Not really a very eventful day.
I did finally put bags in Little John and a layer of wood chips in the bottom. Gratefully, ain’t no smell as long as the lids on.
Wrote my journal entry for yesterday.
And then I spent pretty much the entire rest of the day down by the creek with my ax, and my loppers, and my chainsaw.
🙃
I actually made a pretty huge visual difference today.
I got the massive, tangled grapevines that were directly across from the dam cut up, removed, and burned.
I got a huge chunk of the work done for cutting up and burning multiple trees that I had previously felled.
And I felled two more cedar trees that were basically useless trees because they had grown underneath the canopy and had almost no green on them, cutting them up a fair bit as well.
I did things a little bit differently this time: instead of burning the whole trees, I saved out the trunk logs, lots of them.
Jim mentioned last week that he needed to cut up more wood for the wood burning stove in his shop, so I figured he can use these logs if he wants. He’ll need to cut them up, but it will be a better use of the wood instead of me just burning them in burn piles.
Anyway, I spent pretty much all day down there, didn’t work at all while I was working outside.
I also got rid of the last bits of the large tree that had washed down probably years ago and wrapped itself around one of the other trees on the bank.
It was one of those crazy hardwood trees that’s super duper duper duper hard, and the wood just about doesn’t rot at all.
Not sure what kind of tree it is. It’s got crazy big thorns on it. But I cut it up with the chainsaw, putting the logs that were straight enough in the log pile, and then rolling the huge stump leftovers into the middle of the rock shelf, and then moving the burn pile from where I had it to be around that stump.
It took all the rest of the day, with gazillions and gazillions of branches cut off of felled trees mostly with my ax, but many with my chainsaw, especially at the end of the day.
It was well after dark, and apparently quite cold by the time I left the creek area. I had been quite toasty warm because the fire was so hot that I didn’t notice that it was only 20° outside, with me in a short sleeve shirt.
🙃
Stephanie offered to let me sleep in their house because it was so cold outside, and I had no idea cuz I was roasty toasty next to the fire.
My main effort was to keep from burning myself each time I got close to the mountain of coals.
Even though I had spent all day burning, the large trunk was still a good ways away from being done burning, so I piled up the coals and the last of the unburned sticks into a pile burying the rest of the stump in the hopes that it would cook it so thoroughly that it would be just a big pile of ash by morning.
🤞
I do enjoy my days by the creek.
😊
I did start four questions as I came to the end of the day. It’s not going to add much money to my weekly total, but it’s better than nothing. And I was able to help some people out who needed help.
Time for bed.
I’m wrapped up in shorts and a t-shirt under my triple and a half layer blanket insulation. I’m roasty toasty warm–which is evidence to me how true it is that you stay warmer with fewer clothes on then all bundled up.
Guess we’ll see what happens on the night that gets down to -4.
🥶
It’ll be a great experiment, and I’ve got plenty of clothing to keep me warm if the experiment goes awry.
Let’s see… what time is it… after midnight? Yes.
Happy madrugada 30! Three perfect tens. 🥳
Love and hugs. 💚
Lift the world.
G’night. 😴
~ stephen
Lift the World 