Scrounging Firewood (and other stuff)

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Well, I didn't get anything meaningful done today. Had a heck of a hangover from last night. Neighbor and his wife came over to hang out and we ended up polishing off a little of crown royal peach. My wife and his put a pretty bad hurt on a handle of kettle one vodka. John stopped by this afternoon to grab some eggs and veggies from the garden and looked as bad as I felt. We both had a good laugh.
I did manage to get the shop rearranged and a few boards screwed fast to the bottom of the trusses for the ceiling. 2 of them to be exact lol. Had planned to be a bit farther along, but the guy that milled the strips must have been having an off day, they varried from 1 1/4" to nearly 2", so I rough cut them down in the table saw then sent them through my little planer. Took them all to 1". Should be plenty strong for what they will be holding up.
 

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There was a tree that was dying in the median strip of the road that Cowdad's house (country house, if you don't mind) is on. It also had a beehive in the base of it. Council came to cut it down, did so, then ran away crying and screaming when the bees came out en masse to hand out some retribution.

End result was that they left the trunk and larger branch pieces. Dad has been scrounging it in the mornings when it is too cold for the bees to be up and about. It looks like a box species of some sort, very heavy, none of which float in water. The only drawback is that it takes a few years to dry (and it is very difficult to split by hand). I told him that and he was then trying to work out the odds of him stihl being alive long enough to burn it, given that he is 83. He is in amazing shape though, stihl rides the bike 50km most days.
 
***Scrounge pics incoming***

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So, I'm trying to work out what has gone on here. Generally speaking, box trees are horrible to split, at least the bigger stuff. Yet the rounds are all split and I've been informed that Cowdad did not get a relative with a hydro splitter around. X27 FTW?
 
Just had a front go through this morning, not a lot of snow, but cold air behind it. Have the fire going hot with scrounged manna gum.

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Came from this scrounge back in September

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Manna gum seems to have a lower amount of volatiles in it, which makes it good for burning once the fire is going but not so good if you're starting from cold. About red oak density and not much ash so acceptable scrounge in the right conditions.

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Put up a 50 gallon drum that gets fed by gutter water off a coop. It feeds nipple waters in 2 coops. Once I started filling it birds ran over to use it. Added reinforcement to the saw horse this afternoon. 20" 10' logs were putting a strain on it . Try to be careful loading logs with the grapple on but sometimes they come off the loader quick.
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Ehhhhh, every day is better than the last

Lots of tears on Wednesday, just try to keep her time occupied so she doesn’t dwell on it

Luckily she’s talking to a good kid and he took her to her favorite restaurant last night and has been helping keep her mind off the “sadness”

So happy she is finally talking to a boy I approve of

Uncle Mike, it’s the tall kid from her Graduation party that showed up in the old Camaro


This kid works full time, college full time, then a second part time job

Has good parents that make him pay for everything himself

AND even the wife likes this one….
You better watch liking the boy too much. In my teenager/early 20 years it seemed like the more the girls parents liked me, the more she was ready to move on to the next one 😂. The first girls dad proceeded to show me his entire gun collection the first time I went over..... really ended up getting along with him pretty well after a pretty rocky start, he is the one that showed me how to clean and process my first deer.

(Blurry) Pic of the deer

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The wife and I went on a hike Saturday to a place called Hawk Rock in Carmel, NY (on NYC-DEP property).

We had an "observer"! Yes, you are allowed to hunt there ... but he was very small bodied.
 

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I have a friend who is a big apple grower, he always tells me to go pick whatever apples I want, so every year at haying time, I drop off a bale of hay at his farm,

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So today was the day I dropped off a bale, on my way to pick up my tractor from a job.

SR
 
I'm guessing that is a pump action rifle and not an 870 as there is no recoil pad???

What caliber?


Its a Gamemaster 760 30-06, first rifle I bought. My neighbor at my parents was trying to get me into hunting at the time too so he had let me borrow it for the season. Once I finally shot my first one he sold it to me for a stupid low price since he had never fired it and said I needed the gun I shot my first deer with.

I hit it about 120 yards out, pretty good for a first kill.
 
One of my older cousins upstate used to have one in 280 Rem. Unfortunately, he died in a car crash and his two brothers are also no longer with us.

I believe one of his nephews now has it, but I have to follow up on that one of these days.

They look very similar to my 870, which I love! I've taken deer, grouse and duck with mine. I also use it for both trap and (occasionally) sporting clays.
 
My upstate trail camera was relatively inactive for over a week after capturing both turkey and a small bear, then over a week late the small bear again.

But this morning, we have a full-size doe and (separately) the fawn again. With all the predators up there I'm relieved to see that the fawn is surviving.
 
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