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| The bright, spring-green bushes are Multiflora Rose |
I was at the hunting lease today moving a few more pear seedlings, spraying glyphosate around one year-old trees to suppress competing vegetation and clear two-tracks.
One of the guys I used to work with asked me if I was available to help him move lumber. He has been clearing out cottonwoods and he found somebody who is willing to mill them into 2-by lumber.
My job will be to move the boards from the end of the sawmill to his two trailers. He estimates he has between 15,000 and 20,000 pounds of boards to stack.
I asked if I could run a few logs through the mill as "payment". He was agreeable.
Some of the logs I cleared out of the two-track were ash trees that had been killed by the Emerald Ash Borers and they are arrow-straight. The roots rotted and they blew over this winter. I bucked them up into 8'-3" logs. As I think about it, there are other, standing, dead trees (widowmakers) that would be a lot safer if they were turned into lumber.
I have word out to my nephews asking if any of them have a suitable trailer that I can borrow.
My current inclination is to turn the one walnut into 3" planks for gunstocks. The ash into 5/4" boards in case I ever want to turn them into tool handles, tables or doors. The "white-wood" into honest, 1" rough-sawn boards. The white-wood is cottonwood and soft maple so it is not very durable but probably plenty good enough for shelving, bird houses and catfish spawning boxes.
Any opinions?
Multiflora Rose
Nasty species. Invasive.
I never had much luck killing Multiflora Rose with herbicides. Lopping them at ground level with loppers or a chainsaw really slows them down, though. And it is fast although sometimes bloody work. I take a baby aspirin a day and when I get a leak in my skin it can be very dramatic before the clotting kicks in.
One nice thing about being in the woods this time of year is that these kinds of nuisances really pop out. That is good for avoiding them or for search-and-destroy missions.
Physical fitness
I looked in the mirror today and I still look like the Pillsbury Doughboy but the exercise is showing up in the numbers.
I knocked out a two-mile run today. MUCH easier then expected. Slow...but I survived.
I am up to twelve reps of deadlifts with my 159 pound barbell. Yes, I weighed it. Five feet of black iron pipe, two sacks of concrete and four gallons of water.
Now my goal is to work on form and to add more sets.
Oh, and I notice that my glutes are getting bigger. I kind of wish my mattress was a bit softer.
We have something call McCartney roses here, same kind of problem. Badly invasive, tons of thorns, major pain. But I have found that if you mix up some Glyphosate on the stronger side, add a good industrial wetting surfactant / sticker (not dish soap, but the kind you get at the landscape supplier), and give the leaves a good soaking, you can kill it. Or at least, the ones I hit have been standing dead for 3 years now and counting. My pest control/fertilizer expert tells me it's getting the leaves well coated with the sticker agent that makes it effective.
ReplyDeleteFor the real truth on weightlifting for fitness, look at the Starting Strength channel on youtube. Mark Rippetoe is the best strength coach I've ever seen.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tip.
DeleteMy biggest stumbling block is "sticking with it".
I suppose that is one of the huge advantages of having a work-out partner. You keep each other motivated.
Ash trees. Any contacts of yours are luthiers? Ash has always been a go-to wood for solid body electric guitars.
ReplyDeleteThere's a sawmilling Youtube channel called "Out of the Woods" I often find interesting. As for cottonwood lumber, I remember visiting a homesteader house in SE Wyoming and it was pointed out how twisted and warped a lot of the structure was, and that was because it was built with cottonwood lumber because that was all they had at the time.
ReplyDelete