Gardening Tips: Turkey hunting is taking precedence over chores

October is quickly winding down and so is my remaining time here in the beautiful Catskill mountain region this year. In a little over two weeks I will be returning to sunny Florida for the next five months.

I am looking forward to seeing my kids and grandkids once again, but I am not anxious to leave here, just yet. I have been in the woods turkey hunting most days since the season opened last Saturday. Although I have yet to even see a turkey in the woods this fall, I am still optimistic that I will get lucky if I put the time in. Last fall, I miraculously shot a gobbler on the final day of the fall season, at 5 p.m.

I hope I get a chance before then, because the fact is that I am obsessed with stalking these wary birds and I will not finish any chores at home as long as I can spend my time hunting.

My garden still needs to be cleaned up and I have not harvested my potatoes or Brussels sprouts yet. I also need to transplant some Wasabi plants that have been growing in pots all summer long under my picnic table, as well as some Maidenhair fern that a friend dug up for me.

Maidenhair fern is my favorite fern and it is also the most common companion plant to wild ginseng.

I really don’t have a wet, shady spot that these plants prefer to grow in, but I may try them in my new front garden if I can plant something taller near them to supply some shade.

The emerald ash borer has killed most of the ash trees near my house, which has provided a great source of nearby firewood for me. Since I have become a snowbird, I only need about two face cords of firewood to get me through the fall and the chilly spring when I return.

I used to burn close to four full cords each winter and I still froze my toes off when it got really cold in January, February and March.

My tiny shack on a north facing hill was never designed to be occupied during the winter and I don’t miss the snow, ice and sleet at all.

For those of you buying firewood, a face cord is defined as a stack of wood that is four foot high, by eight feet long but only as wide as the average length of the wood in it. A full cord of firewood is four foot high, by eight feet long by four feet wide, for a total of 128 cubic feet.

I don’t think suburban residents should be relying on wood as their main winter fuel these days. Wood smoke is a serious air pollutant and a proven health risk for those who breathe it on a regular basis.

School kids waiting for the bus should not have to be exposed to a cloud of wood smoke caused by a neighborhood of homes burning wood in a stove. When atmospheric conditions are right, this is precisely what occurs. There was a time, back in the late 1970s, when the cost of fuel oil and gas suddenly tripled, or quadrupled due to political issues.

Many people, including myself, made the decision to switch to burning wood because it was an economic necessity back then. I still rely on wood for much of my home heating, but my nearest neighbor is one half mile away and there are no kids waiting for school buses on my dirt road.

I never thought I would say this, but I now think that wood burning stoves or furnaces should not be allowed at all in heavily populated suburban areas.

An open fireplace is a different story and I think that people should be allowed to enjoy the glow and radiant heat of fireplace on occasion, but not as a main source for home heating.

The price of oil or other fossil fuels is now pretty much comparable to the price of firewood, so there is really no economic justification for this practice today.

It is also important to avoid moving any firewood from one location to another, such as from upstate New York to downstate or New Jersey.

The threat of introducing serious tree killing pests such as the Emerald Ash borer is real and not something to take lightly. Weekend or summer residents should never procure firewood up here and take it back to their downstate residences. Not only is this a bad idea, but it is also illegal and can subject violators to some serious fines if they get caught.

Reach Bob Beyfuss at rlb14@cornell.edu.