Looks a bit sexier than my LL Bean XL canvas sail bag.
https://www.dakine.com/media/catalog...E-71X_PT01.jpg
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Looks a bit sexier than my LL Bean XL canvas sail bag.
https://www.dakine.com/media/catalog...E-71X_PT01.jpg
get a scabbard for your saw
this is the best sharpening tool I have ever used:2 in 1 Filing Guide & Saw Chain Sharpener | STIHL USA
consider the Kawasaki Mule vs a quad- it's a small pickup truck. Kubota makes a beefier version as well. Can't recommend these enough. We use the Mule for plowing as well, with a Cycle Country plow. Looks sort of rinky-dink compared with a tractor, but it is very effective, especially with chains on the front. The Kubota version has remote valves on the rear for various tools. I use a walk behind brush hog, DR manufactured, for mowing fields, paths through the woods and the like. Also an FS 85 Stihl brush saw with various blades for the same.The DR has needed repairs over the years because it is not as robust as it should be, but I haven't wrecked it yet. I have a neighbor whose a whiz at welding, so he fixes what I break routinely.
I just picked one of those up. I also could not be more pleased with my local Stihl dealer. Really explained everything and went over every single detail with me. We lost 4-5 trees this winter/spring so I have some cleaning up to do. Nothing too big, and from the pictures of the trees, that is the machine my dealer recommended. Looking forward to using it this weekend when the weather is nicer.
I realized last week look at the picture of that pack that I had a Mcleod when I lived in AZ. It was sold to me as a desert hoe by an old lady at the desert botanical garden annual sale. I used it lots.
If I can remember, I'll look at the saw next time I drive by the Stihl dealer.
Anyone ever used an electric one? We dont have a ton of land, but theres a few smallish trees I'd like to fell, as well as some trails in our neighorhood I'd like to maintain, meaning I'd like to keep the noise down. The EGO seems to tick most boxes, and I wouldnt mind their lawnmower as well.
I splurged and got one of these for helping out the local trail builders and general yard stuff. It's amazing. https://www.benmeadows.com/rogue-hoe...archterm=rogue
https://www.benmeadows.com/images/ir...2CZ59_AS01.jpg
im fairly surprised with how often you have to sharpen your blade joe.
every two tanks sounds pretty frequent... we would go a whole weekend on one sharpening (unless you get the blade into the dirt) which on the 50cc is about 6 tanks of fuel.
Stopped by the land early this morning for a birdwalk. Yellow warbler, brown creeper (sort of a cross between a nuthatch, a woodpecker and a field mouse,) lots of woodpeckers (hah, no wonder) and unfortunately a whole new batch of ticks. Ugh. Really going to have to spend a chunk of time building some trails so each visit doesn't require so much bush whacking. And get rid of the barberry and (new species I've learned recently) Chinese privet, which provide cover for deer and mice and thus breeding grounds for ticks.
Anyway, the land is still great even with all the blood suckers. Found a red eft form of the red-spotted newt, did a thorough moss inventory and my wife found a turkey "nest" with egg #1 in a clutch total to be determined over a couple weeks. Turkeys are sequential layers like a lot of chicken-birds (and ducks I think,) and they can lay up to 18 eggs in a clutch before starting incubation. I thought hens would have nested in undergrowth, but evidently they like to be able to have a 360 degree view around them so nest in relatively open areas. I guess we'll check to see if how many eggs are there in a week.
https://farm1.staticflickr.com/966/4...e95ce82d_b.jpg
https://farm1.staticflickr.com/968/4...f0ed7e72_b.jpg
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Great pics and update Jorn.
If you can find a way to get some free-range guinea hens that stay close to home and aren't all eaten by foxes they'll help to keep a lid on the ticks. I believe chickens also eat them, but they aren't as exotic at guineas.
My place is a deer and mouse paradise, and thus also a tick haven. I can't spend more than a few minutes in the yard without picking up a few. The deer ticks are the worst, because in addition to Lyme disease, they're tiny, and I have freckles all over, so finding them is a real challenge. Often I don't, until I feel a spot on my leg starting to itch.
In addition to chemical sprays to keep them off (which I don't use often, because I hate them) these are useful as a last resort to remove them:
Remove Ticks Easily with Tick Twister O'TOM®
http://www.ticktwister.com/images/ot...ne_hooks_5.jpg
Interesting tool. I like when someone sees a problem and heads to the workshop to come up with a solution.
The property to our east is now for sale. It shares about 60% of the eastern border of our land and includes the source of the creek that runs along our southern border. 48 acres of woods and wetlands. If we bought it, we'd have a nice buffer to the east, but that's actually the direction where we have the most buffer. If we were going to buy more land, I'd actually like the other bank of the creek, extra along our northern boundary or the little 1780 farm house to the west that was subdivided off the property and sold as a separate 4 acre piece.
We did get our first property tax bill after rejoining the two lots we purchased. The way they calculate based on acreage cut our taxes in half, so that was a good move.
Now we just need to get the house started!
My father has a little battery powered one, and he really likes it for light duty tasks. I think the bar is 12", and it's light. I expect it would be great for trail building/maintenance.
I also hear really good reviews of the small Jonsered saws, and they might be worth checking out if you have a dealer near you.
I have a Husky 440 that I like for large tasks, but it's a bit of saw to lug around the woods on foot.
I've used Japanese saws in the woods with good results. The tooth design cuts on the push rather than the pull, but once you get the rhythm thing down, they blaze through surprisingly large pieces of wood. And if you are dealing with standing or fallen dead wood, it is like butter.
The two I have are fairly small, but I will invest in several of the larger models later this spring. Silky Saw is the brand I've been using. This model is the Big Boy and the blade is 360mm long with big teeth for ripping through lumber. They make a larger saw called the Katana Boy.
https://japanwoodworker-production-w...g?c=1487820584
These are not substitutes I don't think for the bulk clearing that a chainsaw can do, but for trail building/maintenance and dead wood clearing (or Asian bittersweet vine killing,) they are pretty capable.
A lot of good stuff right here: https://www.japanwoodworker.com
Silky is top of the line. This is a local supplier:OESCO, Inc.
There's a permethrin based repellent made by Sawyer you can find at WalMart- you spray it on your clothing, not on your body, and it lasts forty days or so. I recommend you have dedicated clothing for working outdoors- tall rubber boots your pants tuck into and the like. It's a pain, but lyme is only one of many life-changing diseases ticks carry. You can't be too careful, and this will help.
Ended up getting the EGO. I had previously de-limbed and cut up all fallen trees with a silky big boy, its sooo nice. We had a few more go down (nothing major) and I need to do some trail clean up. So I grabed it at home depot out of convenience, ugh. Its pretty nice, very easy to use, arguably too easy, knowing that its not too hard to get in trouble with one of any size. Its very very quiet.
Just to underline the point about ticks, I was out in the woods with the pup on Friday night, then showered and did a thorough tick check. Saturday morning I woke up at 5am thinking I had an ingrown hair on my taint (you know what I mean), and chalked it up to increased mileage without enough chamois cream. Only when I got up did I realize it was a tick that had been there all night. So now, even if I don't end up with anything, I get to try to contort my body enough to check that area for a bullseye daily, and by the time you're doing that there's no good outcome. It's just a continuum between unpleasant and the urgent care clinic.
I have reservations about applying nerve agent, or any functional approximation of it, to my clothing, but trying to look at my taint daily isn't a good alternative.
Get a hand mirror for butt checks. One of those lighted vanity hand mirrors (yes they make them) for seeing where the sun don't shine.
Unfortunately dogs in the family increase the risk factor for ticks in the house, and if your dog sleeps with you in the bed at night, that's an even higher risk. Too bad they are so warm and fuzzy.
My doc who now has lots of tick experience, says less 24-36 hours means your likelihood of being OK is high. The tick actually takes a while to get embedded. As I understand it, the feeling of an ingrown hair is the tick's anesthetic wearing off and your skin reacting to the tick. But they have to actually back-flush their feeding system for you to get the spirochete in your blood system, and that evidently happens after the tick has been embedded for about 36-48 hours (and the blood test won't reveal an infection for at least a week after the back-flush occurs.) However, you are supposed to remove the tick without squeezing too hard, because your grip can actually induce the tick to regurgitate into the wound and thereby transferring the spirochete. So you grip at the head with fine tweezers and pull straight away from the skin to detach in one pull. Or you use that tool above I guess.
Get that mirror!
It's a shame this is no longer available. (So much for the free-market being perfect.)
https://www.vox.com/science-and-heal...-effectiveness
Freeze don't squeeze. Don't know if your ticks are the same as we have here in Australia, but we use a use a wart freezing spray to freeze them and then they just drop off.
More info in this video: How To Remove A Tick - YouTube
I can vouch for the Dakine Trail Builder's Pack.
Attachment 107751
I have the older version, with the bottle holders on the side. It probably will fit a larger saw than my Stihl 026 Pro. I can fit hedge clippers in the same slot alongside the loppers, which I often do. The chainsaw pocket will also fit a gallon of paint for when I'm painting over graffiti. That leaves room for a roller tray and paint supplies in the main pocket. Tons of internal pockets to organize your stuff, and you can open the large compartment from the backside (the side against your body) which is slick when you've packed a saw.
You could wear this pack, loaded, and ride your mountain bike on the trail to cover a lot of ground, but I think a smaller saw powerhead than my 026 would be more practical on a bike. If you're going to do trail maintenance, this pack is worth every penny. I formerly used a top loader backpack but the chain and spikes tended to chew up the bag, and I couldn't stash it while the saw was hot for fear of melting the nylon. Not a problem with the Dakine design.
This is probably the most appropriate thread on here for this... I am not a gun person. Out in Moab we have rattlesnakes on our property. I have used bee spray to kill them, I think, I mean it says it takes 45 minutes and they usually move away so I have no way to check. But after my black lab got booped on the nose by a rattler I decided I needed to be more aggressive.
While I have 10 acres, a real gun would make too much noise and may upset a neighbor. Also I don't know how safe it is to shoot a shotgun at a target on the ground 10 feet from you, Does shot ricochet? Regardless I needed to do something.
I bought a Gamo Viper Express .22 cal air rile/shot gun. It shoots tiny shells or 22 cal pellets. Using the shells it can bust apart a water bottle at 20 feet so I figure it'll kill a rattlesnake.
Attachment 108720
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It is also much quieter than a real gun as it is an air rifle.
-Joe
This week I've had to dispatch three raccoons, a skunk, and a possum that treat my barn and the birds I keep as a larder. I have a pellet gun I use for this, and an aluminum bat. But when I find them, anything handy will do. Like a step ladder.
I also keep cows, and recently slaughtered one using a .22. You have to be spot on for this to work, though, so I've been considering another:Savage Model 42 Takedown: Gun Review | Range365
Having the option of a .410, which is the smallest shotgun cartridge readily available, expands the size of the impact. The .22 Magnum combination is perfect for my needs. I have a son who I wouldn't trust, so a trigger lock would be required.
Air rifles are great, but having to shoot an animal multiple times isn't really optimal. I speak from experience.
Joe, of course you realize your property is the snake’s property and you are just borrowing it. ;-) I’d suggest calling someone with some herpetological knowledge who might be able offer some gunpowderless solutions. If you have more than the average number of snakes, you might be in an area with more than the average things for them to eat. So reducing those critters - or reducing their habitat like brush or brush piles - might be a better method than a rifle. In fact, reducing cover on the ground might both reduce the amount of available prey and make any snakes on the ground easier to see.
You should also have a pair of snake tongs and perhaps a snake hook, some gloves with protective gauntlets and perhaps a pair of bite proof gaiters. If you have a lot of snakes, inevitably you will have one where you can’t shoot it. Having snake tongs and some protection will allow you to get rid of it by picking it up safely, bagging it (heavy pillow case or snake bag) and taking it somewhere distant from your house.
The key is that the snakes are there for a reason - either prey or roosting sites or all of the above. Until that’s managed, you will probably use up a lot of ammo and still have snakes on your property. And if you somehow could manage to succeed in reducing the snake population to a bare minimum, you’d have to expect to be visited by an increasing number of rodents.
So I’d reach out to a local herpetologist to get some sense of what snake behavior you are seeing and what you might do with landscaping or rodent control that would make your property less attractive to the snakes. And get some tools that will allow you to remove any of the locals that show up on the property in a safe and humane fashion.
If you do decide that killing snakes is the answer, make sure you know the laws protecting any rare species and laws attached to various state and federal lands in the area.
If your dog got bitten after sticking her head in a hole in the ground, you are never going to be able to protect her from that sort of incident. Dogs will always stick their heads in places, and snakes will always roost in cool dark places. Which again means that you should probably know whether there are times of the year where snakes are more likely to be around or to be found roosting in holes and plan trips with the dogs accordingly.
It sounds like you have to do a lot of killing in your life. That's unfortunate.
As a kid growing up I too saw a lot of killing (my father had a chicken farm, and I saw lots of other types of animals being slaughtered too) and it convinced me to try to avoid it as much as possible. Sometimes you can't, and I have a 10-22 for those situations, but often times you can.
I don't expect to do this forever. Killing anything doesn't agree with me, but I have a farm, and I eat meat. How one does it matters. I raise cows according to the "one bad day" rule. They have a wonderful life, and end it on the farm as expeditiously as possible. I would not mind the same treatment. My grandparents had a ranch, and I grew up hunting. That no longer appeals- it's a long story.
I had ten new guinea hens, and now I have two. I blame myself for letting them out of their cage too soon. There are animals that are simply not welcome in a barnyard.
I encountered a cop with his gun out eyeing a huge snapping turtle one day as I was heading into town. He was stunned when I picked it up and put it in the reservoir alongside the road.
I like snakes, spiders and all manner of creatures my family abhors.
Anyone who likes killing has a screw loose.
Not to get this thread back on track, but what is the latest with the house and land? this is a great thread. I've enjoyed reading about the journey starting from a blank canvas to wherever it goes.
Sorry. I have been remiss! I was waiting for some kind of momentous occurrence, like getting electricity run into the site or signing a contract with a GC or pouring the foundation. But the transition from dream world to real world has taken longer than expected, but the results are highly satisfactory.
In the fall, I was trying to jump ahead and manage the electrical connection with NYSEG. I thought I would be able to get a trench dug and cable & conduit put down, and then NYSEG would come out, put in a pole and connect everything. Then we could get a jump on construction in the spring.
What I didn't understand is nearly everything. Basically winter is when NYSEG does everything except install poles and buried cable. And the electrical connection is a part of the GC’s “art”, because getting service connected has everything to do with all the magic words a GC learns over years of experience.
So I didn't have a chance.
Which is good, because I would have put everything in the wrong place!
In the spring we met with a number of contractors, and basically we didn't like any of them. We even saw examples of their work, and it was kind of scary. We had 3-4 additional GC's on our list, but they were too busy this year. Which is a problem in Columbia County. The good GC's get hired up and don't have any space in their calendar. The available GC's were probably fine builders of the standard farmhouse reproduction, but we weren't doing that. So we told the architects that if we had to wait a year to get a top quality GC, we would. They agreed.
In the meantime, we would do some value engineering. We'd gotten costs from several GC's, and even though we didn't like their work product, their numbers seemed to be about market rate and that meant we were over budget. So the architects and the engineers did a lot of redesign to streamline our design without diminishing the integrity of the building. I was resistant at first, but after seeing what they were doing, I realized that this actually made for a better building.
It wasn't necessarily that the requirements of the design would exceed the skills of the workers, but that the design would be too labor intensive. So the engineer and architect redrew some aspects of the design, increasing the efficiency of the design to achieve an equivalent (or in some cases, improve) durability, dependability, longevity, function, etc.
Meanwhile, one of the busy GC’s called the architects and asked if they were still doing our house. He'd had a chance to look at the drawings finally, and said, "I've been in business 40 years, so I really only want to build interesting houses and your house is interesting." We made an appointment to meet him at a house he built, saw the house, talked with him and decided he's the guy. Then the architects and engineer began working with the GC on fine tuning costs. This was a revelation to me. A good GC is fluent in the language of technique and product, so he (or she) can look at the design and say, "Well, you could do the foundation that way, but we've had a lot of success using this product that halves your work time without creating any other problems. We've been using it for 20 years and never had an issue." So that's brilliant as long as it fits the engineering requirements, doesn't negatively affect the architects' design and creates an equally durable (and marketable on resale!) end result.
So the architects and engineer and GC all started churning away. And they were definitely getting along grandly. The GC is what I would call a sage of construction. He has never been demanding or condescending. And we've now met two of his sub-contractors, and both are real people. Calm, smart and patient. And confident. No question is stupid, no idea unworthy, etc. So I think we've got the right guys.
But the budget was still too high.
The architects invited me up to Connecticut to see a couple cross laminated timber projects completed by another architecture firm. To review, we were using CLT's for our roof, and that had required a fair amount of engineering to get roof properly supported and the slab foundation sufficiently reinforced. These projects in Connecticut used the same manufacturer of CLT we would use.
Their CLT's had arrived with fabrication errors, so the architecture and build team had to figure out solutions or face the costs and delays of having to order new panels. The job required a whole host of "just in time" interdependent events, so they (and the client) decided to go with the original shipment of panels. The checking and knotholes in the wood of the panels was far greater in the panels than expected, even on the finished side of the panels. And the joints between panels were larger and more evident. Since the ceiling of our house would be the finished side of the CLT’s, I was not impressed.
In addition, we were still bumping our heads on the budget. We really couldn't squeeze any more out of the budget, and things still weren't lining up. A big part was the CLT roof. And now we were thinking this company's product was not acceptable, but to get something satisfactory, we would likely need a different better more expensive grade of CLT that would inevitably come from farther away with higher transportation costs. Plus the whole "just in time" factor of needing to coordinate the arrival of the CLT with the windows that make up the house walls and the framing of the cabinetry that acts as support as well as the slab foundation with the steel roof columns - the potential for delays and cost overruns was pretty clear.
So we said to the architects, "Let's get rid of the CLT roof and price the house design using a conventionally framed roof." To the architects' credit, they did not have nervous breakdowns. They did have aesthetic concerns and there was some back in forth, which is the way it should be in a design process. We pay the architects good money to save us from ourselves and keep us from going down some worm hole that is going to result in a product we won't like, they won't like and when we go to sell the house, won't sell because no one else will like it either. We've all seen those "bad idea" houses. No one wants to build those, own those, buy those.
So I said, "I've written poems that never quite worked. But I'd keep working on them, because there was this one great line in the poem. From the Gods! So I'd keep reworking the poem to bring the other lines up to the level of this one great line. Nothing worked. Eventually I learned that I had to take the one great line out of the poem and put it away in a notebook. Afterwards, what remained became a much better poem than before. So the CLT is the one great line in our design here, and we are just going to have to take it out.”
By the next meeting, the architects were happy, the engineer was happy, and the GC was happy. Because we were now dealing with a conventionally framed roof, the foundation could be different, the supports could be different, the "just in time" schedule had significantly greater flexibility, and most importantly the budget was within the target range. We've even added back in some things that we pulled out (lighting designer) or delayed (garage and bike workshop.) Amazing how that works.
We had a meeting - us, architects, GC, excavator, septic engineer - a week ago at the site and staked out the foundation. The GC set the floor level for the slab with the excavator. He went over the septic plan with the engineer and figured out things there. He asked about trees. I said minimal cut. So he said, "Let's meet in two weeks with the arborist and go over what we have to cut, what the arborist says is a good idea to cut based on age & health and then we can weigh the pros and cons together." Perfect. Done.
So this weekend we'll be sorting trees. Hopefully by August 15th we'll be clearing and digging the foundation. And then we'll be building.
Oh and the GC handles everything with NYSEG. That's a big relief.
https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1783/...b4d8fb8c_b.jpg
I am glad to hear this. What's the white doohickey in the lower left of the frame?
That's the top of an umbrella that covers the table on the patio of the house (converted carriage house) we are renting in Hillsdale. Here's a pic when it was more of a work in progress. Since we expected to be building already, we rented it starting in April and finishing at the end of November. So it has basically been a cycling clubhouse which is not a bad thing. The landlord is very happy we'll still be building next year.
https://farm1.staticflickr.com/877/4...1de37ac6_c.jpg
Thats good to hear, its not always that VE produces a higher quality project, but if its reacted to reasonably by the whole team (clients included) It can. For the project I am working on currently, we had some items that were far too clunky, mostly just some sheetrock details, we lost them in VE and I couldnt even imagine them being there now.
Good tenants are hard to come by. We are out of patience with being landlords, and have resolved to sell several places. I've lost enthusiasm for cleaning up after others, and maintaining buildings. Whatever you do, make the house as free from routine repair as possible. I never want to glaze a twelve over twelve window again, replace a cedar roof, pump a flooded basement- I could go on.
And mowing is bloody stupid. I like tree frogs, and the myriad creatures that live in a meadow. My cows know not to step on ground nesting birds.
One example: we had a lot of all-glass corners, and those went away so glass was straight and then the corner was framing. None of this truly reduced the panoramic view but it did reduce cost in both glass and in structural support for the roof. It also made the insulation better. And glass corners need to be perfect, so our perfection could be a bit less demanding with framed corners. We kept one glass corner, and that is in the master bedroom, which will feel like we are sleeping in the backyard. Hopefully it won't be the same temp as the backyard in the winter, but I think we should have that managed as well.
One exclusion did not get put back in once we freed up some cap space on a our budget and that is air conditioning. The house is built to suck air into it and location is naturally cooler than the surrounding area. It gets warm, but we decided that we'd put the AC on hold. However, the GC is going to route AC lines to built-in boxes at the top of some of the cabinets for split units & do the rough wiring in the mechanical closet for powering the AC, so if we change our minds, installation will still be possible.
Can’t recall—was a heat pump ever in your consideration? Dad has a heat pump in his admittedly small house and I’m surprised at how well it cools the place.
We have radiant floor heating and a Morso wood stove for heat. The AC would be a ductless multi-zone system. We have one in the barn we are renting - ac unit outside drives three independent units inside - and it is great. Quiet and cools the house in a blink. I think the one we'd get the house would would have four or five independent units built into the top of cabinets with one large ac unit outside on a pad. Our house is about 2400 sq ft I believe.
They're a pain (i.e. $$$$) to install, but ground-source heat pumps are the bee's knees.
I wish I had one.
We looked at those but they moved into the "to be considered later" column pretty early in the process. Seems like a no-brainer and I really liked the system we looked at, but the cost differential was too much. So instead we are getting a conventional LP boiler from Viessmann that is a better match with the radiant floors.
I have a neighbor who installed a heat pump at a cost of about 125K. A retired professor who specializes in arms negotiations, the gee-whiz factor sold him. He doesn't use it. Too expensive to run, and in the end, unnecessary. It's easy to build a new home that can be heated with a 1500 watt space heater. More is more when it comes to insulation. I think the use of glass corners will date a house as Palladian windows did formerly. I know architects who use them consistently, but I'd bet most builders look askance at the proposition.
re mowing: fact of life in New England is that unless one mows every few years, any open land will revert to forest within fifteen years. Brush-hog in August after the birds have fledged.