Site Discussions

Way back in college I earned extra credit in a wildlife course by providing skulls for the college teaching collection. Our method for cleaning was using a mixture of bleach and water and boiling for hours and hours. If memory serves it took most of weekend day to get them cleaned up. Stunk up the entire biology hall but the finished product was nice. Still have a couple that I cleaned for myself.

Dave,

It seems there is so much to say, yet I’m speechless. Fascinating!

Ed

Russell, even better if we can get people to stop planting lawns and put in meadows with nectar sources and larval food plants- then more butterflies

I found a fairly good sized nest under the hood of my propane tank with 5 blue eggs in it today.  The nest is made of straw and feathers.  Do you have any idea what it might be?

Laura, thank you very much for this comment. In response to your post, we followed up with some dragonfly/damselfly experts, and discovered that we had a detail wrong (yikes) - though it’s not quite as you describe. We’ve corrected the essay above, but here’s more detail on what typically happens: the male inserts sperm into the female, they disconnect, and then she lays the eggs. The eggs are fertilized with the stored sperm as they are laid. But fatherhood isn’t a sure thing. If a second male mates with the female before the egg laying, the sperm of the previous male is replaced.

Nice article.
Having done business, a number of years back, with D.H. Hardwick , I can personally testify to what great people they are to work with. This article does a great job of encapsulating that.

thanks for sharing!

This was very interesting. Now if we can just get people to stop spraying poisons all over there lawns, butterflies might be more plentiful.

I think I get it, but in step two you comment about keeping the same annular ring in the center of the handle….

But, you’ve split the bolt into equal halves and quarters, yes?  So either you will just have a portion of the ring in your axe head, OR you’ll split the bolt off center so that you have the whole ring….

I’m guess it’s the first guess - You want as much of a portion of the ring as you can get…..

For most of us without milling equipment, there’s a limit to how big a bolt we can use, therefore having a handle of extremely “straight” grain seems difficult.  A big tree will no doubt produce blanks of straight grain, but not the smallish ash trees on my property.

Thanks for article.  If you can offer clarification on above thanks.

TB

Are there any good home remedies (for nettle stings) to get rid of the tingly prickly feeling?

I agree with you Mike! I’m a forestry consultant in MI, where forests are still looked at in “stands.”  I’m wondering what your suggestions are to change this outlook? I mostly write management plans for folks looking for tax breaks, but all the government cost share programs require plans written for the stand level.  Thanks!

Most of the women I know have men who use chainsaws (and do not have the ability or inclination to use them ourselves), and each time we hear that thing rev up, we fall on our knees and pray to whatever higher power we believe in that the day will not require a trip to the emergency room.

Conversely, chainsaws are about the best way to cut down trees that’s ever been invented. And there are many circumstances when it’s necessary to cut down trees.

The only thing scarier than a chainsaw is a Sawzall.

In Europe they are already clean burning chips from coarse woody debris to heat water to heat entire villages. nothing goes to waste.

PITCH PINE has to be planted as a 2 year, bare root seedling to adapt and reach its maximum growth rate. THEN IT CAN REACH 25 FEET IN ONLY 5 YEARS, IN FULL SUN. THEN IT SLOWS DOWN and is more wind firm than white pine. Landscapers are ignorant of ecology and very narrow minded about aesthetics.
Make sure that you can feel the root collar when planting seedlings. never bury it. Croshaw Nursery in NJ and Pikes Peak in PA have P Pine.
Also great if all the needles and branches are blown off-resprouts .

I think my daughter has 3 or 4 nests under her vinyl siding.  Long story short, after reading how “docile” / impotent these things are, I got stung within 2 minutes of starting to pull up the siding to powder the nests. Yes, it was 70 degrees, daytime outside and yes I know better.  Just didn’t think a female would be riled enough to come out and defend. She was. “I’ll be back ... ”  late at night, with a red light, in protective clothing.

Here in Germany we mechanically cut holes in the invasives and replant tree seedlings in small collectives in the holes so that they can compete with the invasives without too much labor and never with herbicide because our forests are our water supply.

We have more productive forest in Germany than in US. look at Wald wissen website.

I agree with Peter - it has an unpleasant taste. But it helps sick people!

Great blog, Dave! It’s a miracle this individual wasn’t injured or worse in this instance, as he did nearly everything wrong in every step of the process.  We have seen many, many injuries and deaths from much less egregious lapses. If nothing else, it serves as a stark warning that felling trees is not for the untrained. Thanks for the nod to GOL. Ed

Can sweet fern be used to produce essential oil?

I was taking great pictures of a beautiful alder beetle…the black and white stripped one…the kids set out to kill it…I told them not to kill critters just because they’re there..they said I was crazy….my point being everything has a purpose ...please find a valid purpose I can share for this beautiful beetle…thanx