How'd it go today?

Our arborist did a presentation on trees blown over in hurricanes. Basically, he does not recommend keeping them. Ha, there was a lot more to it than that but bottom line, they can and probably will fail again.
I often recommend people let them lie where they fall or lean. (if its safe to do so and they have the room)
Cut back anything obviously broken to just past the break, then leave it for a year. The tree will 'tell' you where it needs to be cut, and it can be reshaped to grow in it's new 'inclination'
 
Got a new pet today. I named her Gertrude. She's little, so it's hard getting a good pic...

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I was stopped at a traffic light and saw a little bug on the side window. I grabbed it and dropped it onto the web. Gertrude was on it like ugly on a monkey, and wrapped it up tight...

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Hope she sticks around and doesn't get cooked by the heat.
 
Had a break from the on again, off again rain today, so got the remnants of the Norway Maple out of my yard. Filled the last third of the chip truck, and about 16 4-6ft. log sections taken to the drying pile. Still a ~60ft high pecker pole hanging off the side I need to clip before I flop the stick (as it and the ~15 ft one in the pic leans the whole thing towards the house). About 34" DBH.:

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Two smallish 60’ walnuts over a garage in between two other barns, just enough room to land the brush. Fun rigging. The guy has 300 other walnuts he is contemplating removing, some are like this highly valuable beast:
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We measured the circumference to be 11’ 3”. A solid 80’ canopy spread.
 
This would give me the sads
only part that makes me sad is the poor guy picking up literal truckloads of walnuts
ive come to realize walnut isnt as rare and expensive as people think, ive never actually paid for walnut wood to put on the mill either, every piece of walnut we have (thousands of board feet) were logs people just gave us

what is the walnut market in your area? ive got probably 20 of them on my property and pass a few hundred every time I leave the house, rare we cut one down, but they are just as common as silver maples it seems, only difference is that nice chocolate color
 
ive actually got some walnut logs out back, 6ft lengths (all my machine will lift), been down over a year and has fresh growth on them, they are in a log pile and still growing limbs... its like when you forget a potato for a few months and it tries to grow new sprouts
 
Squirrels do a good job cleaning up the walnuts. Father went to the hospital twice with burned hands from shelling walnuts. I'm not fond of black walnut. Flavor is too strong, but English walnuts are one of my favorites.

It was also my father's favorite wood. I'm a little indifferent on it, but the trees have really grown on me over the years. They really pop on the woods edge and add visual interest.
 
What makes a walnut valuable? The old myth didn't come from nothing, but they don't really grow in ways that make premium wood. What I would say is forest grown with tight rings and a long way til the first branch, but they prefer a lot of light, and throw branches out early. Are the valuable ones the ones that persisted in unfavorable conditions and beat the odds?
 
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