On a miscellaneous note I did finally take a few moments to do some general clean up around the chicken yard. One of the bigger things that I finally decided to try and do was move the two railroad ties that I was going to use to set up the S10 Ranger chicken coop on. When it ended up not being necessary to use these, they were pushed aside while I finished the chicken coop project. While some may say, "just move em", one must realize that each railroad tie probably weighs 300 lbs. These things are not going to be moved that easily. This would require the help of the ole lady and the two wheel dolly. Of course even with the both of us this whole job was a pain in the ass. First we had to lift the thing to a vertical position then work the tie onto the dolly then wheel the whole thing out of the chicken yard. My plan for the ties was to use them to set up more permanent raised beds that would probably never rot away like the pressure treated wood. I decided to plant the ties around the raised bed right by the gate where I have a couple of pear trees and some blueberry plants surrounding them with a few strawberries that are still present. The wood has long since rotted into the soil so this would be the perfect bed to set up with ties. The only other raised bed that still remains I planned on disassembling anyway so it wouldn't make sense to put ties around something slated for disassembly. With this heavy mess taken care of I took care of the cutting of the sections of tree trunks I cut up from the small weed trees I cut down in the chicken yard. This little stack of wood will be for outdoor burning, especially after I do use up the pile of scrap wood I had stacked near the fuel shed. For all intents once I burn up that old wood, this wood can be stacked with the general firewood that can be used for both the house stove and for outdoor burning. Of course since this is green wood I won't use it in the house until it's had time to dry out. Burning it outside is no big deal when it comes to smoking and all. Speaking of trees, we had to have several cut down due to the trees being dead. After the tree guys brought them down I'm now left with a large pile of trunks and branches and other shit stacked up. It's all good since I did tell them to leave the detritus there, I would clean it up myself since I wanted the firewood from these trees. With the large amount of wood on the ground, we'll be set in firewood for the foreseeable future. The thing is, there's still a matter of cleaning up all this shit. I figured I would take this on from a multi step approach. I would first cut up and burn up all the branches and other refuse that I really don't have any use for. In between that I would be cutting and stacking whatever trunks and large branches that would make good firewood. This wood, being stacked, would be left alone until I manage to get all the smaller branches and other waste wood disposed of. Once all of that is done, then I can get to the task of further cutting up the larger trunks and branches into manageable lengths of logs and pieces that can fit in the wood stove. I always aim for foot long pieces of wood and foot long logs. When the foot long logs are split I will be left with a bunch of foot long pieces that will fit nicely in the stove and provide enough wood per piece for a fairly long burn. Of course it will probably be a while before I manage to clear all the waste wood branches and trash and am left with just trunks and thick branches. At the same time as long as its cold outside I will be still using the other firewood so when I do start rearranging my stockpile of firewood and adding this newly cut wood to the mix, I can get a more organized pile, FILO - first in, last out. I would put the newest wood "in the back", where it will season while I put the oldest wood in the front to be used first. This way I can get the older wood out of play before it rots while giving the green and still fresh wood time to cure before it gets used. In the meantime, to facilitate the clean up I brought out my half drum and got a fire going so I can gradually cut up branches and other refuse and throw it all in the burning can to be consumed. Since this is all fresh pine (despite the trees being dead in most cases, some were alive but were in bad shape), the pine resin content was high. This shit should burn real nice and fast. At the same time as I cut through the branches to get material to burn up, I also took time to cut trunks into the manageable lengths I mentioned, stacking them up. What I was really trying to do was work my way through the pile of downed trees, going from west to east along the pile, clearing everything along the way so as I work I'm left with totally cleared ground behind me. As can be seen in the previous pic, the ground is pretty roughed up. Once I do get the trees cleared within the area that is to be fenced in, I will more than likely focus my efforts on graveling towards this area just to cover up some of the harder hit spots. Just like the time of completion for the clearing of these fallen trees, getting to this area with the gravel spreading will probably be a good ways off. In the meantime, I'm really trying to just focus on getting the grounds completely cleared of anything related to trees, especially since I will want to eventually start the construction of my storage buildings that I'll be making from the portable garage frames that I still have piled up in pieces along the west fence line. Because of the sheer size of the pile of tree trunks and other tree shit, I don't plan on working on the removal of this stuff constantly. I will break off to work on other projects as I see fit since the amount of time it would take to get everything cleaned up would have me putting many important projects on the back burner for far longer than I care to do. I will work on this stuff when I determine that the time's available. Likely this will be during times when I've already used up resources I bought and I'm waiting for the next pay cycle to allow me to buy more materials before I continue work on any project. It is then that I'll spend time cleaning up trees. But if there's something I have to do on one of the cars, or the garden as we inch closer to spring, or something that I may need to do on the house, I won't work on the trees. But as we move further and further along into the future, more of this stuff will get cleaned up.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
May 2023
|