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Re: Gentle persuasion over time

Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2020 1:24 am
by terkio
My large, cherry tree stump made some progress.
The fire over it regularly fed with logs is a slow process, but what is done, is done. Now, there is some depth below ground level.

I will call it, good enough and let it rod underground.

Re: Gentle persuasion over time

Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2020 8:32 am
by JR.
The grass still hasn't grown back over one stump I burned out over a year ago.

I found that my long handle axe is good for finishing up degraded stumps, a good burn is almost as good as rot....

JR

Re: Gentle persuasion over time

Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2020 9:09 am
by terkio
I am missing right tools.
I must invest in a long handle axe.
I only have a small one, no good on that stump, it just bounces on it and that hurt my wrist.
I need a sledge hammer and wedges.
I need a big SDS drill for wood. I tried the ones I have for concrete, that is no good.
Then I will be set to deal with big stumps.

Re: Gentle persuasion over time

Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2020 9:44 am
by JR.
I almost bought a maul ( cross between axe and sledge hammer) but I could tell from trying to lift it inside the store that it was too heavy for me (I'm old). The long handle axe was a very good investment.

Famous Lincoln quote... "give me 4 hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first three sharpening my axe." (paraphrased because I'm too lazy to look it up for accuracy).

I have sharpened my axe a couple times and it does make a difference (the full force of the axe is focussed on a smaller knife edge cross sectional area). 8-)

JR

Re: Gentle persuasion over time

Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2020 10:37 am
by terkio
Indeed, sharpening and right steel is a must.

Re: Gentle persuasion over time

Posted: Mon Nov 23, 2020 10:26 am
by JR.
terkio wrote: Mon Nov 09, 2020 10:37 am Indeed, sharpening and right steel is a must.
Steel affects how often you need to resharpen... I recall back in the 60s I had a pocket knife with a blade made from soft steel... it would get dull almost immediately after sharpening.

I used my long handle axe yesterday to set in 70 pecan tree fertilizer spikes. Whack a wedge shaped hole in the ground with the axe, then hammer in the fertilizer spike with the flat back of the axe...

=======

New plan for next years garden, I have decided that even cutting down the last two trees will not open up my far back yard, because so much shade is coming from neighboring trees. I still might cut down tree #2 because it is so ugly it needs cuttin...

New revised plan is to expand my raised bed garden with more beds.
raisedBed3.jpg
I found these 4'x4' plastic/composite raised beds that are not only termite resistant but cheaper... My original 2'x8' bed was clearly over planted. The tomatoes stole sun light from the peppers that finally came to life after the tomato plants died off. Still getting peppers for thanksgiving.

I purchased three of these 4x4 beds so I will have 4 times the area for plants next year. Doing some more planning for next year, I will keep the tomatoes, and peppers and whatever in separate beds. The tomatoes need the most room. Recommended spacing is 24", I can fit 10 plants with that spacing in the 2x8 bed, and only 9 plants in the 4x4, so 10 tomato plants will go in the old bed. Peppers can thrive with 1' spacing and carrots 3" so I will fill one 4x4 with peppers, leaving the other two 4x4 for squash, cucumbers, etc... I ordered some onion seeds so with try onions next year.

JR

Re: Gentle persuasion over time

Posted: Mon Nov 30, 2020 3:03 pm
by JR.
New plan, I purchased three of these 4x4 foot plastic composite raised beds to expand my vegetable garden next year.

This 3x 16 square foot beds gives an additional 48 square feet of extra garden. This seemed good enough for me to order them, but my overnight design team kept mulling it over and figured out that I could rearrange the sides, like that old math matchsticks puzzle game amd instead make two 4x8 beds. for an additional 64 square foot of garden.

Carried to the next extreme I could rearrange the sides to make one 12x12 bed for 144 square feet, but nah I like the two 4x8 beds.
8x8.jpg
Image shows the 4x4 configuration on far side of old bed and 4x8 in near field.

The kit includes screws to make the anchor pins/joints more rigid. I might do that for the middle two joints so the weight of the soil doesn't bow them out.

JR

PS; The frost killed my last peppers, but you can see some garlic still growing in the far end of the old bed. I just started some broccoli plants from seeds inside my indoor greenhouse, to transplant after they come up. Reportedly broccoli can grown over the winter. Next year I will spread everything out so the tomatoes don't steal everybody's sunlight.

Re: Gentle persuasion over time

Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2021 9:52 pm
by JR.
I hate cold weather... freezing rain coming out of my downspout as sleet.
hard_water.jpg
today mother nature tried to take out my power line by dropping some pine tree limbs that were overloaded with ice.
limbs.jpg
The pile of wood in the background is the limb that fell this morning and hung up on my power line (only 240V). After I cut it in half with my chainsaw it fell free...

This bigger pile of limbs in the foreground fell this afternoon. Didn't hit my power line but messed with my neighbors land line.

JR

Re: Gentle persuasion over time

Posted: Fri Feb 19, 2021 11:56 am
by JR.
My power line survived two weather related attempts to interrupt my power tues... As if that wasn't enough drama, wednesday night I lost water pressure. Since I could hear water trickling down in my crawlspace I was out in my cold dark yard in the middle of the night (3AM) searching for the normal suspects, broken/frozen water pipes. The good news was I checked my water meter and found zero water flow so no leaking plumbing... the bad news is I had zero water flow. The water pressure returned mid morning thursday, almost clean again.I expect a boil water notice in the mail but the post office is barely working... I haven't seen my newspaper since last week (USPS truck hasn't been running from Jackson).

The water noise down in my crawl space was caused by ground water flows from the last few days with significant rain/ice and me keeping my sump pump powered off. SInce the temps were just above freezing, I fired up the sump pump to drain my swamp. I switched it off again in the morning.

Temp just now rising near 40' so time to power up the sump pump again... cold, but I am itching to burn all that pine in my yard.

My huge ornamental evergreen also suffered a few large branches breaking due to weigh of accumulated ice. That evergreen is looking more and more like a bonsai helped along by mother nature.

My heat pump works much better with 30's outdoors than teens.

JR

Re: Gentle persuasion over time

Posted: Sat Feb 20, 2021 2:46 am
by terkio
JR. wrote: Fri Feb 19, 2021 11:56 am My heat pump works much better with 30's outdoors than teens.
JR
That is the big trouble with air air heat pumps, the efficiency drops at lower air temperature.
That is a bit paradoxical, it is good when it is not so cold outside.
It is even worse, at very low temperatures; The outdoor heat exchanger can freeze, so to present that the heat pumps runs cycles in reverse, cooling inside to warm up outdoors.
An alternative to the air air heat pump is to use deep underground temperature instead of outdoor ambient air temperature. This is still subject to thermodynamics second law issue but to a lesser extent because of better temperature conditions.
More efficient, but more costly at installation.