Wishful Thinking

As we near the last day of August, two things were on my mind.  #1 A prayer that we would make it through hurricane season unscathed.  Wouldn't it be nice to possibly see homeowner's insurance rates go down or hold steady for a change?  With each passing day, the temperature should cool off somewhat, cooling the Gulf waters that fuel the strength and fury of hurricanes that have wreaked such destruction on these parts.  #2 The countdown in my head of the remaining days of summer.  We look at the extended forecast and see that one day this week, we might see lows in the upper 60's and highs only in the lower 90's.  Tick Tock.  It's nice to look forward to more forgiving weather than our punishing summers.

The few days of fall and then winter will be upon us, and we need to be prepared.  I spent 30 minutes with a "rat-tail" file, sharpening my chainsaw blade.  The 80 volt battery powered chainsaw turned out to be a good purchase.  Whoever would've thought that a battery powered chainsaw would cut through 30 inch diameter water oak tree trunks, but it has gotten the job done.  With this saw, you don't need to worry about a carburetor.  I even learned a trick that you can use (cheaper) vegetable oil in place of (more expensive) bar & chain oil to keep the chainsaw blade lubricated.  It's a hack learned from a logger in the Pacific northwest that posted a YouTube video about it.

I charge one 80V battery while using the other and am able to keep the saw running while I cut the felled tree trunk in 2 1/2 foot sections.  Then I got my double edged ax, the sledgehammer and two splitting wedges and walked out to begin the hard part of the job.  Yes, I'll admit, there are easier ways to do this job.  They sell wood-splitters at Tractor Supply.  However, there's something to be said about swinging an ax and the sound of the sledgehammer making purchase with the splitting wedge.  The crack of the wood splitting in two is a pleasing sound to one's ears as the wedge disappears between the two pieces of tree trunk.

Before long the firewood is split into manageable pieces that we'll burn in our fireplace this winter.  I wet two t-shirts with sweat as my wife shook her head at me.  "There's cooler weather coming to do this work in." she says.  That's okay.  The job was done!  The chickens gathered around, scratching at the ground around the wood chips for the occasional beetle or grub worm that had taken up residence in the log, but was now exposed.

Now's the time to carry the wood and stack it up atop the woodpile.  I put sheets of tine on top, weighted down by river stone to keep rainwater off the top.  Upon just getting goats many years ago, I learned a valuable lesson in stacking firewood.  Back then, I stacked the wood right against the fence.  Those mischievous creatures jumped up on the woodpile, over the fence and all got out into the neighbor's yard.  We were able to get them all back in, but had to move the wood, restacking it away from the fence.  You live and you learn, they say.

The firewood we have split so far should get us through the winter easily, but I've got more wood to split.  We plan on getting a good inventory built up.  The bad news was that by the evening I was nursing several nice-sized blisters on my palm and fingers.  The good news was that I slept like a baby that evening partially because of the physical exertion from a day of swinging an ax and partly because it feels good to get a job done I've had on a to-do list.  We'll be nice and toasty as we keep our fireplace blazing with fire this fall/winter.

Nothing's Cozier Than A Fireplace

There is a silver lining to every dark cloud, right?  That's the way I'm trying to look at things anyway.  The two Hurricanes in 2020 that affected us were Laura and Delta, and although we personally (Russ did) didn't have any property damage to speak of, we did have a number of trees on our property that 'got a haircut.'  Some lost some pretty large limbs, specifically one of the pecan trees up front.  So, the destruction of the hurricanes at least gave us some firewood.  And we were out!

It was sawed up and stacked in the back, but still needed to be split.  I generally like to wait for cold days to split wood.  Last week we had weather in the 30's during the day and in the 20's at night.  I figured that was perfect log splitting weather.  I got out the trusty ax and began swinging.  I warmed up fast.  The chickens always congregate as the split firewood exposes huge white worms that the chickens love to eat.  Sometimes, they'll get a little too close for comfort, and I have to watch my swinging.

Since the logs are a year and four months old, some of them are easy to split with the ax.  Others are full of knots and the wood grains are twisted.  The ax bounces off of it.  In these cases I have to go to Plan B.  I have a wedge and a sledge hammer.  This is very effective in getting the stubborn logs split.

In no time at all, I've got a wagon-load of firewood split.  It's all pecan wood.  I'll keep splitting since it is cool, and I have momentum now.  I split three more wagon-loads after this one just to keep ahead.  On cold days, I'll get a fire roaring in the fireplace and we'll sit in front of it, shell pecans or read and relax.

Here is one of those fires I'm talking about right here.  After it is burning for a little while, I like to step outside and smell.  Pecan smoke is a nice, soothing fragrance.  Special note to self: I need to reserve some pecan chips to use on my smoker.  Pecan-smoked meat is a real treat!

Here is my wife enjoying the fire.

Nice, glowing coals in the fireplace CHECK
Feet up on the hearth                        CHECK

Comfortable chair                             CHECK

Cup of coffee                                    CHECK

Reading material                               CHECK
Afghan quilt, if needed                     CHECK

Looks like the checklist for a nice day!  There's nothing cozier than a fireplace!

Cleaning Up the Fencerow

In South Louisiana hard jobs are best left to a brief sliver of time when the temperature is bearable.  This weekend was one of those weekends.  My To Do List has been cluttered by an item that I kept putting off and it was high time to scratch it off the list.  I'm talking about cleaning up the fencerow that borders the south perimeter of our property. 

Just over the property line is a wooded area that we don't own.  It is a jungle of sorts - filled with Live Oak trees, China Berry trees, Chinese tallow trees, Willow trees, and finally, privet.  Privet is in the ligustrum family and bears small white flowers in the spring.  The other thing they do is take over the land.  If you turn your head for five minutes, its encroached upon your land. 

Every couple of years I have to sharpen my ax and machete, put on gloves, and clean the privet out.  I have an electric wire that runs along the perimeter fence powered by a solar charger.  I tie into that wire to run cross-wires to partition the pasture into 7 paddocks to control the cows' grazing.  The doggone privet will grow into the fence, touching the wires and grounding out the electrical current.

Here is a look of the overgrown fencerow after I began chopping and had gotten about a third of it cleaned up:  You can see how overgrown the fencerow has become.

As I chop the privet, I toss the branches over for the cows and goats to eat.  They really like to eat it.  The photo below shows the third of the fencerow that was cleaned.

I try to clear out an area roughly five yards wide to provide a buffer zone to my back fence.  I do realize I am on my neighbor's property, but they are absentee owners and if I didn't do this job every couple of years, my fence would be in ruin.  I've learned that if you merely chop the privet at ground level, many shoots of new growth sprout from the trunk as if angered by the chopping and proliferate toward our property with a vengeance.  My technique involves chopping below the ground surface to clip the roots, and then pull the plant up.

I'm not going to sit idly by as the privet moves forward.  Chop!  Chop! Chop!  As I go I pick up fallen trees and throw them back into the forest.  I can see animal trails in the fencerow where countless nocturnal animals travel.  I'm sure one of those travelers was the possum I killed in the hen house the other night.  You can see below that I am three-quarters of the way done.

At last I made the final chop, opening up the overgrown fencerow.

I backed up and took a photo from the beginning of the fence to the end.  You can compare the first photo of this post to the last and see what a difference it makes.  Oh, that is the hen house in the foreground.

It looks nice, but as with anything, it takes maintenance.  In another couple of years, I'll be out doing this same job once more.  Privet doesn't sleep.  As I type this, privet is out there re-grouping, plotting, strategizing to launch an offensive and lay siege to our fence.  We will stay watchful and vigilant against the onslaught of the privet.

Chopping Down the Cherry Tree

There's a lot of bad news out there in the world.  So much so that it can make you fearful or paralyze you into inaction if you aren't careful.  Tricia and I were talking about the fact that humor is so important.  It is nice to laugh, even in the midst of tough times.  In fact, being joyful is good medicine.

A joyful heart is good medicine, But a broken spirit dries up the bones.  Proverbs 17:22

I like to laugh and the following is (to me) a funny joke.  This is actually a joke that you can tell at church despite the fact that it is a "dirty" joke.  You'll understand what I mean once you read it.

There was once a country boy who hated using the outhouse because it was hot in the summer and freezing in the winter...plus it stank all the time. The outhouse was situated on the bank of a creek and the boy determined that one day he would push that outhouse into the creek. 

So one day after a spring rain the creek was swollen so the little boy decided today was the day to push the outhouse into the creek. He got a large stick and started pushing. Finally, the outhouse toppled into the creek and floated away.

That night his dad told him they were going to the woodshed after supper. Knowing this meant a spanking, the little boy asked why. The dad replied, "Someone pushed the outhouse into the creek today. It was you, wasn't it, son?"

The boy answered yes. Then he thought a moment and said, "Dad, I read in school today that George Washington chopped down a cherry tree and didn't get into trouble because he told the truth."

The dad replied, "Well, son, George Washington's father wasn't in that cherry tree."

See what I mean?  Don't you feel better already?

Another thing that can help you get your mind off of the Worry Du Jour is to just get out there and do something.  Something that causes you to exert energy. Something for which you can see the results of your efforts relatively quickly. That's just what I purposed to do this weekend.  In THIS POST from 2014 we talked about how a beetle infestation is killing some of our water oak trees and how we've had to cut them down.  Although I hate to lose these trees, the pecan trees will branch out with their canopy and occupy the space that these trees once held.

Well another water oak tree has succumbed to the same fate and it was time to bring it down.  This time I decided to chop it down with an axe - the way that George Washington did it, even if this wasn't a cherry tree.  Russ helped me get started.  I'd take swings until I was tired and then he'd take over.  Finally, the tree weakened by the chopping, started leaning and I was able to take a final swing and push in a direction to ensure it wouldn't topple over on the barn or garden fence. TIMBER!!!

Like a beaver chewed it up

Now it would have been much simpler to do this with a chainsaw, to be sure, but taking this tree down with an ax ended up being exercise for the mind and the body.  It also provided some tasty morsels for the hens.  The larvae of the beetle is a big, fat white worm.  While cutting through the tree, I pulled several of these worms from tunnels in the wood.  I threw them to the chickens and the lucky hen that snatched each one ran off with delight, trying to run away from the others before they pried it from her beak.  I was also able to chop the tree very close to the ground, to avoid having a stump sticking up out of the ground that one could trip on.

Farewell to the water oak tree

I held my breath a little as it fell as it came pretty close to hitting the garden fence. It hit the muddy, rain-saturated ground with a thud.  Now is where the fun part comes in.

Benjamin came outside and his job will be to cut the tree into smaller pieces and move it out of the way.  He began swinging away with the ax.  I told him that tasks like this eliminate the need for gym memberships or weight lifting.  He can build muscle mass and get in shape without paying a gym or purchasing equipment.  I recall splitting firewood when I was his age.

Benjamin bringing the ax down on the wood

"Chop, chop, chop," was all I heard as I walked off.  No rush.  I told him if he cuts up one or two pieces a day, the tree will be gone before he knows it.

Chop, Chop, Chop

Once the log is gone, I'll start looking for some grass seed to plant in the barren muddy area around the barn.  For now, I'll leave ol' "George" to finish cutting up the 'cherry' tree.  And lo and behold after just a little chopping, I had forgotten all about the bad news that fills every news report!

Keeping a Tree From Falling on my Garden Fence

A few confessions before we get started:  I am not a lumberjack and I don't own a chainsaw.  I have never had formal training in the proper procedure for felling a tree, so this shouldn't be used as a "How To" photo essay (much like many other posts on our blog).  We try to use common sense to solve problems that arise on an almost daily basis.  Sometimes we are successful and sometimes many times we experience failure, but we're always learning.  We seem to learn more from our failures than our successes and sometimes we fail more than once before getting it right. Ha!

I admitted in the paragraph above the things that I don't possess.  One of the things that my wife would quickly tell you that I do possess is a hard-headed nature that wants to get things done - quickly.  Yesterday one of the items on my to do list was to chop down a tree.  There was one little complication.

As discussed in a post earlier this month, we've had an infestation of red oak borers that is killing some of our water oak trees near the barn.  So far two of them have died and one is dying.  The dead ones are starting to drop limbs.  These trees are all being crowded out by larger pecan trees and this makes them grow at an angle.  The photo below evidences this fact.  You can see that they are growing toward the right. Directly to the right is our freshly planted garden and newly constructed fence. You might remember the new fence was required after the goats broke through the old one and got into the garden.  There was much gnashing of teeth over that, lemme tell you.  Anyway, I don't want the tree to fall over the new fence and into the garden.

If you step backwards and hold a string with a weight on it up to the tree, you can see visually the 'break-over' point at which you need to pull the tree so that you can encourage it to fall the other way. So I grabbed my come-along (cable puller), rope, chains and ax and got to work.

Leaning oaks

I got a tall ladder and tied the rope as high as I dared to climb and attached the come along to the end. Then I anchored the other side to a pecan tree in the opposite direction of the garden.  The pecan tree is sturdy and serves as a support to my wood pile.  A pile that I've stacked and re-stacked more times than you can count.  The goats keep climbing on top and I've conceded and accepted defeat in having neatly stacked wood.  I now just have a wood pile, but I digress.

I began pulling on the come along, ratcheting until the tree no longer had a lean. Pleased with the progress, I moved to the next step.

Pulling the tree straight

I took my old faithful ax and began to chop a big notch in the direction that I would like the tree to fall.  I wanted it to be a big notch so that when it hinges over, it will topple completely and not just close the gap.  I cut about 1/3 of the way through it and then moved to the next step.

How much wood does a wood chuck chuck?

I moved back to the come along and pulled and pulled and pulled.  Can you notice that the tree is now leaning away from the garden, whereas it was leaning toward the garden?  Progress!  At one point, I ran out of cable, so I chained the two trees together, loosened the come along to get more slack, and reattached it.  Then I unchained the two trees and began tightening the come along again. (That's why you see the chain hanging from the tree I'm chopping on.)  Once I had it tightened up I moved to the next order of business.

Everyone needs somebody to lean on

It is time for the tree to come down!  I had Benjamin move the dog a safe distance away and I ensured that the chickens were well clear of the 'fall zone.'  Then I took my ax and began to cut downward on the backside of the tree opposite the notch. Immediately the tree weakened and I was able to yell, "Timber!!!"  The tree fell, missing the fence by the skin of my teeth.

On the ground, successfully

Tomorrow after work, I'll limb out the tree and drag the limbs to the burn pile.  I'll borrow a chainsaw and cut up the tree for firewood.  Then I'll chop the stump until it is either flush with the ground or gone.

If a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it fall, does it make a sound?  Hmmm...

I always like to assess the situation and determine how to do it better next time. There are at least two things that I think I could have done differently.  First, the next time I do this, I won't do it by myself, but will get some help.  Secondly, I'll pull the come-along tighter and will continue pulling it as the tree starts to lean more in order to keep the tension on it so that it falls exactly where I want it to.  It didn't fall on the fence or in the garden, but it was a little too close for comfort.

Here's the next tree:  It is bigger around...

Next in line

And taller..

Tall timber

I really need the services of Paul Bunyan and Babe, the blue ox for this next job!

Image Credit