Some boys are harder to raise than others.

The last picture shows the impact with the culvert that started the cartwheeling. If you knew where to look you could see the second, third and fourth impact in the previous picture. Impacts were in the following order: front right wheel, front left bumper, drivers side front and passenger side rear. The top picture shows the violence of the drivers side impact. The blood in the side ditch is 21 feet beyond the point where the car landed. The young man ejected from back window is expected to eventually recover from a broke neck. It hasn't been determined if his stupidity is cureable or terminal.

A pitiful looking woodpile

The pile to the left only has two rows left. I had planned to have almost 3 rows left this time of the year but the cold weather has increased the amount of wood I have burnt. This view gives a fairly good overview of my wood burning set up. I can back a truck up to the wood splitter or on back to the pile. I can also approach the stove directly from the right and when the yard is dry, I don't mind driving up on the lawn side. The wood splitter is permanently located at this site. The wheelbarrow covers the engine when the splitter is not in use. Once the wood is split, it is stacked. I burn from one side of a center aisle and stack the green on the other side to dry a year. Next year I will switch. The outdoor furnace is located behind the pile. The ashes are temporarily stored beside the stove and later spread on the garden or orchard. With this outdoor furnace I can burn junk wood like pine, elm or sweet gum. Some years I heat the entire season with junk wood. This year I have burnt some very good oak and was thankful for every pound of it. Over the last 15 years about 1/3 of the wood has come off my land with the other 2/3rds salvaged from some place or the other. I have not paid directly for any wood, although repairing my chain saw this year set me back a little. The only bad thing is the amount of smoke I create. I calculate it at 200 lbs a year with about 100 lbs of that leaving my property. I guess I have created that much smoke from a single brush fire, but it is still something to think about.

Bad Day in Termite Land

The rice looking stuff on the log splitter is actually termites. These fell out of a section of firewood as I split it. There were several more cracks in each section filled with termites. At least 4 sections has this many termites, with smaller numbers in some additional sections. Overall it was the largest termite colony I have ever seen. I suspect the tree had come down in Hurricane Fran. Any part laying on the ground was too far gone for wood burning but the main trunk was bridged off the groun and the heartwood was still solid enough to make burning worthwhile.

Maple Syrup harvest 2010

This year I started tapping the southern sugar maples on January 8. Flow was finished by February 1. My yield per tree seemed down a little but I tapped some extra trees. So overall I had my best year cooking down at least 2 gallons of maple syrup. It is hard to be precise because some of it hasn't been cooked completely down. I cooked it down to a point and then sealed it in quart jars where it can settle. When I run out of syrup, I will carefully pour off the top and cook it down to put in half pint jars. I use some maple syrup as I am cooking it off which also throws off the estimate. I normally just use it for breakfast on oatmeal. But this year I also cooked a maple pecan loaf. I enjoyed it, but think I can do better. Last year I had 1 and 1/2 gallons of syrup. I gave about 1/2 gallon away and the other gallon lasted just about the entire year. I didn't use any of it for cooking. My plan this year is to give 1/2 gallon away, eat one gallon on oatmeal and use the other 1/2 gallon for cooking. My wife still doesn't like it so it looks like I won't have to share any with her.

Another Close Call

My youngest boy Lee purchased a house back during the summer. It was in a mature woodlot. Since then there has been 4 trees that have fallen. Two smaller trees were destroyed in the process. This latest downed tree, shown in these two pictures, was actually touching the house. The other 3 were not that surprising. They were decayed, leaning, and recently exposed to wind throw. The only problem with this pine was recent exposure and perhaps a restricted root zone. (I still haven't decided if there was an old road or just a terrace on the back side of this tree.) It was a severe wind that brought it down. In nearby towns, the power was knocked out to thousands of people. Hope this is the last one for awhile. There are only two or three real threats to the house and they look in fairly good shape. There is a white oak that could cause problems. It has a natural lean and would create a glancing blow to the house if it went that way.

Big Tree

I took this picture about 3 years ago. This post oak is the biggest tree I have ever cut. For comparison, the bar on the Stilh chain saw is 18 inches long. I don't remember the exact diameter but I think it was in the high 40's. I had only learned how to cut a tree larger than twice the bar lenght a few weeks earlier. This tree was 134 years old at least. The center decay prevented an exact age. In the course of cutting and splitting it, I found two bullets, two nails and two eyehooks. There were also two seperate colonies of carpenter ants.

High Tunnel from Local wood

My post have been rare this fall because of my work schedule. Here is the latest project I have been working on at the Elma C Lomax incubator farm. This is a high tunnel about 96 long by 30 wide. A high tunnel is similar to a greenhouse but without a heating system. You can't grow warm season crops all winter but it extends the season early and late. (I also have a high tunnel at my house. I picked greenbeans for my own use until December 1.) I did a lot of the construction on this tunnel but haven't done much with the crops. The farmers I am working with have it almost fully planted by mid December. We chose oak boards since they are locally available. I suspect they are a more environmentally sound choice. They are cheaper anyway. Construction started on this tunnel at Elma C Lomax farm incubator in September and the ends were enclosed in December. The sides have a salvaged automatic pulley system that was salvaged from a poultry house.