Monday, April 20, 2009

Pining for attention


More tree work. Above, cut a wedge. Left cut the back of the wedge. Watch and listen carefully, prepare to run.




Above. Cut more of the back out.
Left. "I wonder why this tree won't fall?"







Left. Chain saw is stuck in back cut of the tree."Now what am I gonna do?
Left. "i'll use my massive woodsplitter axe to lever the tree a bit so I can get the saw out"
Then saw some more of the back cut and TIIIIIIMBERRRRRRR.
Is that a smile on my face? Ohhh yeah!







Now I just have to make the big bits into smaller bits then let them season for 2 years before I can burn them.
A man and his green and purple chainsaw...it's a beautiful thing.





More Woodwork

The title of this post might be a little bit misleading. I am sure you expected to see pictures of me making fancy cabinetry or carving life size bears from big logs! Nope not going to happen. What is going to happen and did in fact happen, is that Paul of the weary back is going to reduce this large pile of logs to a managable and tidy pile of split wood with a simple swing of a heavy axe. Well several hundred swings, plus this isn't all the wood pile either. The more I split the more wood kept coming my way, either from generous neighbours who wanted fallen trees off their land,(if I wanted to move them) or from my own back yard where trees were in the way of building my future workshop! The above pile became this rather tidy woodcrib,(see below) made by yours truly with pallets scavenged from behind the local hardware store. Each half of that crib holds about 1 cord of firewood for next winter, the stuff on the left will be used 1st as it is the oldest and most seasoned wood. The stuff on the right might be good for winter 2009 or I might let it sit 'til 2010 to be sure it is well dried out. In case you are wondering why there is no roof on my woodshed, my extremely clever wife advised me to fill the crib with wood first and then add a roof so I don't ruin my back bending and twisting to load the wood to the top. Now thats what I call thinking, thanks honey.Oh a CORD of wood is 4 feet high x 4 feet deep x 8 feet long, and thats a lot more wood than it sounds like.

As I mentioned before some of our firewood will come from our own trees. Unfortunately I have to cut down a really nice Maple tree that is in my way. (See below) They say that timing is everything and I unknowingly decided to chop into this tree at just the right time. Apparently the first warm day after lots of cold nights is a good time to tap a Maple tree and collect the sap to make ...wait for it........MAPLE SYRUP. So I was cutting off a largish lower limb of this tree and all of a sudden it started spewing sap all over me so I quick ran into the house and found a 5 gallon bucket to hang under the Niagara like flow. While the sap was filling the bucket I looked on the internet to find out how to collect and refine maple sap. I learned that true professionals do not chop off a tree limb and let the tree bleed to death in a bucket, they actually have a little tapping tool that you push into a hole that you drill into the tree. I did know some of this stuff in a general sort of way from reading books and seeing documentaries. Our local hardware store that has been around for 100yrs and looks like anything you could ever want is on its shelves somwhere did not have maple tree taps, but they did manage to give me advice on how to make some. I adapted their advice to my needs and available materials and made 4 quite servicable taps. A tree the size of ours should only have one tap in it or else there is a good chance you will kill the tree. My tree was coming down anyway so I went a little bit beyond 1 tap. I had made 4 taps and so I added all four to the cut off limb that was already there. 5 taps in all. Again not being a professional tree-tapper I only managed to collect 4 gallons of sap, a lot more I think dripped down the tree trunk and fed the ants and other sugar loving insects in the neighbourhood.

Maple syrup is made by boiling down the sap until it is about 1/40th of the original volume (no wonder pure maple syrup is sooo expensive). 1 Gallon is128 fluid ounces, divide that by 40 and you get 3 ounces of syrup. Let me say that again 1 GALLON gives you 3 OUNCES of syrup, its more expensive than gasoline!

I boiled down my first gallon on the stove in a saucepan, it only took 2 hours, and the resulting syrup tasted awesome.I have never tasted such a strong maple flavour in my life. According to Cheri's friend Beth, who has made maple syrup before, it was a good batch.(If you can call 2-3 oz a batch) She did say however that she thought I had reduced it a little bit too far and sure enough she was right because 2 days later it started to crystalise. It still tasted good but it was a wee bit crunchy!!!!

That is why I experimented with only 1 gallon 1st. (Thats MY story anyway) So my next 3 gallons will be done in a bigger pot on a hotter fire and hopefully it won't take me all day to make 10 oz of liquid gold. Also I will stop reducing just a little sooner so that the syrup stays as syrup
As a side note, my neighbour Mike has 7 Maple trees in a row and they are starting to crowd each other, soooo he and I will be dropping 3 of them(I get a bunch more firewood for helping him) and next March or April he says I can tap his trees to my hearts content, plus Cheri and I still have 3 very large Maple trees


Absolutely Floored

Here, as best as I can show you, is the dark and dingy floor of MY library as Cheri and I found it in 2006. If you enlarge the pic you can actually see where the people used to polish and wax AROUND an oval rug. Now being a bit of a lazy bugger myself I will not criticise anyone for not moving the furniture and rug out of the room to polish the floor properly because I cannot truthfully say that I would not do the same thing!!

The above is a picture of the wooden flooring in the house as it looked after I sanded away about 80 years of wood floor wax and oil based polishes and grime from the oil fired furnace. Who knew that there was gorgeous wood underneath? It seems that the first two rooms in the house, the posh rooms or, entertaining guest rooms, were floored with really nice Oak planks/strips about two and a quarter inches wide, and the back rooms or living quarters were floored with cheaper pine wood. The dining room and bedroom must have had grade 1 pine and the kitchen and hallway had grade 2 or 3. I am sure you will be seeing pictures of pine floors on here sooner or later.

Below are 2 pictures of the same floor after fine-sanding with 220 grit and coating with a clear urethane finish then waiting 5 days and repeating the process. After kneeling on this floor only a foot away from the details whilst sanding and coating it is a real surprise to stand up, walk away for a cup of tea then come back to see the big picture with a fresh eye. It just made me smile(well grin really) and say "WOW".



The next three pictures show the floor 1 week later after a third sanding, very light, and another coat of clear urethane. I can't help but say that I am very impressed with myself but I know that a real carpenter/floor guy would have probably done a 10 times better job






Well there you go. Only four more rooms and a massive hallway to go. Good thing we have a 10yr plan. Oh by the way did I mention there were holes in the floor that needed to be fixed before i could even start sanding and coating. All part of the adventure I guess.