Glad you have gotten the anchor chain off your neck Steve. Sounds like life is taking a good turn for you. We are not getting old, we are getting seasoned. Hope to see you at Geezers. OOM.
I know you are limiting your study to the Ashville area but you may want to consider one thta is in my neighborhood of middle Georgia. We have a City owned Willow Oak that is 84" DBH that a third of the canopy was destroyed by straight line winds in spring of 2016. It is retrenching beautifully...
I've had a pair of Red Shoulder hawks nest in my back yard about 50 or 60 feet from my back porch for the last 3 years. I would love to put a camera on the nest. We also have a family of Barred Owls nesting on back in the woods. They are hilarious when a group of them start to laugh.
There are different things each day. Starts Jan 12. Gear check and walk through is Friday 8-11. Preliminary Friday 11-5 and all day Saturday. Masters Sunday. This event is a blast.
Socks too. I do merino wool socks year-round even here in the deep south. The best I have found is the Darn Tough T4021 boot sock. The footbed of this sock is like an extra insole pad. Plus guaranteed for life.
When I was in business, I had a Mighty Bandit for my first chipper. It was the predecessor to the 65XP. The Mighty was a scaled down design of the larger Bandit 100 and 200 machines with a 20 HP Kohler. The entire machine sucked. It was ok if there were no leaves on but once tree's leafed out it...
When I have tried on the Arb Evo boots, I have found them to be just a bit too narrow, otherwise I would give these a shot. Good deal for someone though.
It is the solstice. Every year when I was in business, I always had a big mental slump coming into and just after the solstice. Getting to a conference or trade show managed to pull me out of it.