3R Home and Barn Project

[3RRL]

Brian (MountainView) and his brother will be staying at our place during the Tulare Ag show next week.
Loretta and I will be attending the show on Tuesday where we will meet up with some old friends from TBN such as Jeromy (rback33), Dave from Dave's Tractor, Dave Krug (Dkrug), probably Pat from Pat's EZ Hitch and hopefully a bunch of others. So in preparation for the visitors, I'm going to take out a few more trees in the front yard.

Where I am here, ready to dig out an Oak on the left of my backhoe, is the tree Loretta ran into.
We ended up facing the garage sort of right at it. So it's just an another accident waiting to happen. You can see the little Nardi backhoe has lifted my 55hp Kama off the ground. With loaded tires, it's pushing 8,000lbs. There is also a shot of the backhoe tearing through a 4" Oak root. You can see I dig with the articulating mechanical thumb I built for it. I never take it off and it works great for picking up logs and rocks. Sort of like the bucket grapples on the tractor's FEL.
But I only got to dig for about 10 minutes before it started raining really hard.
I gave up and went inside to do some electrical repairs on the fans and lights that blew out.
Rob-

 

[MtnViewRanch]

Rob, you let a little rain stop you from having fun, and worse yet then you go and work. Although it will be nice to be able to see when we are there next week.

 

[rox]

Rob,
If I had a FEL I would dig a big hole and make a burning pit. Burning in a pit is so much safer. Plus you know you will always be burning going forward every year.
On our farm we have the next best thing, a borie that is caved in and 3 side walls are standing and the front wall destroyed. Looks kind of like a horse stall without a gate. A burning pit is a good thing.

 

[Highbeam]

Rob,
A while ago I had advised that good and dry wood should not harbor bugs and would be fine to store in your basement. Lots of people do it. I keep dry wood in stacks outside and regret to discover that bugs still like it just fine. So please allow me to change my advise and recommend that you not store cordwood in your basement/crawlspace/whatever except for the obvious wood box storage.

Every time I see a bug on that wood I hope that I didn't steer you wrong.

 

[john_bud]

Depends on the bug. Most like moist to damp wood and a few like soaking wet. Not many like the wood when it's dry enough to burn. Carpenter ants are the ones that I don't like finding in the logs as I split. Those pieces get split down thin and whacked to get them out so they can freeze in the snow. I also put out lots of ant killer around the wood pile in the back porch.

jb

 

[Highbeam]

I check moisture with a meter and all of this wood is 10-16% which is way drier than the 20% min for burning. I have some sort of little beetle looking thing with wings folded tight. They don't fly and there legs are pretty long to hold them off the ground pretty well. Hard to identify a bug based on looks.

You just can't say that no bugs like dry wood because it isn't true. Mice seem to like the wood pile too, and bees.

Anyway Rob, stack it away from your home.

 

[john_bud]

"I" never said that. "I" said most. Before you castigate someone you may want to accurately read the posting.

 

[Highbeam]

"I" never said that. "I" said most. Before you castigate someone you may want to accurately read the posting.

Sorry John, I wasn't talking to you or about you. I don't even know what castigate means but it sounds bad.

 

[3RRL]

Hi Joe,
You didn't steer me wrong.
I decided a while ago not to store any wood in the crawlspace. I made a firewood box that holds enough wood for a couple weeks. It sits outside on the deck. I only bring in enough wood to burn for the day. Point is, you did not hurt me in any way.
Thanks for your consideration!

 

[john_bud]

Sorry John, I wasn't talking to you or about you. I don't even know what castigate means but it sounds bad.

My apologies. There is a poster here that has likened me to a steaming fresh pile of organic growth aid and that has made me a bit edgy. I unfortunately allowed my vitriol to overflow onto a guiltless party.