Vic303

Those look fantastic Dog mom!

37 minutes ago, Annarchy said:

AZ Sonoran Desert.  “It’s a dry heat”. 

Ah, ok. That makes more sense.  Never having lived in a place with 'dry heat' I always assume everyone suffers with oppressive humidity like we do!

Oak Wilt info and resources.

https://texasoakwilt.org

On 4/18/2022 at 9:28 AM, Homesteader said:

Thanks for all the updates. We've been thinking about a sawmill since all the oaks are slowly dying from Oak Wilt. A retired forest ranger told us to just sell them or cut them down and mill them before they die. It seems there is no cure for Oak Wilt and it will eventually kill almost all the oaks in our country. 

You can slow the spread, and if caught early and have the$, there are antifungal treatments that could save the tree.  If I can find it again, I just read an article on Oak Wilt in Texas, and I will post a link.

Annarchy, where are you at, that it is that hot already?

Snow???  Seriously?  You poor thing!  

You and Cricket both having snow!

The really bright one looked like a port wine stain in the sun.

Oh and how could i forget the 4 for trees we planted?? 2 peach and 2 plum! They're all real small, but they will grow.

Early Globe Radishes!  Picked about a dozen two days ago.  DH said they were tasty   I don't like radishes to eat, but i love to grow them...wierd, I know!

The snap peas are growing, there are several tomatoes on the plants already, the new blueberries set heavy, all 4 little elderberries survived, as did the Aronia berry bush (looks more like a twig though.)

The other garden veggies are in various stages, some corn came up for using new seed, none of the peppers or bush beans sprouted so i got small pepper plants and put them in the road where the beans and peppers failed.  The watermelon, cantaloupe, and cucumber plants are not doing great  It's been kinda soggy here lately.

And Friday I go to pick up a Nuc of Italian honeybees to put in my langstroth hive.  Which means I must get to work getting that hive ready!

Any updates Cricket?

I miss him too!  He was my friend, though we never met irl.

Our other neighbor came over with his tractor and set the sawmill head on the trailer a week ago or so.

We ran the mill they some small cedar logs, and then put an oak log on.  It was cutting fine until it jumped the blade off the wheels and got bent and jammed (aka ruined a blade).

Took an hour or more to sort out how to fix that, put on another blade, and test it to see it it would seat. More adjustments followed.

Friday DH and I took the trailer out to the log pile.  We started again with bigger cedar logs, cutting stickers to rick up the planks we ended up cutting, because the cedar was gorgeous!  DHs original plan was to cut stickers from all the cedar, but it was just too pretty!

Mill ran great, though the blade did Nick a piece of metal, throwing off the set of the blade teeth slightly.  The imperfections in the plank surfaces will plane out.

Sadly my driveway is gravel and I don't have enough poles.  I have used that method for moving a safe over concrete though.

Currently one of our neighbors with a big tractor said he could help us.

It's on the Freight truck!! It should arrive Tuesday!  Just in time for DHs birthday!

More to figure out how to move 1700# of shipping crates from the road edge to the shop... Without a tractor!

Most of the limbs went to Samothrace neighbor for firewood.  We will get what we can out of the trunk once the sawmill arrives.

Just getting ready for church.  Spent the last couple days dropping and limbing out a huge dead oak.

Cutting wood.  Dropped a huge dead oak for a neighbor.  36" base? I didn't measure it, but the 24" bar wouldn't cut all the way thru...

Now we have to limb it out and clean up.  Once the mill arrives, we will try to get some of the trunk cut into lumber.

One neighbor came by this afternoon, saying another neighbor had some big pines he wanted cut down and gone ... 

Word is getting around, and we haven't even received the sawmill delivery yet!  Yikes!

Happy birthday Pauline!

We've been acquiring logs to mill once the mill arrives and we assemble it.

Not sure where else to ask this on site, but do any of you own and operate a bandsaw sawmill?

DH and I recently ordered one.  Partly for our own use, as lumber is sky-high, and partly as a side gig, mostly for me...

If you have one, is love to chat with you about it.

Yes, it's back, and in the woods bird population.  So ... Keep an eye on your flocks.  Info here on contagion control for backyard flocks, and a regularly updated list of cases and locations.

https://www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/ourfocus/animalhealth/animal-disease-information/avian/avian-influenza/2022-hpai

Today was good pantry distribution day in town. DH, DS1 and I were volunteering.  This was supposed to be the final month of NQA COVID distribution, and there were a lot of folks who showed up.  You can tell inflation is bad, and the available goods to hand out are growing limited.

Happy St Patrick's day!

RJH, welcome back! I'm a returnee too.