Making Fenceposts, Splitting Rails

In the Northeast Kingdom, "rich farms" were those with enough white cedar to make fenceposts--by that definition, we are a "rich farm"! Today, students began the hard work of processing logs on the landing; sorting logs that will go to our sawmill, cedar that will be processed into fenceposts or split rails, and soft-wood pulp. Here, students learn to sharpen a cedar post and use a series of three wedges to split apart a stem into four posts. Our farm replaces roughly 200 fenceposts per year; the life expectancy of a cedar fencepost is roughly 10 years. As we learned today, "good fences make good neighbors", with students working this hard, we should have many good neighbors for years to come.