Thank you for the explanation, RBJTree. Now I get it:
I noticed silver maples mentioned a few times in the CoD thread I referenced above, too...sounds like you need to watch out for them.
Not sure I follow you, probably because I'm a noob. Seems like if your lanyard and/or a section of your climbing line tail are attached to your saddle with you inside it – and nothing to separate you from the "circle" that has the tree inside it – if the tree chairs or splits, you would still be...
Man, that had to have been scary. Glad you're OK, thanks for posting up to tell us about it.
I can't remember whether I dreamed this or read it somewhere, but it seems like somewhere along the line I saw (or dreamed) of someone saying that to prevent being in the Circle of Death when you cut a...
Supposedly any mammal can get rabies. It makes sense that coons or skunks would get it from eating carrion of animals that died from rabies. And I guess a squirrel could get it from being attacked by a rabid coon. But bats? That never really made sense to me since most bats eat bugs. I guess if...
I think it's a lot less than it used to be... not sure, but I think several injections over an extended period. In the old days, I think you had to get a whole bunch of painful shots in the belly.
(I'm not a trained arborist but I believe I know what I'm talking about on this FWIW)
In the black cherry, it was kinda sorta decayed, but in the white oak, it was otherwise sound heartwood, just kinda riddled with galleries containing termites. (This is in SE Virginia.)
Pushing the trees over...
No kidding. Reminds me of a late friend of mine, commercial fisherman, was out on his boat alone – bad juju – pulling in a gill net and got his foot fouled in the net and got reeled onto the reel and crushed by the tension on the net by the hydraulic gypsy. What a horrible way to go.
I've got them in the heartwood of a diseased/cankered black cherry in the yard, and I've also seen them in the heartwood of the trunk and root flare of a BIG white oak that blew over (was alive when a microburst blew it over and was full of termites at the bottom of the trunk when I cut it up a...
@DSMc - Are you still using this setup? I just got a HH2 and am trying to figure out how to tend it. Screwed around trying to make a wire tether/tender, then tried making a plastic "holster," then considered the Wesspur sewn rope "horseshoe" thing, then just discovered your post and photo here...
Don't know about elsewhere in the country, but here in coastal Virginia, there are some deserted barrier islands along the Atlantic coast, and every few years the Fish and Game people go out and trap raccoons and check them for rabies, and IIRC something like 30% of them test positive for...
That loose-cannon dropped spar bounding around in the street looks like a good way to get a fat lip!
I bet his insurance carrier would be RIVETED by his YouTube channel!
I've got a nice cookie out of a WO maybe 20" diameter. I cut it from a tree that had been downed two or three years earlier, so it didn't check almost at all. The sapwood had started to rot, but the heartwood was like cast iron. Will probably make a clock out of it, eventually. I love the smell...
Aside from killing PP beetles and the like, I've never seen the point of kiln-drying wood down to some crazy-low MC level, because once you bring the piece into your house, no matter how many coats of finish you put onto it, it's gonna reach equilibrium somewhere around 8-12% MC, depending on...
Never used a good one, but this cheap Chinese one seems to work OK:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Rock-Climbing-Foot-Rope-Outdoor-Mountaineering-Ascender-Safety-Kit-Left-Right/133059961248
I figure it's not for life-support, so if it breaks, I can always curse the SOB brand and buy better.
If it's THAT important to you, I'd keep it under a soaker hose until I could get some Anchorseal or epoxy on it. It's pretty astounding how fast big thick cookies crack up into briquets, in my experience.
Good luck...and pls let us know how it works out. Looks like a nice piece of wood.
FWIW, I've had varying degrees of success sealing end grain of green wood with regular paint. I've heard AS leaves a much thicker film and works better. Green lumber always checks on the end grain first, and since almost all the surface area of your cookies is going to be end grain, you're gonna...
I use the Carolina 10" Linesman's boots with spurs and like them. I forget whether they have two "lines" of that boot or not, but if so, I think you want the "Domestic" (USA-made) version. If you keep your eyes peeled, shoeline.com (which appears to be owned by the same Pennsylvania company that...
Interesting article here:
https://phys.org/news/2019-07-tree-stump-dead-alive.html
https://gizmodo.com/undead-tree-stump-is-being-kept-alive-by-neighboring-tr-1836693364
about how apparently the roots of adjacent same-species trees can graft together, allowing a stump to be kept alive by the...