Gentle persuasion over time

Relax in southern comfort on the east bank of the Mississippi. You're just around the corner from Beale Street and Sun Records. Watch the ducks, throw back a few and tell us what's on your mind.
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JR.
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Re: Gentle persuasion over time

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billshurv wrote: Wed Oct 23, 2019 7:53 am The termite whisperer...
Termites need moisture so I may give them a spritz... :lol:

JR

[edit looks like my termites have left the building (tree). :oops: /edit]

[edit2 checking later looks like a bunch of new ants like the trub /edit]
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mediatechnology
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Re: Gentle persuasion over time

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JR. wrote: Wed Oct 23, 2019 8:52 am [edit2 checking later looks like a bunch of new ants like the trub /edit]
So do microbes...
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terkio
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Re: Gentle persuasion over time

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JR. wrote: Wed Oct 23, 2019 8:52 am
billshurv wrote: Wed Oct 23, 2019 7:53 am The termite whisperer...
Termites need moisture so I may give them a spritz... :lol:

JR

[edit looks like my termites have left the building (tree). :oops: /edit]

[edit2 checking later looks like a bunch of new ants like the trub /edit]
Any new dwellers at your tree ?
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JR.
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Re: Gentle persuasion over time

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terkio wrote: Sun Oct 27, 2019 6:05 am
JR. wrote: Wed Oct 23, 2019 8:52 am
billshurv wrote: Wed Oct 23, 2019 7:53 am The termite whisperer...
Termites need moisture so I may give them a spritz... :lol:

JR

[edit looks like my termites have left the building (tree). :oops: /edit]

[edit2 checking later looks like a bunch of new ants like the trub /edit]
Any new dwellers at your tree ?
It appears that most of my transplanted termite larvae left the building, but a few may have stuck around. The more that I poke and prod, the more convinced I am that this tree would not (will not) behave... prodding around the bottom I can find various regions of rot eating into the trunk, mixed with regions of solid wood. When this falls it could twist and turn in unpredictable ways. One of those trees my old neighbor Roy warned about.

I want to believe the tie line and come along will nudge it in a better direction when it does come down. Friday night the latest tropical storm blew through and the big loose branch up high that I worried about fell and was sticking straight into the ground. We were still under a wind advisory until mid day yesterday and wind blew it over again, but that branch could have hurt somebody (like me).

We had lots of downed branches and while picking up a piece of rotten limb out of the rain ditch I saw what looked like beetles chewing on it... they scurried before i could transfer them to a new home to feast on. :lol:

I am not good at predicting the future, but I don't see this tree standing for years, but could easily last months.

I will continue the trub applications roughly once a week.

JR

PS: I worry about not hitting the neighboring store, but he has a huge dying cottonwood tree right next to his store. It dropped a couple big limbs during that storm (missed his store), some reaching my property line so I will need to clean that up too. Yesterday I was busy enough just picking up my branches.
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terkio
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Re: Gentle persuasion over time

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Tanks for the news.
And about:
The more that I poke and prod, the more convinced I am that this tree would not (will not) behave... prodding around the bottom I can find various regions of rot eating into the trunk, mixed with regions of solid wood. When this falls it could twist and turn in unpredictable ways. One of those trees my old neighbor Roy warned about.
with a previous comment of yours telling the tree is curved, the trunk leaning at the bottom part, then straight higher.
You have all the signs of a dangerous tree that, as said, will fall twisting and turning in unpredictable ways.
Well, you are well aware of it.
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JR.
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Re: Gentle persuasion over time

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Yesterday I peeled some more of the dead bark away to find hundreds of tiny ants(?) scurrying about and feasting on the tree trunk...

This sucker is coming down and mother nature is my lumber jack, just not today.

JR
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JR.
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Re: Gentle persuasion over time

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I don't have baseline lean data for the other directions but it is still leaning slightly away from the opposing come-along line...

but I now perceive a new lean at a right angle (to the left) of the line in tension. It appears to be leaning 3x or more the angle as the original lean against the tension. This looks to me like the sucka coming down in slow motion, and not on my neighbor's building. :lol:

JR
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Re: Gentle persuasion over time

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If you have a telescope in a window that can see the tree from the house maybe you should pick a target on the tree, fix the telescope in position and improvise a surveying instrument...
It sounded like fun to me anyway.
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Re: Gentle persuasion over time

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no window facing the tree, but if I did the new lean is almost in line with vector from house,,,, and I do not have a telescope. :lol:

When I was measuring lean with my level I saw an ant climbing up outside the tree... Just like cockroaches ants don't usually live alone either so I feel lucky.

I could use a more precise lean angle measurement, or just wait for it to fall.

One of the few (only?) things that gets easier when old is waiting for time to pass.... The less time I have left the faster it goes by.

JR

PS; Poured some more beer trub on it today...
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Re: Gentle persuasion over time

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I just found a $6 lean angle meter on ma-zon... I bet my neighbor who does a lot of carpentry owns one I can borrow. :lol:

I need to benchmark and log my tree's lean angle(s)... eyeballing it is so last century... and not scientific.

JR
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