Good morning!!!!

[Kyle_in_Tex]

rs, when you get a chance, please post some pics of the wood pecker. I have seen pileated only 2 or 3 times around here in 11 years. The one's I saw were very large, maybe 12" from beak to tail.

 

[Larro Darro]

For decades here in Texas, the Colorado river has been dammed up by multiple dams with Lake Travis being the body of water that they let rise and fall the most. It was built way back with the purpose of helping the downstream rice farmers during the summer. Even in years with plenty of rain, they still, by contract, had to release X amount of water whether the farmers needed it or not. In the last 25 years, the municipalities have had tremendous population growth and demands on the same water. After years of drought and the lake at all time low levels, I believe last year or the year before the LCRA somehow changed the charter contract document for the water and the rice farmers got drastically reduced water amounts. I think that if the lake is very low, they don't have to give the farmers ANY water now. It has also been determined since the dam has been constructed, how important the freshwater inflow is to the coastal bay ecosystems. We don't have salmon, but many species are dependent on the freshwater. It is a very tough situation to have to govern who gets water when there is not enough. I am thankful that Lake Travis has come up almost 40 feet in 30 days and now they are in much better shape.

River Report

I pray for rains to come to California.

We {Florida} are in a long drawn out water war with Alabama and Georgia over the Flint, Chattahoochee and Apalachicola Rivers. Apalachicola Bay oysters need a certain amount of water flow to thrive, and neither Alabama agriculture, not Atlanta are getting any smaller. It's been going on for years with no end in sight.

So far this year there has been rain. When it dries up, so do the oysters.

 

[rswyan]

69F and partly cloudy ... nice tomorrow with a chance of an afternoon thunderstorm.

Got the splitter moved up to the shed and set up, after doing a little more clean up and moving some brush.

After doing some tweaking, I cut, split, and stacked about 5 bucket loads - mostly pine - before knocking off around 20:00 for dinner and to watch the Cavs/Golden State game ... Cavs were in it all the way ... until it went to overtime ...

Got the part for the brushcutter picked up this afternoon ... going up in a bit to start working on it.

 

[rswyan]

Me and the axe are out of the question. LOL. Good luck with that stuff, be careful.

Thanks ... after this afternoon, I've gained a new appreciation for just how much those large rounds can weigh

 

[rswyan]

RS that is some big wood you have.

Yes, it sure is ...

You should probably hang a turbo charger on your splitter.

LOL ... after today, that sounds like a good idea.

If nothing else, I'm gonna take a look at settings on the relief valves

But I might end up upgrading to an 8 HP engine at some point ... just have to see.

I just read that firewood dries faster through the end grain than from a split face. Makes sense I guess since that lines up with the trees water transport structure.

That's a principle that I plan to take advantage of ...

Maybe you could saw 8" thick slices off those bigger ones and split the slices into chunky blocks.

Here's what I ran into today - 22" - 23" long sycamore round (very green), probably around 32" - 34" or so in diameter (just a guess - will measure it tomorrow):

Rolled that sucker on there - which was a bit of a feat itself - and then hit the handle on the log lift control valve and ... nada ...

Using the log calculator over on woodweb, it probably weighs in the vicinity of 550 to 650 lbs. Tried splitting it in half on the ground with the sledge and a couple of wedges and the water/sap puddled up real good where I sunk the wedges ... just a-oozin' out ...

Plan at this point is cut all the large logs into rounds and let them sit for a couple of months to put 'em on a diet, and split the smaller stuff that I can lift now. Although tomorrow I might try cutting one shorter - say 18" - and see if the lift can pick it up.

That would probably drop the weight of the round by 130 lbs or so ... but even so, I'm not real keen on wrestling around a 400 lb. round on a 6" wide I-beam ... although I can leave the lift up now that I modified it, so that would help some ...

Still ...

 

[rswyan]

rs, when you get a chance, please post some pics of the wood pecker.

Will do ...

Gotta get a battery for the Canon Powershot and clean the living room windows off (they are way overdue anyways) to get a decent shot. My iPhone sucks in low light and has no zoom.

When I walked into the living room tonight the female pileated flew up and landed on the suet feeder just as I was picking up the remotes and about to sit down. She was about 6' from me.

They seem pretty tolerant of our presence ... as long as you don't make any fast movements.

I have seen pileated only 2 or 3 times around here in 11 years. The one's I saw were very large, maybe 12" from beak to tail.

Yup, they're huge ... 30"+ wingspan ...

First time one landed on the suet feeder, The 'Cake sez (excitedly):

"He's going to tear that thing down !"

They haven't yet ... but they sure can do quite a bit of damage to a suet cake in a big hurry

 

[RoyJackson]

2015-06-05, 0226

53 right now...high of 76, maybe a thunderstorm.
Boy...awake tossing and turning since midnight...going to be a long day!

 

[Eric Salop]

We are set for a lovely day again.
If the forecasters have it right it will be like Goldilocks eating baby bears porridge - not too hot and not too cold - just right.

The railway fencers have made a good start. They brought with them a fancy tracked post driver so they can knock in the largest posts without breaking into a sweat. Some of the fence wire coming out looks in very good condition. It would be a shame to see it all go for scrap so I will have a word with them today and see if they can be persuaded to forget to collect it.

RS : At one time I used to despise sycamore as it grew like a weed in the garden. Now we have a wood burning stove it is all gratefully harvested in. I find it soon dries when cut into rounds like you are doing. The mistake I made was to leave it in a pile instead of spreading it out. A year on and those on the outside had almost completely dried out, while the rounds on the inside of the pile still had a lot of sap.

 

[Buppies]

60 this morning high of 75 later today maybe a shower later today but not a great chance. Back to work

 

[vtsnowedin]

2015-06-05, 0226

53 right now...high of 76, maybe a thunderstorm.
Boy...awake tossing and turning since midnight...going to be a long day!

That's a pain when your sleep pattern is thrown off. Doing ten hour days outside has solved that problem for me.