Low 60s and sunny today. Good day to piddle around the wood processing area and finish splitting and stacking some rounds I have cut over the past few weeks.
First up was to finish splitting a bunch of water oak I cut and bucked recently. One batch came from a friend's ranch. A huge top of a water oak came down in a storm. Documented in the thread "The Mother of all Widow Makers" thread.
The next wood came from this water oak (below) that I took down a couple of weeks ago. This was also documented in another thread telling how the tree fell exactly backwards from my prepared drop zone and straight into tall brush which made it difficult to extricate.
This is that tree:
Below is the stack of rounds cut from the above tree. I completed the splitting and stacking of this pile today.
Below is my new stacking area. My old one was surrounded by woods. This one is much more exposed. It will be in the sun by late morning through late afternoon and much more open to winds from all directions except East (and we don't get much wind out of the east anyway.) Another thing I did today was remove a large overhead limb to allow more sun, as well as clear away a lot of yaupon and other saplings and scrubs to increase airflow and to give me more space to add more stacks.
Below is a close up of one end of this stack. It contains four rows of approximately eight inch pin oak splits. I took that storm topped tree down in November. These short splits will be next years north/south burns.
Last shot: I can't stand these critters. It's bad enough that they mess up my lawn. This guy had been pushing up mounds around my new stack. While I was in another area this morning, splitting rounds, he push out another one. I set a trap and had him an hour later. One of the biggest gophers I've ever caught. A female. Toe to butt about seven inches, not counting tail. I've trapped about 350 in about three years plus shot about 80 or so with my LC Smith double barrel 16 gauge.
Overall, a good day in the woods.
First up was to finish splitting a bunch of water oak I cut and bucked recently. One batch came from a friend's ranch. A huge top of a water oak came down in a storm. Documented in the thread "The Mother of all Widow Makers" thread.
The next wood came from this water oak (below) that I took down a couple of weeks ago. This was also documented in another thread telling how the tree fell exactly backwards from my prepared drop zone and straight into tall brush which made it difficult to extricate.
This is that tree:
Below is the stack of rounds cut from the above tree. I completed the splitting and stacking of this pile today.
Below is my new stacking area. My old one was surrounded by woods. This one is much more exposed. It will be in the sun by late morning through late afternoon and much more open to winds from all directions except East (and we don't get much wind out of the east anyway.) Another thing I did today was remove a large overhead limb to allow more sun, as well as clear away a lot of yaupon and other saplings and scrubs to increase airflow and to give me more space to add more stacks.
Below is a close up of one end of this stack. It contains four rows of approximately eight inch pin oak splits. I took that storm topped tree down in November. These short splits will be next years north/south burns.
Last shot: I can't stand these critters. It's bad enough that they mess up my lawn. This guy had been pushing up mounds around my new stack. While I was in another area this morning, splitting rounds, he push out another one. I set a trap and had him an hour later. One of the biggest gophers I've ever caught. A female. Toe to butt about seven inches, not counting tail. I've trapped about 350 in about three years plus shot about 80 or so with my LC Smith double barrel 16 gauge.
Overall, a good day in the woods.
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