New pole barn smashed to pieces....

[mx842]

I'm glad to hear that you, and your wife are fine. It only takes a moment in a storm like that to lose someone. I have to agree with her about yelling at you for running around in the storm with the chainsaw. Too many bad things can happen. I'm sorry to hear abour all the damage done to your trees too. The eye of that storm was supposed to come right over my house, but it stayed west, and I got off very easy. This is a good time to think about a set of forks for your tractor if you don't have them! I can't believe how much they help with logs, brush, and odd shaped things that just don't fit in the bucket.

Didn't you guys get a lot of rain out of the storm? I heard of a lot of flooding all the way up the coast and in some places it was the worst flooding in many many years. normally wouldn't the worst place for it to pass be just a little west of you? In a normal hurricane the strongest part of the storm is in the front right hand quadrant of the system. This one did do strange things though and seemed to be stronger on the left hand side.

 

[mx842]

:thumbsup:

I feel for you guys and the yellow jackets -- but I have to admit you 'turned my frown upside down'!

On the smaller chainsaw. I bought a Stihl with the 'easy2start' and and tool less chain tensioner. Feels really weird to start it, but makes it likely that a weaker (or hurt) person could run it, worst case (and no chain adjuster wrench to loose). I have a case from a larger saw and can keep a small bottle of 2 stroke oil and a quart of bar oil in it too. That only leaves keeping a can of gas with it and an axe or maul.

I hadn't thought about tarps and furring strips, I guess as I usually have stuff like that laying around (projects past, projects future, and projects not yet completed). Something to consider on the emergency materials list.

When our addition is complete I intend to buy one of the 275 gallon fluid tanks (the metal caged plastic tanks on a pallet). We will have a garage door accessible heated space then (easy to get to, no freezing, easy to drain and fill occasionally when the water gets stale).

Bummer on the weather hit! And all that hard wood to rot. Hard wood is not native here (unless you count aspen -- I don't). Sounds like an interesting idea to try a mill. After the yellow jackets hibernate (ours are usually paper wasps and some will usually winter over when you find a nest). They are slow when it is cold and easy to kill.

Yeah I have a couple of those plastic 55 gal barrels that I normally fill up before a storm to use for incidentals, flush toilets, maybe even wash off a little with if something goes wrong with the genny.

I have been thinking about building me a log mill for some time but I never could get the idea and the time on the same wavelength to put it together. With all the mess I have now and my other projects all lined up this wood will most likely be rotted away before I have the time to do it. Too bad I'm not a rich guy and could just go out and buy one of the dang things..........but then I would just have to go out and hire someone to run it cause rich guys don't do work like that.:laughing:

 

[deereman75]

We dont have yellow jackets here, how do they compair to hornets?

 

[mx842]

We dont have yellow jackets here, how do they compair to hornets?

Lucky you! Do you guys have ciggers up there? I guess hornets are bad and one on one their sting is probably more painful. But yellow jackets are sneaky and most times by the time you know you are in trouble you have already been stung several times and the probability of a few more is highly likely before you get out of harms way. Hornets are bigger and easier to spot so you have less chance of wondering into a nest of them. Most hornets build nest that are a lot easier to spot so the element of surprise is taken away and you can deal with them from a distance. Those big ol' yellow hornets that look like a giant yellow jacket on steroids sometimes build nest in peoples attics, walls or under the eves of your house but you most likely will know they are their because you will hear them buzzing around the nest.

I guess yellow jackets most useful tactic is the surprise people get when they stumble on to or even around their nest. I don't like to get stung by anything hornet or otherwise and to me they are all fair game to a good hot fire or a big ol bottle of bug juice fired from a long way away from the target.

 

[SPIKER]

We dont have yellow jackets here, how do they compair to hornets?

the two are pretty different, hornets usually have a nice large nest up in a tree somewhere usually 15' or more higher. though low hangers also are somewhat popular at times (heard that higher the nest the worse the winter will be.) Yellow jackets make a 3/4" hole in the ground usually hidden well so you cant see them they are smaller and fly quickly in/out so you rarely see them easily. When the get mad they start dropping pheromones. That attracts every other yellow jacket too any bug within a hundred yards comes to joint the attack.
When they start biting & stinging (yes they do both and not sure which is worse) as they usually bite you to hang on and start spinning/twisting your skin and stinging at the same time inflicting a multitude of pain higher that you would thing a little thing could do. they give you no warning when they do this and for some reason they have learned that any exposed joint, lip or eye or soft patch of skin is way more painful than say the middle of an arm or leg. I cant recall ever being stung in say the center of my back or chest by them always has been eye or cheek or arm/knee joints.

Now when you smash one they release more chemical warfare on you which really makes the rest of the nest go nuts.

My HORNET experience usually they will give you a warning bump or two to chase you off without actually stinking you yet they get in your face & fly around you pretty good. Usually they are 4 or 5 times the size of the average yellow jacket to swatting them is not quite as bad as the yellow jackets which are only a few times the size of a deer fly or half the size of a horse fly. The yellow black stripes help them blend into the woods brush as they move about vs a big black & white hornet... so ya I think the yellow jackets are a much worse critter than hornets on a 10 to one scale yellow jackets are 9.5 as they generally only leave you hurting for 4 or 5 days. Hornets are 3 or 4 to me for reasons above. stuff that would rate a 10 will kill or leave you severely damaged for long term. Brown Recluse spiders rattle snakes & the like.

Mark M

 

[deereman75]

Lucky you! Do you guys have ciggers up there? I guess hornets are bad and one on one their sting is probably more painful. But yellow jackets are sneaky and most times by the time you know you are in trouble you have already been stung several times and the probability of a few more is highly likely before you get out of harms way. Hornets are bigger and easier to spot so you have less chance of wondering into a nest of them. Most hornets build nest that are a lot easier to spot so the element of surprise is taken away and you can deal with them from a distance. Those big ol' yellow hornets that look like a giant yellow jacket on steroids sometimes build nest in peoples attics, walls or under the eves of your house but you most likely will know they are their because you will hear them buzzing around the nest.

I guess yellow jackets most useful tactic is the surprise people get when they stumble on to or even around their nest. I don't like to get stung by anything hornet or otherwise and to me they are all fair game to a good hot fire or a big ol bottle of bug juice fired from a long way away from the target.

I havnt heard of the ciggers anywhere but on here, what are they like?

 

[mx842]

I havnt heard of the ciggers anywhere but on here, what are they like?

Dang! no chiggers either? I had not thought about it but they are warm weather creachers and die off at around 40 degrees. Does it ever get above 40 up there in your part of the woods? They are a mite and they multiply by hitching a ride by latching on to what ever unfortunate victim that happens to come their way.

They are very small (almost too small to see without the help of some form of magnifying device) but like the yellow jacket size isn't a factor to the amount of pain and suffering they can cause. They are very fast and once they hop aboard on your shoe can be all the way to your neck in in a matter of 3 or 4 minutes if they want to. However they don't usually head straight for the jugular vein they are more inclined to save their energy for the task at hand which is to eat, mate and hop off to lay their eggs and spread their numbers.

The sad thing is their main aim is not people or animals even, it's birds that are their main objective and their preferred mode of travel. I guess it's because they can cover more ground to spread their numbers and they are easier to attach themselves to. They like the moist tender skin areas better because they don't have a very long lifespan and need to get busy eating as fast as they can. A bird flies into a tree where they are waiting and as he does he shakes a limb and they hop on and head for cover and their first and last meal.

They have 8 legs and the front two have special tools to locate any spot that they can easily dig a hole. They latch on with these tools and spread open the spot chosen so the chigger can stick his head in and inject the meat tenderizer that will eat away the meat and break it down into a delicious cigger smoothie for them to gorge themselves on. The venom is much like that of a spider but not a strong to kill you ( you just wish you were ) but plenty strong to rot the meat inside the straw like tube they have created in what was once a pore in your skin so they can suck up your flesh.

The longer they are allowed to stay attached the longer this tube becomes and the more agonizing the pain and itching will be. you don't feel them shoot the juice to you because like a spider the venom numbs the area to so you don't feel it until it's to late. The itching you feel is the cone he has built out of your flesh to eat from as your body tries to heal the area and fight off the savage attack the area is under. It is about this time your brain kicks in and sends a message to your fingernails that they need to go to isle 10 where the sweet meat is and the more tender it is the better they like it if you catch my drift so they can dig out what ever it is that is chomping away at Mr winkey or miss kitty as these chewing critters are very gender friendly.

You will lose all modesty and even possibly drop shorts in the middle of a sales meeting to take care of business when the brain sends the message that this has to be taken care of right now. Normally they only make it to your ankles because as you walk through tall grass where they hide and wait because they are on a speed mission to get to a feed spot as soon as possible. They hop on a shoe and then to a sock where they will climb to the elastic band and jump off to the skin where it is nice and soft and others will travel down into your shoe to feast on your foot or in-between your toes. Some jump past the sock band and in minutes can be all the way to the really tender stuff where they dig in to do the deed. They look for any area that is more tender than the rest but no part of the body is safe and they will dig a hole anywhere they are when they get tired of traveling around.

Spiker rated the yellow jacket at 9.5 on the painOmeter which in my estimation is a pretty good assessment in my view and I will place the chigger at around a 9. This is only because unlike the yellow jacket that will attack and try to eat you just for the heck of it they are only trying to survive so I cut them a little slack on the scale. That does not mean that after I have healed up from being the dinner guest of honor at one of their fun fest they will get any pity from me though. I will do what ever necessary to remove these pest from any place I find them and pesticides sometimes wont control them and more drastic measures need to be taken. This I think is partly the reason my wife insists on keeping all matches under lock and key around this place because there have been times that I have been so badly chewed on by these savage little beast that the scorched earth policy was the only means of getting payback but I really didn't mean for the fire to spread quite so quickly as it did the last time I had to burn them out. Maybe I should ease up on the gas a little the next time.

 

[eepete]

I feel your pain. Weed wacked over a nest once, about 28 stings. They will hunt you down. I've dealt with white faced hornets "down here" and "up nawth" when I lived in Mass. The yellow jackets are worse because they will attack with less provocation. I have a post here somewhere on that incident.

Chiggers, well, your story was right on the money.

Sorry about all your damage. It's great that you have the skill and tools tools to deal with it.

One more thing on yellow jackets: After a tornado and a hurricane when I'm working with the Fire Department, the nests (tree and ground) are a huge hazard. Everyone thought I was crazy for having 4-5 cans of wasp spray around when these things come in. Now they understand.

'Course they still think I'm crazy .

Pete

 

[mx842]

I feel your pain. Weed wacked over a nest once, about 28 stings. They will hunt you down. I've dealt with white faced hornets "down here" and "up nawth" when I lived in Mass. The yellow jackets are worse because they will attack with less provocation. I have a post here somewhere on that incident.

Chiggers, well, your story was right on the money.

Sorry about all your damage. It's great that you have the skill and tools tools to deal with it.

One more thing on yellow jackets: After a tornado and a hurricane when I'm working with the Fire Department, the nests (tree and ground) are a huge hazard. Everyone thought I was crazy for having 4-5 cans of wasp spray around when these things come in. Now they understand.

'Course they still think I'm crazy .

Pete

I'll take crazy over being laughed at for running around in circles flapping your arms while being eaten by the a nest of PO'ed yellow jackets.:laughing:

It seems the cool nights and the heavy rains we have been getting the past couple weeks have slowed down the bees and the chiggers in our area. I have slowly been cleaning up the mess in the areas around the house and the barn and not had one encounter since the two nest I ran into right after the storm.

I guess an update is in order so I'll include it here. Progress has been slow because every time I get started on cleaning up a section I either have to stop in the middle and go to some thing that is more important which always seems to uncover some thing else that needs fixing or replacing. I finally got the big tree cut out of the barn so that I can start clean up and start to rebuild the sections that were destroyed by the tree.

Once I got that tree cut up I found all sorts of tools and my small brush saw I was using to cut the tops of the post off with under the mess all smashed to pieces. Also I discovered the pile of roofing material on a pallet smashed as well. I had 50 16' 5/4 boards that I was going to use as roof perlins also broken in half from the weight of one of the trees that fell. I still have not cut into the piles that cover a lot of the things I had stored and covered with shrink wrap waiting for the barn to be built.

I got a little side tracked while waiting for the insurance people to get out here to let me know what they would and would not cover. While I was waiting I decided to go ahead and take out all the trees around the barn that were within 40 feet or so just to keep this from happening again in the future. I had already decided to take out several at the back corner anyway so I could do proper grading but I was going to do that once the barn was finished. I figured this would be a good time to do it since I was burning anyway and what's another 10 to 15 trees when you add it all up.

I had to do this in the usual manor, by hand of-course and with the help of Stihl, Bronco, chains, wire rope and good ol' hard work and sweat. I got them all down but 2 and have burned up all the stumps that I had pulled up but for 3 of the larger ones that I have now somehow gotten close enough together to start a new burn pile. It takes a lot of brush and wood to completely burn a freshly pulled stump and I got rid of a whole lot of the brushy material that was scattered all over the property. Although I have to be careful and not burn too much of the stuff because I won't have enough brush and wood to burn the other 50 or so stumps I have scattered all over the place.

I had good luck burning the giant stump from the one tree that fell through the barn. The root base was 14' high and the hole in the ground was 6' deep. What I did was start a fire in the hole and once I got a good base of coals going I threw in about a 1/2 cord of knotted up larger limbs and any firewood that was not clean some pieces were 24" around on to the hot coals and waited until they started to burn good then I took the Bronco and pulled the stump back over to its upright position and let it simmer. That was last Sat when I pulled it over on to the fire and it is still smoking. There was not much left yesterday when I was working out there and was about to pull it over so I could cut off the log and pull out what was left of the root system but a huge rain storm came in and I couldn't finish the job. This morning all the fire piles are out because of the heavy rains and hopefully I can get back out there this afternoon and get them going again. With any luck I should have all of the trees I pulled out and that one big stump gone by the end of the weekend...that is if it will just stop raining long enough to get the fire started again.

Once I have finished removing these trees and stumps from around the building I can then hopefully start back with the task of finishing the barn. I have already decided that I am not going to worry about doing any of the work at the house, I'll get a contractor to do that work if I can ever get the insurance company to okay the work.

 

[J35]

mx842 don't feel alone, many many people are in the same boat as you.

I see a lot of places that were totally destroyed, cars, homes, shops all from tree's.

We were with out power 11 days after Isabelle 9 days from Irene.

Stay safe--- J