Weather

friday firesmith – Hell of a fire. Best in a long time.

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On the 12th of April, 2023, the rain began around midnight. The sound was amazingly loud. Sleep had to be abandoned, so I got up, checked the radar, and a deep red splotch of clouds hovered directly over my area and nowhere else. The rain came down in a roar.

The next morning the pond had overflowed, and the Live Oak in the backyard that had a serious lean was creaking. It fell before I could get my phone, and in the next couple of months, I was able to get most of the larger limbs cut.

The next two years brought hurricanes, more rain, more flooding, and eventually, trees died from their roots being submerged for too long.

About six months ago, the water began to recede. I was able to get the fence back up, my compost pile has emerged from the ocean, and I’ve been able to assess how bad things are.

I also had two dead trees close to the house taken down. One very close to the house, a gum tree, was still alive, but it had a growth near the top that caused the top to break off. Considering the size of the tree and its proximity to the house, I had it taken down, too.

I have spent the last couple of days moving logs over to the Live Oak that fell, and setting things on fire. I’m usually a let nature take Her course, but I’ve got a lot, and I do mean a lot, of dead trees. Dozens of them have died, some have fallen, but at the time of this writing I’ve got four piles of dead stuff that if they catch on fire, it’s going to get weird. Two are so close together their blaze will be visible from the moon.

The Live Oak blocks the path from the house to the woods, and it is large. I would like to leave some of it to return to the earth as all thing should, but I have to reduce it. I have made good progress in this endeavor.

I began the process of moving parts of the Gum Tree to help burn the Live Oak. I used rollers, levers, and manual labor to get this done. If you know Physics, you can take an eight foot long log that is two feet in diameter, and move it one hundred yards without breaking a sweat. Push, move a roller, push, move a roller, push, move a roller, push, use a roller as a pivot, reset rollers, push, pivot, burn.

All the wonders of the ancient world were built by people who knew how to apply force in a manner consistent with the laws of physics. It’s not difficult once you understand how. Aliens were not needed and are not needed to build, to move, to create an environment where humans can get things done without machines.

I’m alone in the woods and can move logs some machines might struggle with. I used pieces of trees to move trees.

Take Care,

Mike

Friday Firesmith – Bringing down the trees

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The last two trees I brought down were a bit goofy and that made me a bit skittish. The first one did something not totally unexpected, because when you cut a tree that is both dead and hollow, it might, or it might not, do what you plan it will.

Hear me, My Dudes. When you’re felling a tree and that thing starts moving, you do, too. Get the hell away from it. This one hit, then the trunk end backed up over ten feet and it fell over due east another five feet. Standing to one side or right behind it, I would have gotten hit.

Another I cut two weeks ago broke as it was falling and it was more of an explosion than a cut. Part of the top fell backwards. I ran, twisted my ankle, and decided to shop around for a tree cutting service.

So here we are. The guy told me he would take the two smaller dead trees, with twisted limbs going off in all directions, and the dying tree next to The Mom’s She Shed for four-fifty. I think he was in a good mood, for that is a great price, and yesterday, the bucket truck and the saw guy arrived on time and ready to go.

The dead pine is lopped into pieces and dropped without a hitch. The dead water oak is dispatched quite easily, and all is well.

The tree beside the Shed of the She, is a mystery tree. I have been told it’s a water gum, a swamp myrtle, and a copperhead. (Everything is a copperhead to some people.)

So the guy buckets up, limbs fall like rain, he gets a lot of it down, and decides to fell the rest. I warn him about the water faucet in the backyard. He tells me no problem.

He ties the a rope to a tree, uses another rope to fasten a pulley to a tree in the woods, backs the truck up to create tension, and cuts. The tree falls. It does not fall perfect.

It misses my yard wagon by a foot. But the rope pushes another dead tree over and it hits the faucet perfectly. Water springs out like a sprinkler on meth. The guy has no plumbing supplies with him.

Normally, I might be pissed, but this guy has taken down three trees and no one is hurt. I have some spare parts and some glue, so the two of us get the pipe fixed, he cuts some of the larger pieces down to size for me, and we call it a day.

I could have folded my arms, told him the broke pipe was his problem, and simply waited to see what would happen next. But it was a freak accident, unrelated to the actual cutting, and I have three trees down and no one is hurt.

I’ve said that before. No one is hurt.

I think that’s more important that some glue and spare pipe parts and fifteen minutes of work.

Take Care,

Mike