MARCH IS March, trying to make up its mind. We have a light snow, then it’s dry, then a light snow, then dry. South of us and north of us keep getting socked but the gods are pleased to smile on us here in Little Rhody.
Here’s this morning, before 7. And just marvel at that newly legalized ’49 truck.
My frozen-knuckle brake job paid off yesterday in the awarding of a new 2-year inspection sticker. I had stretched the last one. Got 4 years out of it.
Last weekend my son-in-law and I spent a day splitting next winter’s firewood.
We split the last of the rounds off that Civil War oak that’s been on the ground for a couple of years now. Split it with a 22-ton hydraulic labor-saver that doesn’t belong to me. Everything we burned this winter I split with an ax that does.
Here’s this morning again… before the sun was up…
On the bank behind the little shed there’s a 50-foot locust that fell in the nor’easter last week. Can’t really see it here, it fell into the bamboo canes from last season. It was the twin to the one dead-center in this pic. Maybe you can see the top branches of the fallen half poking out on the right side of the shed.
It was growing in a wishbone with this one. The day after the one on the left fell I went over to have a look. This is state property to the best of my knowledge.
I had wanted to cut the tree for years because it was leaning toward our fence and looked ready to fall. The subspecies of locust around here has weak roots for some reason. This one was leaning about 40 degrees. Cut a proper hinge into it and you could steer its fall away from the fence. With a bore cut, because of the lean; make the felling cut from the inside out.
On level ground I would have done it years ago, but not on a bank as steep as an 8-in-12 roof. I don’t want to fell the scary trees anymore.
Anyway, a howling wind from the northeast dropped it right where I would have aimed for! Told you Rhode Island was swell.
Free firewood just over the fence. I may have to liberate it from state oppression.
Tony DePaul, March 8, 2018, Cranston, Rhode Island, USA
You were lucky to be in the eye of that winter storm.
So the ole truck is good till 03-2020, we’ll be back from SA just in time to renew it again.
Don’t forget to bill the State of Rhode Island Environmental Department for your tree removal and disposal services…
How odd. I just spent yesterday hauling in and cutting up some firebox lengths for the hot water boiler at a friends mining claim shack. The trees are standing or fallen eucalypt scrub 4 – 6″ in diameter and we don’t need a lot of them for hot showers and dish washing. Cold weather is seldom an issue in the tropics of Australia. There’s small timber for miles around so I’ll be truly ancient before I have to think of buying a block splitter. Every few years a wildfire goes through which burns up all the long grass and litter and kills some of the small standing trees which eventually fall over by themselves. I was keen to try out my new chainsaw I gave myself for Christmas. When you have a new chainsaw everything looks like firewood.
I really enjoy seeing these little everyday vignettes of your life in R.I. It’s a different world to mine and I like to imagine how I’d cope with all that snow.
Here’s one from last March that has a few pics of that big oak. I still have about 15 feet of it to saw up. It’s 4 feet in diameter on either end and a good 6 feet in the middle, at the Y where the first big branch formed. I’ve got a 72cc saw that goes through it pretty fast. http://www.tonydepaul.net/hacking-away/