry to give me an award for this improvemnt cutting but my forester (who knows a thing or two about what's going on here) was quick to praise me for my invasive species removal (last summer) and to point out what an amazing job the loggers did.

And someday (not today or tomorrow) I might become smart enough to tell you a little bit more about what's going on here. Suffice to say: this improvement cutting accomplished exactly what I wanted it to.

I got rid of acres of scrub pine that was choking the forest, thereby allowing more light in so that all the really terrific trees can grow up to be big and strong. I know full-well that I might not live to see the next scheduled harvest in 30 or 40 years. But you can be damn sure that my heirs are going to be able to cash in on a seriously healthy and beautiful forest and if I've done my job really-well, he or she (the heirs that is) will follow in my footsteps and if we keep this up, this tract of forest will remain beautiful for another 200 years or so. And in 2211 ain't nobody going to be recollecting my back-breaking summer of bittersweet removal. And that's fine by me.