How'd it go today?

Why would anyone lose their Cheerios over someone shooting a bird?😳

I shoot crows. I don’t eat them, but they eat crops, and have this horrible habit of lighting in trees in/around the yard and showing off their vocal abilities...or lack thereof...
You should try them! Their breasts are a pretty tasty, tender red meat. We call them sky steaks around here!
 
Interesting weekend, did some fire mitigation work on a property in steep-ish rocky terrain where the masticator couldn’t get at a bunch of scrub oak. Dropped and bucked a few small trees then went to town with the 462 like the old days of putting in fire line. Threw my chain once, rocked my chain twice, and got into a small piece of barbed wire hiding oh so perfectly. Not bad for two days of brushing with a saw! We stripped it bare and somebody even shot a not completely horrible picture of me.:|:
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Dumbass boss didn't tell me where we were going today. I could have brought my spurs in. We did borings, which doesn't involve me at all, but one of the sites has the vine choked locusts I want to cut for fence posts. I could have climbed them, and cut all the vines free, so when we go to cut them later, it would have been straight falls. I cut around the bases, but there's still a bunch up high that needs to be done. It's raining pretty good now, so I'm not real enthused about going out for optional work.

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Side note... I've been noticing lanternflys really like wild grape vine. They're known for liking and destroying domestic grapes, but if they concentrate on the wild variety, it won't be completely bad. I wish they'd go after the bittersweet. That would be awesome. Their favorite of all is tree of heaven, which could be a whole lot worse. Cover a tree in sticky tape, then cut the whole damned thing down once it gets full of lanternflys.
 
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Corvids are a big threat to lambs for the same reason. I watch several YouTube channels in the UK dedicated to hunting them.

I have shot quite a few Magpies, Crows and pigeons back in the Uk. They are very crafty birds. You pretty much have to cover all your skin and wear camo ninja masks. The slightest bit will give you away. They seem to be able to spot you just before you pull the trigger, swerve and you miss. Same for crows.

We used to do quite a bit on the farms my dad had shooting rights on. Especially during lambing season.
 
I cussed a good bit yesterday. I cut a big horsechesnut, 38" diameter, around 90 feet hight, twin trunks after 13' and forestry shape. I made only two 20" logs at the butt and my 36"chain went dull in the middle of the wood. Bad start for bucking all in firewood length. I set aside the ms661 for the moment and took the ms 462 to at least cut out the bad spot, probably something stuck deep between the twin trunks. Cut a quarter of the diameter and went dull too. Sooo... F***k the butt and buck it by the small end(s). Resharpened the 20" chain , cut about 4" deep in the smallish wood and the chain broke !:angry4:
Put a brand new chain, cut some logs in the 6-12" diameter range. At what was around 50' high, I got a bunch of sparks.:angry5:
I found nothing but a small pocket of rot in the center. I guess that some small critter put a gravel in a little hole up there (squirrel ?). Time to file again.
Ok after that for a while, until the shared part of the twin trunks. Surely enougth, chain went dull again. Sweet file ...
Luckily, this massive part split partly during the fall. The dismantling of the crown made it move slightly and the halves separated a bit. With carefull cutting and working the (half)rounds, I went through it, not without dulling the chain again.
It turns out that the included bark was lined almost top to bottom with dirt.
Dirt at ground level in a double stump, sure, I got plenty of that. Organic matter above ground, I can see that. But dirt at 13' high ?

Well, I need to sharpen some chains...
 
Lit my burn pile at several points. It’s trying to burn.

Climbed a water oak by my shop that I’ve decided to take down. Cut two main limbs off and part of a third. I’m terribly slow but it felt good to be up a tree again. Hopefully I’ll be back in decent climbing shape in a couple of weeks.
 
Boss texted me this morning that he had a meeting, and nothing would be happening til lunch. I interpreted that as "No surveying today". Took my time coming in, and brought my spur climbing stuff. Didn't use it. I spent the day hauling wood up from my project at work...

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The wood is in worse shape than I thought. Might get one mat out of it, and it might require shaving a little on the size. That's just staged to pull out at a later date. I wanted to get some of the most visible wood moved from down near the house. Each pull took at least two setups for the ropes. Got to use the sling Jonny gave me. I was gonna use my treemaster sling, but amusingly enough, it was too short by just about the same amount of material I used to put in the spliced eye. Figures, eh? There's still a shit ton of wood left. I didn't destroy any ground that wasn't already messed up, or in the "woodland" setting. The people never said anything about it to me, but it was important to me to not turf everything up.

Also looked at the "good" pine I posted a question about earlier. I'm feeling pretty good about that one. I'll be pretty high in a crusty dead tree, but there's some really nice tie ins close by, and I'll be able to hit them with my new apta. I will wait for a calm day though. Don't want to do it in the wind.
 
Finished cataloging some 40 dead trees to put together a bid for a regular customer down the length of the long driveway.


I can knock them over, limb and leave most of them.
I can take any logs i want.
Lots of dry cedar that would mill up nicely. Next year's firewood for several stoves.

Hard to figure fair and not leaving money on the table.

Pretty easy work in my book.
Minimal cleanup.
On my schedule.

The homeowner had a large shop built to replace the small shop he had.
He gave me a the 20 year old breaker panel, and a manual transfer switch for a generator, and something else.
They are remodeling an apartment. Changing 20 year old power outlets for white. Good for my pole barn rewiring, Sometime.
 
All free stuff. I'll definitely check into it. Nothing happening anytime soon. If its junk, it will just get recycled.

Its definitely newer than what is in my barn. We will see.
 
Got off early, So I went home to clean the chimney. A lanternfly landed by me while I was up there. Post squish...

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Full of gooey goodness. It's been a banner year. From the novelty of my first invasive sighting, to "Holy shit, these things are everywhere!" in a few months. I also split my new reel of dynaglide into two 300' lengths. It's primarily for the apta. I have it in a coffee can atm, but that isn't terrific. I think an mre case will work pretty good, but I need to empty one. It isn't something I'll use all the time, so it should be fine.
 
That’s a lot of dynaglide.

Most throwlines are sold here in 60m lengths. If they are short then you tie two together.

How much was 180m (600’) of Dynaglide?
 
I got it on amazon, and it's currently $102 for 600'. I think I paid a little more. It was really close to wesspur's 1000' spool price per foot. They were within a fraction of a penny/ft, but 1000' is way more than I wanted.
 
Took a bunch of classes, looked at shined equipment, and talked with a lot of people. Trade show is good but doesn’t seem to be the same.
 
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