How'd it go today?

[MasterBlaster]

It's gonna pass way too quickly, I fear.

 

[stehansen]

I did my stint at the sheller today. Having to dry most of the almonds down to the required 7% moisture, very unusual. My cousin is re-doing the front brakes on my pickup. I took him out one rotor, set of pads, and a set of calipers.

 

[NeTree]

What's "usual"?

 

[stehansen]

Usually they shake the trees and the nuts sit on the orchard floor for about a week like that, then they sweep them into rows and they sit for a few more days. Then they are picked up and brought to a place like I work at. They are hulled, shelled, and then shipped to a processor. Where they are either sold in bulk or bagged or put in cans, or a host of other packages. The growers are getting nervous though because it's getting late in the year. So after they are shelled they are then put in a roll off box that is fixed up with a expanded metal floor and hooked to a fan with a propane burner and it blows hot air up through the roll off box. It takes from 6 to 12 hours to dry them down. Then the roll off box is pulled onto a truck and then dumped onto the belt of a elevator and dropped either into grain trailers or into wooden bins and shipped either of those ways to the processor.

 

[NeTree]

If they want to automate that, let me know.

 

[MasterBlaster]

It's gonna pass way too quickly, I fear.

So far, so good

 

[stig]

Nothing like a total day of rest.
Good for you Butch!

I try to make sunday my day of rest, too.

I have to check the saws and load the truck with logging gear, though.
We have a 200M3 order for ash logs next week.
Weather report promises clear cold fall weather,
The ash trees have dropped their leaves, but everything else are in full fall colours.
This is going to be sooooo good

 

[Tree Reb]

I had a big week and was going to have a rest but spent most of the day working on my chipper. Fixed an oil leak, replaced the tool box, changed knives and gave it a wash. It looks years younger.

No falling leaves here, everything is green and it's warming up. Got to mid 80's, clear blue sky.

 

[Al Smith]

The ash trees have droppd their leaves, but everything else are in full fall colours.
This is going to be sooooo good

Our ash haven't had leaves at all in about a year Let's just hope you folks don't get that little green bug that killed all of our ash trees .Sad day indeed .

If not you'll be exporting the lumber to make baseball bats before too long .

 

[Cobleskill]

How big do the young trees get before they are killed, Al?

 

[Al Smith]

It gets them all from saplings to hundred footers . Some of them if the roots weren't grave yard dead have resprouted and only time will tell if the ever gain maturity enough to spread seed stock to spurn new growth .It seems from my observation though that only the larger trees of maybe 3 feet or more have the resprouting .But that could also go back to how long it was dead before it got dropped .

Several smaller trees had sprouted new limbs ,green as grass probabley in a feeble attempt to save themselves which would have not worked with so much lose of bark .At best if the tree could have made another couple years at least it could have regenerated by seed stock whatever that might be on an ash .I have no idea what the seeds look like .

Who knows they might have built up an immunity or the EAB might die off by then or get eaten by that stingless wasp that dines on them .

 

[Cobleskill]

The seeds are flat small seeds similar to a maple but no helicopter action. Thanks, Al. EAB is moving in close to me. I have a lot of Ash on my land. I have been trying to get a jump, cutting the culls first. The same thing happened with Beech. Mostly small ones left.

 

[Al Smith]

Say ,I forgot a little thing .Before the leaves fell I did see some small saplings that appeared to be free of EAB but I won't really know until next spring .It might be such a thing the EAB didn't fool with real young trees because they might not have contained enough bark to sustain the larva .

Now I'm talking little bitty ones ,inch two in diameter and 10-15 -20 feet tall .In the woods they grow up tall and skinny where in the open they get a tad more plump before they head for the sky .

 

[Al Smith]

We still have the beech and some rather large ones too .There's a couple 4 footers in the woods next to mine . I think I've only got maybe half a dozen and probabley the largest is 18"

 

[Paul B]

awiting impatiently for significant leaf drop here. So far the Katsura have dropped, the maples are just turning and the liquidambar and ash are barely showing signs. Its tough for me as my larger strata maintenance property has a number of trees, which equates to a lot of leaves to clean up, which equates to hours of site time, dump fees and labour cost that I hate. If they all dumped at once I could handle it with a small army in a day, as it is I have to drag a couple people out there with me week after week until its done.

 

[NeTree]

About half my leaves are down already. A little over 40 loads in the sweeper just yesterday.

 

[SkwerI]

Some of our trees dump leaves in the fall, but most of our oaks dump leaves in the spring when the new growth pushes the old leaves off. Therefore our leaf cleaning season (for those that play) lasts about 4 months. For the most part I can get away with just mulching them up with the mower.

 

[stig]

Our ash haven't had leaves at all in about a year Let's just hope you folks don't get that little green bug that killed all of our ash trees .Sad day indeed .

If not you'll be exporting the lumber to make baseball bats before too long .

What baseball bats?

This is Europe, baseball is an exotic animal, rarely seen.
And when we do see it, we can't fathom how people can get excited about it.
Like you feel about cricket, probably.
Which BTW all us non British Europeans are totally baffled by as well.

Our ash trees are dying, too.
Not from EAB but from a fungal cousin to oakwilt.

In 10 years there probably won't be a live ash tree in Denmark, so the forests try to get them to the mills before they die.
So we'll be logging plenty of ash in the next few years and then never again

 

[stehansen]

Hope they never go to aluminium bats.

 

[Al Smith]

Some of our northern oaks hang on to a large amounts of leaves also until new leaves in spring .The Beech too .

Hickory falls first then slowly the maples and some of the oaks .Of course a killing frost hastens the process but so far that has not happened .As I look out the picture window next to my puter the bald trees at this moment are either hickory or dead ash of which I just keep finding more and more . I couldn't quite see when the canopies were in full follage .FWIW the bark of an ash and one variety of hickory is so similar it's hard to tell them apart unless you see the leaves ,at least for me that is .

 

[Al Smith]

Hope they never go to aluminium bats.

Me too .Thonk doesn't sound nearly as nice as the crack of ash on horsehide .

Oh and the feel .You just know when you hit the ball by the feel of the bat what it's going to do .Either ground out by the short stop or clear the center field fence .

 

[woodworkingboy]

Stig, baseball isn't supposed to be an exciting game, except for parts. Think of it as a pastoral activity, that is the great thing about it. It started in a cornfield.

See George Carlin on baseball vs football, for some interesting insight if you don't know the game.

 

[NeTree]

Our day started off okay, then went to shit. Literally.

Spent a couple hours shoveling out the septic and J-box covers so the plumber could clear a clog. Clog cleared, but the tank is full. Time to call the cucka-sucka.

 

[vharrison]

This one made me laugh. "The beast" as I refer to her is dead. The insurance company totaled it.

 

[MasterBlaster]

How in the WORLD did they consider it "totaled?" Was it that old???