One of the benefits of working at a slower pace is that I can pause when I hit a puzzle and sleep on the problem.
Case-in-point:
The bat houses are heavy and mounting them on a pole will be a challenge.
One option was to purchase a 16' commercial 4-by-4 which will weigh in the neighborhood of 75 pounds and mount the bat-houses on it and then install the assembly into the hole. That was viable...until the bat-house(s) came in at 50 pounds.
Another option is to separate the bat-houses by two 2-by-4.0" studs to leave an honest 4", square hole that gloves over the 3.5" square (so call) 4-by-4. Dig the hole, turn the bat-house on its side and slide the post through it horizontally and then tip the bottom of the post into the hole. Fill the hole and maybe throw some concrete in near the top. After the concrete sets, SLIDE the bat-house up the side (remember, the square hole has a half-inch clearance in both directions) and then "set" the height with a cleat to prevent the house from sliding back down.
The challenge of this method is that the sheet metal roof must be installed after the bat-house is elevated because roofs with 4" square holes in them are not very effective.
At this time, the plan is to purchase a commercial pole. It is not an economy to use the local harvested pole if I get hurt. A 16' pole with 3' in the ground gives me 13' and I have ladders that I can work comfortably at that height. 13' is at the bottom end of the 10'-to-25' of the recommendations.
Then I muscle up the roof-less bat-house and slide it over the top using the same "glove" oversized, square-hole discussed in the previous option. The cleat will be installed while the pole is horizontal and waiting to be plopped into the ground.
The sheet-metal roof will be installed after a few "insurance" deck-screws are installed between the house and the pole.
In other news...
Shotgun and I made a trip to Fort Wayne, Indiana yesterday to pick up some IBC cubes.
The weather was grand. The trip was uneventful. It took longer to unpack my new ratchet straps than it did to load the cubes into the back of the truck.
We got to Fort Wayne a hour early and goofed around.
Did you know there is a campground in Fort Wayne just south of the Coliseum? They have a dog-park and playground next to the campground and it is all right next to the St Joseph River.
That threw me until I got home. There is a St Joseph River in Michigan and a different St Joseph River in Indiana. The headwaters of the Michigan St Joe River is near South Sand Lake in Hillsdale County, Michigan and the headwaters of the Indiana St Joe River is close to Banker Baptist Church in Hillsdale County, Michigan one-half mile to the southeast...
On the banks of the mighty St Joe River (Indiana)
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| Indiana is notable for their sycamore trees. We have them in Michigan but they are runty and unhappy-looking compared to the Indiana trees. |
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| Crews have been clearing the invasive, Asian (three species) of honeysuckle from the banks of the river. This is a "before" picture and you can see some cut stumps in the foreground. |
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| This is an "after" picture showing how much better the visibility is with the brush gone. You can see cut brush stacked up along the road in the background. |
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| Close-up of the stacked brush. You can click on the image to embiggen it. |
Cutting brush is temporary unless the cut stumps get painted with herbicide and the ecological niche is filled with species with a similar physiology...species like Redbud and Pawpaw and Black Plum, for instance.
Cutting and stacking brush is labor intensive. It is a good job for people who are learning about waking up in the morning and the benefits of up-grading one's skills.
Limp-home mode (speaking of a slower pace)
Shotgun told me about a recent issue he had with his diesel pickup truck. He got a DEF sensor light and the dash told him that he had fifty miles before his truck would revert to "Limp-home mode". That is, the speed would be limited to five-miles-per-hour.
That cause a lot of concern because he was driving back home from Sault Sainte Marie (Canada) at the time and was approximately 300 miles from home.
He reverted to clearing codes and praying and made it home. The next morning the truck would not go more than 5mph and he had to call a tow-truck to get it to the dealership.
Can you imagine trying to evacuate from a hurricane and having your vehicle suddenly refusing to go faster than 5mph...with half of Tampa-St Pete trying to pass you? That would be an epic rat-nest.
All because the NOX sensor signal drifted out-of-range.
I had a cedar tree that donated its trunk to a pole in the garden... Maybe 20-foot? Placed a 4-sided bluebird house on top, one of the houses has been in use every year since it went up, but only ever one.
ReplyDeleteMy bathouse is a commercial made plastic one, and it is mounted about 4 feet beneath the birdhouse. Never seen any signs of bat activity.
I would try to get it higher up if possible... Maybe up in a tree somewhere's instead of a pole? I forget, do instructions indicate to mount the batbox away from tree's?
Sigh!
DeleteI am getting to the point where I am going to shoot the engineer and put it into production. I have other projects calling for my time and the space on the work-bench.
The bats don't need "perfect", they need functional.
The problem with trees is shade. The bats are tiny. LBBs weigh as much as a teaspoon of water (5 grams) and BBB weigh between two and three teaspoons. Tiny animals like that use huge amounts of energy maintaining body temperature.
They need a house where some part of it sees a temperature rise like a top-fuel dragster engine as soon as the sun rises. They also need cooler regions where they can retreat as the hottest part exceeds what they can stand.
A house in a tree's canopy doesn't fit the bill.
Mark
DeleteBluebirds. https://www.sialis.org/ you are not going to get more than one pair in a box at a time. Beautiful birds.
Cut it in half. One on each side. Now it is 25#. Use french cleats. Roger
ReplyDeleteThere are Raspberry Pi kits to make ones own code interface for engine computers....
ReplyDeleteI received an EQIP grant to eradicate honeysuckle from a 23 acre woodlot. That consumed two years of “spare time.” Now planting 20 trees per acre in the understory to replace honeysuckle in that niche. Pawpaw, persimmon, hop hornbeam and Chinese chestnut. All favored by deer and I like venison
ReplyDeleteERJ, you know own limits. Be careful at height.
ReplyDeleteYet another reason to say no to modern autos. My car has a "low tire pressure sensor" which is powered by batteries. The tires are clearly fine, but the sensor goes on every time because the batteries are low. I just ignore it at this point as the replacement of batteries is something like a $250 job.
Joe, I love reading your blog. Vested interest here. Let me be blunt with love.
ReplyDeleteDitch the ladders, save your life, and find someone with a small track hoe to lift that pole assemble into position.
Trying it with ladders is a classic case of high risk, low reward.
Dig a 3 foot hole. Dig a dirt ramp down one side of the hole. Lay the end of the pole in the hole. Put the top end of the pole in the bed of a pickup truck. Install the bat house on the pole and back up the truck.
ReplyDeleteIf you dig under the dirt of the hole on the opposite side of the ramp, the pole will stay where it is and not become top heavy while you are working on it.
Helps to have a friend, but not required.
sam
If you're going to have to service the bat houses, then consider putting it on a pivot-pole. These are dead easy to construct and allow you to tip the pole over periodically. I think people with martin houses follow this practice to make clean-outs easy.
ReplyDeleteSome really good suggestions on this bat house thread.
ReplyDeletePiviot pole as you going to have to clean it now and then.
Getting HELP installing it as not to get Crippled doing it is also a good idea (tm).
"Sometimes a man must know his limitations"
Clint Eastwood
https://www.hillsdalehistoricalsociety.org/hillsdale-county-birthplace-of-five-headwaters
ReplyDeleteAs a former lineman, three feet sounds awful shallow.
ReplyDeleteEspecially for the weight you're talking about.
The general rule for power poles is 10% +3' of pole length, or anything below 30' is 5'.
Unless you guy it, it's going to at least lean over time at 3'.
For the bat house, I think I'd mount a pulley at the top of the pole to pull it up, then use a few screws or L brackets if needed. You'll want to pull it down sometimes to clean it, or remove old bird nests, or etc. And there's a place on the other side of the pole for another house.
ReplyDeleteI had a similar problem with the DEF system on my 2018 Ram diesel 2500, except it wasn't a sensor, it was the DEF injection system into the exhaust system. I was about 70 miles into a road trip of about 400 miles, all interstate, round trip. Fortunately I was able to get a couple of enroute Ram dealers to reset the system (the first one diagnosed the problem but didn't have the part; the second one had the part so I bought it there). I limped home with about 20 miles left before it went into "limp mode." I got Triple-A to take it up to my local Ram dealer the next day and install the part. If there had been an emergency, lives could have been lost. Inexcusable design.
ReplyDeleteBut I can't imagine a stupider system design. Had I known about this before I bought the vehicle, I wouldn't have. Imagine creating a safety issue because of an emission problem. Because being stuck on an interstate 70 miles from home and 15 miles from the next exit, only able to go 5 mph is a HUGE safety issue.