We heard and felt the big pin oak go down last night around 11 P. It shook the house, and at first I thought it was thunder, but then realized it wasn't thunder. I checked the porch with a flashlight, thinking a varmint had knocked something down, but the porch was all clear.
Sheba says: Somebody wants to bury an awfully big bone!"
Most of the crown is stuck in the bottom of the pond. We will have to hire a Cat with a winch to pull this sucker out of there.
That's a lot of wood to pull out, isn't it?!
We had a pin oak prediction pool with one entrant:
Merle is the winner, since he was the only one who stuck his neck out! We will think of something for a prize....
We moved a basswood volunteer today and broke out the video camera to share it with you. Hand planting seedlings is easy once you learn the moves. It works best before middle-age-spread sets in, though.
From Valinda Rowe, of Illinois Carry: Springfield Armory's commemorative model to memorialize selling out their customer base, IL gun shops and gun owners this week by giving up the fight against SB1657 Dealer Licensing bill. Only cost 30 pieces of silver (votes). If you are attending the NRA Annual Meeting, drop by the booths of these two Illinois companies and drop a dime for them. Let them know that you know!
SB1657 passed out of the Senate yesterday with 30 votes - after Springfield Armory and Rock River Arms withdrew their opposition, in exchange they were exempted from being affected by the bill. Valinda Rowe.
...and several of them dead. Click It scares me to go into St. Louis nowadays. About forty years ago I drove through St. Louis on my way to East Kentucky, and it was late at night. Going over the Mississippi, a car got on my tail and I could see when we passed lights that there were three big Afro haircuts in that car. They followed me well into Illinois, and it gave me an educational scare. I did learn from this that I can load a single action revolver in the dark while I am driving 55 MPH, with someone on my tail. They finally backed off and I keep my head on a swivel to this day. Be alert, be prepared, stay alive. Here are a couple of Colin Flaherty's latest videos.
805 RoadKing is a great YouTuber, making lots of videos of cool engine projects. This video is the final one of a series where the Road King turns a 1951 Briggs into a nifty hit-and-miss engine with a beautiful governor assembly.
Road King's current project is building a water-cooled Briggs engine, and it is equally as cool as this project. Here is the play list if you want to see the process that this engine went through: LINK
Joshua Rifkin channels Scott Joplin. I've never heard anyone who could play these songs better. I first heard these renditions forty-five years ago, and they are still my favorites. We feel like winners today. It's been a beautiful Sunday, and I had a great nature walk around the pond. No alarm for Monday! Winner!
That's a line that foresters learn from other foresters, and from experience. Our little pine stand is shortleaf that was planted sixty some years ago, and we enjoy watching the sun set behind them in the evenings. There is a problem, though. The pines have been dying at an alarming rate, and oaks; mostly white oaks, are filling the gaps. We now officially have an oak-pine stand, something that you will see in the Ozarks where there is an occasional fire. It is a timber type that requires fire for long term maintenance. It's a good thing I am now retired.
This spring and summer I will be doing chainsaw work to move heavy fuel away from trees that I do not want to be harmed, and then I hope to get the first burn in this fall. What is happening is this; oaks have seeded in with the help of mottled sunlight coming through the pine stand, and the pines have not been reseeding themselves because the need a fire to create a seedbed. I should have been working on this for the last five years, but you know the cobbler's kids never have good shoes.
...than it was when I was a kid. Our renter tilled this 40 in the morning and planted it in the afternoon. Boy have things changed! I remember my parents reading in the newspaper when I was a kid that John Deere was discontinuing the 2-cylinder engines and was going to inline engines like the other manufacturers were building. I thought the World was coming to an end! I have loved that sound all my life, so here's a little bit of that, just for fun.
...needs to take a class. Here are the basics for looking at lean/weight on a tree and figuring out if you can handle it, or need to call a guy with a bucket truck. (If a tree has a chance for hitting an improvement, you don't take chances! You call the guy with the truck!)
Lean Limit Basics
There is an easy set of
guidelines for limits of lean you can handle on a tree you need to fall.
Measure the distance from the back of the hinge to the back of the stump. Say
it's 1 foot. That will be your segment length. Measure the height of the tree.
If it is 50 feet tall you have a 50 segment tree. On 50 segment trees the limit
on back lean you can handle with wedges is about 10 feet. (Not Fun!) That is
true if the wood is solid and has good fiber strength. Eastern hemlock will be
much less than that. Old black oak may be much less. Every tree has its own secrets. If it's taller by 10 feet, that's a 60 segment tree. Now the limit is about 8 feet. If it's shorter by 10
feet to 40 segments, the limit is about 12 feet. Tipping trees near the
limit is hard, and the hinge may fail, making the tree go over backwards. A
1" wedge will move the top of a 50 segment tree 50 inches; two stacked
1" wedges can move the top 100 inches. Figure your height and number of
segments on all trees that need wedging over and you will know if you can get
it with the thickness of one wedge. Use parallel wedges to increase your
lift. Three side-by-side wedges will
push three times as much weight as one wedge.
Your most important
application of this skill is to know your limits on side lean, so you don't
have the hinge fail. If 10 feet is the limit for back lean on a tree, the limit
for side lean is less than 1/2 of that! That is because back lean is pulling
equally across the hinge, but side lean is pulling hard on 1/2, and compressing
the other half. Going too far on side lean will cause the hinge to fail, so
don't push that at all. Watch some videos where people have side lean and do
not pull against it. The tree will go where it wants! Look at all your trees
from two vantage points to make a quadrant for weight and lean. You will then
know within 90° where that tree will go if it is severed. You need to know that
in case the hinge should fail you; then you will know where to step to avoid
being crushed.
How do you determine the
amount of lean? Step way back from the tree, at 90° from the fall line. Put
your hands up in front of you and surround the crown. Bring your eye to the
middle, and bring a line straight down. Note that spot, go to it and pace in to
the stump (or measure).
PS: It looks like about 8 feet of back lean on this tree, and he probably could have wedged it over, but he used only one wedge. You cannot pound one wedge against that much weight. Instead, he cut the hinge thinner from the front, with predictable results. If only he had watched a few of my videos he could proudly say, "I'm a logger!"
Ruger's offering this week is a Blackhawk Convertible made for Buckeye Firearms in .32-20/ .32 H & R Magnum in 1989. It is up over $1000 already as I post this; who would have guessed that a rollmarked buckeye leaf would be such a hot item? CLICK HERE to read all about it and to place that winning bid. This fine revolver will sell mid-day April 19, 2017. (Patriots' Day + 242 years!)
I used to run across old orchard sprayers like these on my walks, but haven't seen any lately. They have been sucked up by high scrap prices, I guess. I saw a good one almost thirty years ago in deep Southern Illinois that had a restorable Fairbanks Dishpan engine, but the owner did not want to sell. You will see a pretty good variety of engine makes on orchard sprayers, and believe it or not, the USGS has maps made showing the orchard locations from the Twenties to the Sixties because of possible soil contamination from arsenic, lead, and copper. You have to wonder how farmers survived when they were spraying arsenic insecticide and getting it all over themselves. Anyway, here are a few old sprayers with different engines for your viewing pleasure.
...at a pace for seniors. Back when this was written, Teddy Roosevelt was still a force in the world, and he promoted "The Strenuous Life". Lived it, too. Cory's rendition is a bit sedate for me, but heck, I'm 65 now, and I'm not setting my alarm in the morning!
The Carmi
Rifle Club in Carmi, IL will be hosting its annual NRA Women On Target
instructional shooting clinic for women on Saturday, May 6, 2017. The day will
begin with registration at 8:30 A.M., followed with firearm safety orientation
and instructional sessions for shotgun, .22 caliber handgun in the morning, and
rifles and centerfire handguns in the afternoon. Participants will be
treated to a picnic lunch. The purpose of the clinic is to provide
training in the safe handling of shotguns, rifles and pistols in a relaxing,
non-competitive, and fun filled environment. The clinic will conclude at
approximately 3 P.M. Firearms, ammunition, targets and lunch will be provided
by the club. The event is made possible in part by the Friends of the NRA
Foundation.
The event will be supervised by NRA certified instructors and range safety
officers as well as experienced club members. The club is located north of
Carmi on County Road 1250 E, just off Illinois Highway 1.
Registration for the clinic costs $30 per participant. Pre-registration is required. To register, contact Valinda Rowe at
Six One Eight-Nine Six Three-Two Seven Eight Eight, or send an email to VRowe
(at) mvrowe (dot) com.
Last year our resident geese were not successful. We never saw the first gosling. We have coons, possums, skunks, and coyotes all competing for eggs and baby geese to eat. We knew that the geese were setting, because we have been seeing only one at a time. Today the babies appeared, and they sure are cute. Now, if they can avoid snapping turtles, they might have a chance to grow up.
Go Here. There is a mistake in the caption under the photo with this article. It says the bill allows anyone entering the capitol to carry. The bill actually allows persons who have a carry permit to carry in public buildings.
Here's a very special deal from Ruger this week! These Mk II pistols have consecutive serial numbers, and are prototypes for the training pistols that Ruger would make for the U.S. Army. The U.S. mark is larger than on the production model. This set has jumped from $350 to $2583.66 in 18 bids. These collector pieces will sell mid-day, April 12, 2017. CLICK HERE to read all about it and to place your bid. $4050!!!! Holy Cow!
If you fool around with old machines you will encounter poured babbit bearings, and you may have to make some yourself. I poured the rod bearing for the 9 HP Economy that you see in Gary Bahre's engine shed. Zeke helped my do that when he was just a little guy. Gary had to pour a new rod bearing for the Bessemer 8 HP engine after the new rod was built. I have poured many wire rope sockets with babbit, back when I mechanicked for a living. The MadMailer has just posted a good video showing a challenging project, and he says there will be a part II, so stay tuned.
We're cutting wood while the weather is still cool, and the ticks aren't very thick. Here's a nearly dead blue spruce we worked up for next winter's kindling. Made a lot of stove wood today, too.
Click on the first pic and look up in the fork on the right tree (black oak snag). Do you spot things like this when you are out in the woods? Landowners are always amazed when I point out the animals hiding overhead, and I really don't know why these things stand out to me. I trip a lot when I'm in the woods because I do look up more than I look down.
Here it is. We seem to be covered up in coons the last few years.
Not too many people hunt or trap them now, and the numbers are really up.
Coons, skunks, possums, and coyotes are all nest predators, sucking eggs and eating baby birds. I think the depression in the fur market is the reason that we are seeing fewer wild turkeys the last few years.
Here's another one, up in a squirrel's leaf nest in a hickory tree. Squirrels like to suck eggs, too, and not very many people hunt squirrels. Funny thing about these coons. You can whistle, yell, stomp, and they just go right on taking their nap. Squirrels will scoot around a tree and try to stay out of sight, but coons don't care.
This week Ruger is offering a 1977 Convertible Blackhawk in .357 Magnum/9mm. These are great guns, and it's one you can shoot and not worry about buying a safe queen. It sells mid-day, April 5, 2017. Click Here to read all about it and to place your bid. $735
You can read all about the Dornier DO-X on Wikipedia. It was first built with twelve 524 HP engines, which were swapped out for 610 HP Curtiss water-cooled V-12 engines, so the plane could reach a safe cruising altitude. There were only three built, and there were many problems, but it was important from a pioneering and engineering standpoint. This radio-controlled model appears much more airworthy than the original planes.
Our daffodils have been beautiful this year, but they are just about done now. I took these photos last week, and I could have taken more today, but I spared you and stifled the urge.
Firearms; Col. Jeff Cooper's Rules 1. All guns are always loaded. 2. Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy. 3. Keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to shoot. 4. Be sure of your target and what lies beyond it.
Knives 1. Never cut toward yourself. 2. Always cut away from yourself. 3. Never cut yourself.
AND If you drop a knife or gun, let it fall!
Chainsaws
1. Always wear your safety gear when running your saw: hard hat, eye, face, hearing protection, cut resistant protection for your legs, heavy boots, gloves (depending on work conditions).
2. Safety devices on the saw must be in working order: front hand guard,chain brake, chain catcher, throttle lockout, and right hand guard.
3. Hold the saw on the ground or lock it between your knees for starting. No 'Drop Starts.' Set the chain brake before cranking.
4. The engine must idle reliably without turning the chain.
5. The chain must be sharpened properly, including properly set depth gauges.
6. The chain must be adjusted to remove slack and still run freely.
7. The operator must understand the forces on different parts of the bar as the saw runs: push, pull, kickback and attack.
8. Both hands must always be on the saw when the chain is running. The thumbs must be wrapped around the handles. Both feet should be firmly planted on the ground.
9. The operator must always know where the end of the bar is, and what it's doing.
10. Don't let the upper (kickback) corner of the bar contact anything when the chain is running unless the tip has been buried with the lower corner.
11. Let off of the throttle before pulling out of a pinch on the top part of the bar.
12. Make a plan for every tree you cut. Assess hazards, lean, escape routes, forward cuts, and back cuts. Evaluate the forward or backward lean, and the side lean of every tree you cut. Know your limits.
13. Clear your work area and your escape path of brush, vines, and other hazards that can trip you or catch your saw.
14. Escape from the bullseye when the tree tips. 90% of accidents happen within 12 feet of the stump. Go more than 15 feet, and stay out of the bullseye until things stop falling.
15. Keep spectators away more than twice the height of the tree in the direction it will fall.
16. Don't cut alone.
17. Keep your body and the swamper's out of the line of the bar in case of a kickback.
18. Set the brake when taking over two steps or when moving through tripping hazards. Keep your trigger finger off of the throttle when you are moving.
19. DO NOT operate a chainsaw from a ladder! Operating with your feet off the ground requires special training.
20. Do not cut above your shoulders.
21. Springpoles must be shaved on the inside of the apex between the ascending and descending sides. If the apex is higher than you shoulders, stand under the springpole and cut it low on the descending side. It will release upward, away from you.Leaning and heavily loaded poles that are too small to bore cut for a hinge should be shaved on the compressed side until they fold.
22. Do not cut a tree that is holding up a lodged tree. Do not work under a lodged tree. Think about a mouse trying to steal the cheese out of a trap.
23. Instruct your swampers and helpers to NEVER approach you from behind or the sides to within the reach of your saw when you are cutting. If you pull out of a cut with the chain running, or have a severe kickback, the swamper can be killed if he is coming up behind you!
24!! Quit When You Are Tired!
25!! Pause and review; reflect, when you are being pushed. You may be pushed into danger. Do not let pressure cause you to ignore safety rules!
Cutting dead and rotten trees is something I have had lots of practice doing, and it always comes down to basics and following the rules. Build a good hinge, even if there is just a thin shell to work with. Support the back side of the hinge with wedges if the tree is punky or hollow. Don't fight side lean or back lean. Release it quickly and get away from the stump. Tell your co-workers what your steps are before you crank your saw. You will live long.
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