I said recently that I'm trying to work NCWW back into my life and that I have a new (to me) table saw, but you may still ask what have I been doing all this year. My wife has an potentially deadly allergy to meat (alpha-gal -- see: www.alpha-gal.org ). To help try to overcome this problem we have had to change our tick-riddled woodland environment. For 20 years, we lived in the woods (LARGE trees within 10 feet of the house, more than 20 trees in the immediately surrounding yard, no lawn whatever) -- that had to change. But this is a pic from 2 years ago that shows the encroaching woods.
In Jan. we had the immediate trees around the house removed except one redbud. Twelve of these were greater than a foot in diameter and over 70 feet tall. Then we had our primary yard sodded with zoysia. It ended up looking like this. The difference may be difficult to see, but ALL remaining trees are at least 50 feet from the house -- and notice the lawn.
This is another shot which shows the steeply sloped lawn and the remaining redbud. Since returning from a two-month, prime-tick-season trip at the end of June, I also put in the fencing you see surrounding the lawn including the aluminum fence around the front side (small section to the left in this pic). This is to keep our dogs out of the woods and away from the ticks.
It looks nice, but I gotta say I loved my woodland environment much more and the cost of all this would knock you over. (Re-read the second two sentences of this post if you wonder: Why do it?) Besides that I did get some extra bennies.
Two of those trees were more 30 inches in diameter measured at shoulder height. I brought a band-sawmill in (thanks Roy Lynch, LynchCo) and in one long day we cut and stickered this stack of wood (8 ft. high, 8 ft. long).
The wood is mostly all quarter-sawn red oak (absolutely stunning!) and the huge red maple that used to lean heavily over my shop (ambrosia maple with beautiful figure and colors). Three separate experts looked at that maple and agreed that it was probably hollow and diseased, but, while the top showed dying branches, the tree turned out to be perfect -- no rot or hollow at all. Didn't matter, it was coming down as it was two feet from the shop and leaned completely over it. There would have been nothing left if it fell.
I also got some white oak and black walnut planks from this milling that are stacked closer to my shop.
There was lots of "scrap" not suitable for milling and some hickory. But a local firewood guy removed it for me to get the wood. Yes, I might have been able to sell it, but it wasn't worth the bother to me with everything else going on and the deal a free load of firewood cut for my small stove.
Even after all this work, I still have a lot to do. This pic shows the big red oak that I had the timber guys cut off at about 6 feet. Within a few weeks, I had stripped it's bark (except that small crown) so that it would dry evenly and without rot or insects.
I plan to carve this into a wood elf figure. Just to left you can see the tall, grey cedar trunk that I had allowed to grow up through my deck. This is the 6-7 inch trunk that I plan to carve into several parts including a central totem. After things slow down just a bit.
So it's been a full year -- and it's certainly not over yet! I still have to wire my new saw for 220V. :gar-La;
Rich
In Jan. we had the immediate trees around the house removed except one redbud. Twelve of these were greater than a foot in diameter and over 70 feet tall. Then we had our primary yard sodded with zoysia. It ended up looking like this. The difference may be difficult to see, but ALL remaining trees are at least 50 feet from the house -- and notice the lawn.
This is another shot which shows the steeply sloped lawn and the remaining redbud. Since returning from a two-month, prime-tick-season trip at the end of June, I also put in the fencing you see surrounding the lawn including the aluminum fence around the front side (small section to the left in this pic). This is to keep our dogs out of the woods and away from the ticks.
It looks nice, but I gotta say I loved my woodland environment much more and the cost of all this would knock you over. (Re-read the second two sentences of this post if you wonder: Why do it?) Besides that I did get some extra bennies.
Two of those trees were more 30 inches in diameter measured at shoulder height. I brought a band-sawmill in (thanks Roy Lynch, LynchCo) and in one long day we cut and stickered this stack of wood (8 ft. high, 8 ft. long).
The wood is mostly all quarter-sawn red oak (absolutely stunning!) and the huge red maple that used to lean heavily over my shop (ambrosia maple with beautiful figure and colors). Three separate experts looked at that maple and agreed that it was probably hollow and diseased, but, while the top showed dying branches, the tree turned out to be perfect -- no rot or hollow at all. Didn't matter, it was coming down as it was two feet from the shop and leaned completely over it. There would have been nothing left if it fell.
I also got some white oak and black walnut planks from this milling that are stacked closer to my shop.
There was lots of "scrap" not suitable for milling and some hickory. But a local firewood guy removed it for me to get the wood. Yes, I might have been able to sell it, but it wasn't worth the bother to me with everything else going on and the deal a free load of firewood cut for my small stove.
Even after all this work, I still have a lot to do. This pic shows the big red oak that I had the timber guys cut off at about 6 feet. Within a few weeks, I had stripped it's bark (except that small crown) so that it would dry evenly and without rot or insects.
I plan to carve this into a wood elf figure. Just to left you can see the tall, grey cedar trunk that I had allowed to grow up through my deck. This is the 6-7 inch trunk that I plan to carve into several parts including a central totem. After things slow down just a bit.
So it's been a full year -- and it's certainly not over yet! I still have to wire my new saw for 220V. :gar-La;
Rich
