Site Discussions

Ethanol is certainly a boondoggle and an expensive one at that. Topping the lists of costs is the effect all of that increased corn production is having on scarce water resources in the West. At at time when drought is ravaging that part of the country, its a national tragedy that we are emptying reserves of water that have taken 1000 years or more to fill up, to create a fuel with lower efficiency than traditional gasoline. This is done so a few handful of politically connected interests can make tons of money. And to add insult to injury, its portrayed as being great for the environment. What a Greenwash!

I am glad that the gas we use from our bulk tank comes from Canada and is not watered down.

Has anyone heard of “bee glasses” to locate.  Mine are very old.  Amber lenses with a small lighter amber circle in the center of the lens.  I have been told by the old-timers that you spot the nectar source, watch the bee til she turns and go to that location and watch for the next bee, until you locate the bee tree.  Anyone know if this is true?

Thanks for this which creates a great balance between being understandably awed by old trees while still recognizing the immense value of shorter-lived trees.

On a recent trip to Botswana I visited a magnificent grove of trees called Baines Baobabs that are estimated by some who use archeological data from nearby camps to be 10,000+ years old.

None of this is new. The politicians who pocket money to continue this scam will probably be re-elected on November 4th.
I will not vote for any Senator or Representative who has voted to continue this practice. You shouldn’t either.

What about the fuel stabilizers? I now use a marine version that seems to keep stored gas usable from storage in late fall till spring.

Has anyone tried baking with whole Autumn Olives in places of cranberries or currants? Was just wondering what the results were.

Hear, hear. I suggest that a prerequisite for running for any federal elective office should be at least one passing grade in a college level science course.

Thanks.

If you’re buying ethanol free gasoline it can be a good idea to check that what the station selling you as ‘ethanol free’ is in fact ethanol free.  Truck loads of gasoline can come from different distribution terminals. 

A quick test is to fill a mason jar with gas you want to test. Add a drop of food coloring. If there is ethanol it will disperse the water based food coloring and turn the entire jar color. If there is no ethanol, the food color droplet will sink to the bottom of the jar.

Of course dispose of the test appropriately. Ethanol gas should be poured into your car. Non-ethanol into your gas can for the chainsaw.

Just a few comments: Who thinks that feeding bears will decrease their population? Who thinks that feeding them jelly donuts doesn’t habituate them to human food? Who thinks that it is not out of state money that is coming in to shoot the Maine bears? How does Vt control its bear population?

Lobbies certainly play a role, but so does the location of the first presidential primary/caucus: Iowa.

What presidential candidate would choose to go into the first primary/caucus without supporting ethanol?

Never ever use the heart of the wood for handles!

Sounds an awful lot like poison ivy to me, Dena. And just because you haven’t had a reaction to the plant in the past doesn’t mean it won’t happen in the future.

How about taking 8’ long logs,take the required measurements to determine how many cu.ft are in that log. Then do another & another until it comes as close to 128cu.ft as you can get it. Done right? Not yet. Now take & cut logs & split to firewood size. Now you can stack it up starting with the 4’X4’X8’ area. Now, how much of that pile of wood will not fit into your 4’X4’X8’ area?

Please HELP! My husband and I were in New Hampshire last week- walked the entire Flume Gorge!

That’s in Franconia Notch State Park- the next day or maybe it was 2 days- I had what looked like an inch long scratch on the inside of my left leg- about 3 inches above the ankle bone- well it ITCHED- I’m sure I scratched in my sleep and I was using Tecnu Calagel- it became red and angry looking and now I have little raised itchy dots in the area near it and on the back of the other leg in 2 places - smaller area than the first leg though. Now we are back in TX where no one knows ANYTHING about this!! And just fyi- I’ve never been allergic to poison ivy down here- so can’t imagine it being that?

A few of my family members and myself have been followed around by a female grouse for most of this summer. Lately I cannot get much outside clipping done because it follows so closely behind me and pecks at the back of my legs and ankles.  It now follows me up stairs and across our porch to our front door, it is quite brazen and today, while sitting reading in our living room, I looked up to see the bird sitting on our porch handrail and looking straight at me.

When my husband walked outside it walked around the deck and sat upon the back of a metal framed chair, which I had just spray painted the day before in the garage.  The chairs of course were dry. The bird sometimes flies up at me, but it always tries to get behind me when I am clipping vines etc. Is this their normal behavior?????

Oh, this is lovely! Both the calendar and the essay.

Hi guys, no recent posts here, but I’ll try anyway. Posted this on another site, about my dilemma. I’ll post it here as well: Hi. I’m in kind of a dilemma here. A family/pack(coven?) of large beautiful bats has apparently taken up residence in my neighbors attic. I noticed them a few weeks ago (Sept 2014) by accident. Now I sit quietly at dusk and usually can see them as they all slip out of the gable end of the attic adjacent to my driveway, one by one. They seem large for Northern Virginia, but it could just be the lighting and my angle. They fly about, around my yard and several of the neighbors. I’m quite taken with the experience of watching them. So what’s the dilemma? Well, my neighbor is a single mother with a three year old. Both bedrooms are right under where they have taken up residence and deploy. If I mention it (dilemma), she will likely invoke a nuclear option and have them destroyed by a pest control company. My immediate thoughts are, what risks are involved (guano, mainly; they don’t appear to be vampires at this point :) ). I rather enjoy my bit of voyeurism as they emerge and go about their business in the evening, but I don’t want to put anyone, especially the little girl, at risk by my silence. I have a rather extensive wood shop, and have places to put the relatively inexpensive bat houses around my property, but would I be able to coax them out of the expansive attic into my little condos? I fear they will be blasted out with chemical weapons. I would really hate to see them destroyed, or otherwise hurt by a nerve agent, but I know she couldn’t afford to have them trapped and relocated - or wait for them to move into my ‘condos’. Sorry this wall of text got long, but I do have a moral and/or ethical dilemma going on. Please reply if you can. I may post the gist of this on a few other sites. Winter is coming on strong here. They have established themselves, and Batman himself with a twirling sign probably isn’t going to convince them to move next door. Thanks, Aaron

Brian,

I enjoyed your article on “How solid is a cord of wood”.  Using the fencing was a clever way to sample the face of the cord.  I’ve always accepted the textbook claims that a cord is a space of 128 cubic feet occupied by solid wood of between 80 and 90 cubic feet (see Avery’s “Forest Measurements”).  Tracing back where that range comes from is as hard as finding the source of any “conventional wisdom”.

A couple of interesting references that might be available on the internet are a 1950 report of cubic feet per cord for pulpwood in the Pacific Northwest (by Worthington & Twerdal). Mill log scalars measured end diameters of 8-foot logs in a cord and calculated cubic volume per piece, and then per cord.

Even more interesting is the discussion and data provided in Carl Schenck’s 1905 book: Forest Utilization, Mensuration.  The studies he reported (page 13-15) did deal mostly with fuel wood and used the method of water displacement to determine the volume of each round or split piece.  He reported several conditional results ranging from 102.4 cubic feet for “First class split wood”, to 25-51 cubic feet per cord for sticks.

So, what does it all mean? The answer seems to be “it all depends”!  You might have the right approach… make your own measurements based on the piece size, length, number of rows, overall dimensions, etc. that best describe your wood.  I usually use 85 cubic feet per cord for planning purposes. Better to underestimate the cubic feet per cord and end up with extra wood at the end of the season than overestimate it and run out!  Sounds like once you make your own measurements it’s up to someone else to prove you wrong!

Cheers,
John Fox

Nice article and photos. I admire your determination in getting these shots.