Busy Little Beavers

 

Yeah, we've been busy little beavers.  In a figuratively literal way.  Hey, it's wood and we're chopping it.

We started on October 7th with the tippy cedar tree and one pallet.  (Now the center pallet.)  Then we got the bug and started dragging things up out of the forest to chop up.  Hubs added a second pallet for 'other wood'.  Once those two started to fill up, he added a third pallet.  We have one more pallet available and just enough room to put it.  We'll see.

Those pics were taken yesterday afternoon.  We've got it all underneath the sun porch, where it can stay nice and dry.  If you look at the top pic, you can really see the difference between the cedar and the 'other wood'.

Here's where the magic happens:

That's the stump from the tippy cedar tree we pulled down and chopped up.  We use it and the cinder block as saw horses.  The wood laying around is what we dragged up to saw.  When we get the urge, we'll cut it into lengths and throw it under the house.  Just two old folks and a limb saw.

Some of the wood we now have waiting to be chopped came from our oldest pile, where we've been throwing deadfall for 8 years now.  The pile was pretty tall and wide.  7 foot high by 10 ft wide by 15 ft deep.  It's now about half that and moved from between two trees to a more open spot.  We have three more deadfall piles as you go down the hill from the house.  We'll get to those eventually.  I don't look forward to dragging wood up from the bottom of the hill, lemme tell ya, but we'll do it.  

For the record, we are not taking down anything alive, except for tippy tree but he had to go.  And we're only working on land we own.  (Although I am starting to covet the deadfall on the neighbor's property.  When we finish with our wood, I'll ask him if he wants us to take care of his dead stuff, too.)

Anyway, like I've said, it's good exercise.  And it's an excellent way to leave the world behind for a while.

Are you finding ways to leave the world behind?  These days it's kinda necessary.

Sunday Update - Week 45

I broke down and looked up the week this time.  Yay me.  Forty-five weeks in, seven left to go.  May 2022 be a better year.  (Lord knows, 2021 sure wasn't.)

Anyway, thanks to a kind and friendly poke in the ass, I got some editing done this week.  I input 7 pages worth of edit notes and I'm through to page 129 of the manuscript.  Don't get excited or anything.  I'll have to go through and make a whole 'nother round of notes and input those before I can even think about sending it to beta readers, whose notes I will also have to input.  

No marketing, no sales.  

I seemed to have a better reading week.  3 books finished.  But I'm still 8 books behind on my goal.  I've read 58 books and my goal was 75.  Oops.  

In baking news, I made a tube of cinnamon rolls I picked up at the Dollar General.  Those were pretty good.  I also did a batch of zucchini bread, but for some stupid, brainfarty reason, I only put 2 cups of sugar in instead of 3 cups.  It's not horrible, but it's also not right.  Oh, well.  We have two loaves of that, so those'll get eaten before I try again.  Luckily, Hubs likes it.  And I don't hate it.

Let's see... what else is there?  Oh, yeah, activity...  I was active 5 out of 7 days.  4 days worth of woods work and one day we went fishing.  Let's not talk about weight this week, eh?

The woods work...  Hubs and I dismantled our top-most wood pile.  8 years that thing has been sitting there, building and decomposing.  We pulled out the best logs and set everything else in a better place, where it's not brushing up against any trees.  The best logs are now in a couple of other stacks, drying out and waiting for us to saw them up.  Hubs figures we're at a cord of wood now.

Oh, and that tree I thought might be a persimmon, based on the bark?  It dropped a fruit near where we were sawing wood.  It was a persimmon fruit, so it has to be a persimmon tree.  Mystery solved.

As for the fishing, we went out knowing a cold front was on the way.  The front arrived just as we got out of the car.  Woohoo was it ever windy and COLD.  We weathered it for about an hour, got some bites but no actual fish, and then went home.  It was fun, but cocoa when we got home was so necessary.

The yellow-bellied sapsuckers are back.  Yay.  Now we wait for the eagles.  I thought I might've seen one on my last trip to Wallyworld, but I couldn't confirm it, so I'm not counting it.  The robins are also stopping on their way south.  They've cleaned the berries off all the spicebushes already.  Voracious little buggers, they are.

Thanksgiving is this week.  I have all the things needed for a yummy TGD.  And the turkey is now defrosting in the fridge.  It's 14.5 pounds.  The smallest I could find for the price of 78c a pound.  I thought I was pretty smart for getting it that cheap.  Then my mom said they got theirs for 33c a pound.  Doh!  We also have cranberry sauce (jellied and canned, of course) and stuffing (Stovetop) and rolls.  That's about it for our feast.  I mean, I have corn and rolls, but we've been ignoring those these last few years in favor of pigging out on turkey.  LOL

Oh, and I bought the stuff to make pumpkin cheesecake.  I'll get that done on Wednesday.  (If I make it sooner, we'll eat it sooner.  I'm trying to be good here.  LOL)

And that's about it for me.  What's up in your world?

Saturday Reading Wrap-up - 11/20/21

Hello again.  It was a pretty good week, reading-wise.  Three good ones finished, even if I did DNF a couple, too.

I didn't pick up any new books this week, but I need to rectify that since I'm down to my last unread ebook - a fantasy.

Books Read:

58) Duel of Fire by Jordan Rivet (11/18/21) - Fantasy* - 5 stars.  New to me but not underappreciated.  Free off the All About Books Divas Facebook page.
Review: "Gripping plot. Good story. Interesting premise. Nicely done all the way around. Of course, this is the first of a series and the overall story isn't finished by a longshot, which is kind of a bummer, but it was worth the read and I'll snag the next book down the road a ways."

57) The More Than Complete Hitchhiker's Guide by Douglas Adams (11/15/21) - SF - 4 stars.  Neither new to me nor underappreciated.  Snagged from the thrift store for $1.
Review: "I was sure I'd read all these books when I was a teen. But other than a vague feeling of familiarity, I don't actually remember the stories, so maybe not. I can say one thing... I don't remember any of this being so incredibly weird. Still, the weirdness was an enjoyable sort of weirdness for the most part. Maybe I was more attuned to the weird thirty-some years ago when I was a teen. :shrug:

Anyway, I'm keeping this copy. It's signed, after all. Not to me, but it's definitely signed by Douglas Adams, so it's got that going for it."

56) Montana Moon by Silver James (11/13/21) - Paranormal Romantic Suspense* - 5 stars.  Not new to me, but definitely underappreciated.  Paid full price $2.99
Review: "I read the earlier version of this when it was in another author's Kindle World. And it was awesome then. Now that the author got her rights back and brought Montana Moon strictly within her own world, it is awesome dipped in awesome-sauce with awesome-sprinkles. I love the characters of this story, as well as the characters that have populated the Moonstruck universe all along. If you haven't read these stories, you really should. And if you've already read this, read it again. It's so worth it."

DNFs:

11/19/21 - free - SF.  The story was good.  The writing was good.  The author kept tapdancing along a major pet peeve of mine so I quit reading.

11/18/21 - free - UF.  I'm not a fan of first person present, but I thought I'd muddle through.  I shouldn't have bothered.  I hated the MC within the first few paragraphs.  NEXT!

Currently reading... I didn't start anything new after that last DNF.  

What was on your reading list last week?

Thursday This n That

First thing this morning, I read an inspiring story about a guy who did some amazing things in WWII.  Joseph Beyrle.  They need to make a movie about HIM.  Except I fear Hollywood would find a way to mess it up.  Anyway, it's good to start the day with something positive.  

Speaking of positive, my friend-editor was talking on FB about how hard it's been to get and stay motivated.  I said something about how we should try to push each other and maybe invite our mutual friend, too, so we'd be like a triad, but then we'd need special names like superheroes.  So she created a private group for us to do just that.  She's awesome like that.  

Of course, not too long after I joined the group and made my statement about what I'd like to accomplish through the end of the year, I received an email with four spreadsheets to do.  By the time I got those done, I was too pooped to accomplish my daily goal and I said so.  Then she poked me.  I didn't get two pages of edit notes entered, but I did get one done, so the poking was definitely helpful.

Things have been blerg lately, but I'm trying to get positive.  Getting positive isn't easy, but where I'm really falling down is staying positive once I get there.

I saw a funny on FB this morning.  What's the difference between Lebron and Kyle?  When he's under pressure, Kyle makes his shots.  LOL.  Yeah, if you don't think that's funny, can't help ya there.

I have a sink full of dishes that I don't wanna do.  I will, but not just yet.

Hubs and I went fishing yesterday.  It had been a pretty nice day so far, and even though we knew a cold front was coming through, we thought we'd give it a whirl.  On the way, we stopped for nightcrawlers and it was getting cloudy, but still quite nice.  Another five minutes to the lake, parked the car and started to get the stuff out of the backseat when WHOOSH.  Big, cold wind out of the north hit us.  Blew my hat right off.  (I saved it.)  Screw the wind, though, I wanted to fish, so we went to the kinda-sheltered side.  When I took the lid off the worms to get one out, the lid blew into the water and away it went.  My tackle box tipped over and scattered stuff.  I was laughing like an idiot.  Hubs was grinning.  We fished for about an hour and then gave up because we weren't catching anything and the temperature was dropping hard.  Eh, it was still better than an hour sitting here.

My camera battery died.  Not just needing a charge, but dead-dead.  So I put it my backup battery.  It was also dead-dead.  I ordered new batteries that came with a charger all their own, so here's hoping they work and that my camera isn't the problem.  I'd hate that.  I mean, the camera is 11 years old, but come on.  The batteries should be here tomorrow.

In order to make a big enough purchase for free shipping, I also ordered two CDs I've been wanting.  The Fray and The Head and the Heart.  Yes, I still listen to CDs.  I still listen to tapes, too.  =op

And on that note... after dragging myself away from the distraction of watching music videos... I'll let you get on with your day.  Unless you want to take another moment and leave a comment, of course.  

Talking Wood Again

Okay, if you've been following along, this blog hasn't been much about writing lately.  Today's not going to be about writing either.  Yep, I'm talking about wood again.  Maybe someday I'll have a character who chops wood.  

One of the curious things about owning a stretch of wooded land is wondering what, in fact, these trees are.  This bring out the researcher in me.  Thank goodness for the internet.  I mean, I do have a guide to tree identification, but it only gets me close to what I might be looking at and it's not as comprehensive as I'd like.  So, off to the internet...

We have a tree up near the front of our property, stuffed in amongst the other trees, that has really gnarly bark.  This morning, I went hunting and discovered it's a hackberry.  Or I should say it WAS a hackberry.  I think it's dead.  I'm surprised it lived as long as it did with its trunk right up against another tree and its leaves not getting much, if any, sun.  Unfortunately, I also learned they don't burn well and they rot fast.  This one will not be going into the woodpile.

The other day I mentioned a couple big limbs with REALLY red heartwood that were not cedar.  Cedar has a very distinct odor and recognizable bark.  This stuff had neither.  It's black cherry.  We have a few of those around, so I'm not surprised.  Which tree these limbs came off of?  No clue.  We threw them into the wood piles years ago.  

By the way, black cherry trees are not like most other cherry trees and the black cherries you tend to see in ice cream are not these cherries.  These are small and mostly pit.  They have been used for medicinal purposes, so cough syrup flavor.  Bleh.  The deer and the squirrels love them, so they can have them.  Also, black cherry trees can get some height going on there.  We have one off the back that's easily 40-45 feet.  The old cherry tree we had when I was growing up would've never reached that tall.  The wood is awesome, though, and we've set it aside for perhaps turning into flooring or selling to a woodcarver.  (Or maybe I'll get a wild hair and learn to do woodcarving.  In my spare time.)

We're getting to the point in our cutting now that we can identify wood more easily.  We have loads of oak.  The black walnut is easy to identify, even if it's hard to cut.  American elm is prolific here and the bark's easy to spot.  We also have hickories, which you can sometimes identify by the smell of it when you're sawing it.  It smells like BBQ.  Heh.

The thing about oak... There are so many different kinds of oak.  We know it's oak, but what kind of oak?  No clue.  Black oak has darker bark.  White oak has lighter bark.  But once the bark has fallen off, oak looks like oak.  If we get a chance to see the leaves, we have a better chance of telling whether it's a pin oak or a swamp oak.  White oak varieties have leaves with rounded lobes and black oak varieties have pointed lobes.  

Over the weekend, we noticed a tall tree that had bark unlike any other tree.  And it has balls hanging in the upper branches.  But it's not a sycamore.  Sycamores have VERY distinctive bark.  This was more like the black cherry's bark, but not quite.  Into the internet for research again, and I think it's a persimmon tree.  So far, the only permissions I've seen were short.  Who knew they could get up to 70' high?  Not me, that's for sure.  Hubs still didn't think it's a permission, because there was no fruit laying around.  I reminded him that everything eats persimmon, deer especially, so even if the fruit made it to the ground, something would eat it up quick.  Unless a fruit falls while we're standing right there, we'll probably never see one.  

In case you haven't figured it out, I love trees.  Always have.  Used to hug them.  For real.  (Note: you can't, nor should you try to, hug a locust tree.  Spiky buggers, they are.)  If you're interested, here's a neat site I found that helps with identification.  It's out of Iowa, but sometimes trees are trees.  They have a pic of the locust tree that will give you an idea of how ouchy those things can be.  We have a few of those around here, too.  I've whacked the spikes off as high as I can reach so we don't skewer ourselves accidentally.

Anyway, it's not a writing post, but hey, paper is made from trees, so there's that.  

Here's a Picture

Since I don't have anything to talk about today, here's a picture:

It's a prothonotary warbler checking out the birdhouse I have hanging on my porch.  This was taken back in July and he didn't stick around.  Many birds have checked out the lodgings, but none have stayed.  Maybe this spring we'll get a bird in residence in there.

In other bird news, the robins are migrating through.  They're singing up a storm while they're here, which is awesome.

Sunday Update - OMG, What Week IS it?

 I have lost track of the weeks again.  Oh, I could go look it up.  I could even just count backward from the end of the year and junk.  Right now?  Nope.  I need a coffee IV.

What did I do last week?  Oh yeah...

I'm still not writing new words, but I did make some small progress with the edit notes.  I've gotten 8 pages of notes input now and that's brought me to pg49 in the manuscript.  Go me.  If you knew the mental hurdles and roadblocks I'm trying to jump, you'd see this is a bigger thing than it looks like.  I need to just put my head down and soldier through.  First I need to be in a place where I can put my head down and soldier through, though.  

I thought about marketing.  Really, I did.  And I learned that Amazon does not let you do any Kindle Countdown Deals or freebies 30 days before a book drops out of Kindle Select and the book has to be in Kindle Select for 2 weeks after the KCD or free offer.  Or some such nonsense.  Except this morning, when I went to check my facts, they're now saying I could possibly put Unequal into one or the other and it's drop date is 11/29, so what do I know?  A friend told me she clicked the box to take a book out and when she went back, they'd put it back in.  Unequal is still showing as deselected, so I'm not sure what's going on there.  Anyway, I'm not doing it.  If you want one of my books, pay full price.  None of them are really that expensive - between $2.99 and $4.99.  You can get the four-book Once Upon a Djinn series for just under $16.  Which is less than one hardcover of most other books these days.  :shrug:

In reading news, well, I didn't finish any books before my Saturday Reading Wrap-up, but I did some other stuff that made a reading wrap-up worth perusing.  

On the baking front, I did a batch of granola bars and yesterday, I made scalloped potatoes with ham.  I also put cheese and bacon bits in it.  Hubs was pleased.  I was content.  I think it needed more of something tasty, but I'm rarely 100% pleased with my own cooking.

We spent some time in the woods this week, but not as much as I wanted.  It was too warm for really getting into the woods until yesterday.  And we sawed through all the wood we'd already gleaned, so we had to wait.  Yesterday, we spent a good hour dragging timber up the hill and then another hour sawing.  We only really got through a 3" diameter piece, part of another, and most of an 8-9" piece of oak.  That last sucker was a bear.  It needs one more cut and it'll be done, but we were tired and left it to today.  The other piece was a wood we'd never cut through before, so we set it aside to do some more research.  It's pretty dark pink inside, but it is definitely not cedar.  I'm guessing black cherry.  We'll see.  It's definitely not firewood.  We may find a way to make flooring with it. We'll see.  Weight: 180.4 - mine, not the wood. (Not sure where the pound and half went, but yay for it going.)

Did the Wallyworld thing.  I'm down to only going once a month, so it's a big deal now.  Anyway, I picked up the turkey for Thanksgiving.  I got a Honeysuckle White for 87c a pound.  Yay.  Unfortunately, the smallest one they had was over 14lbs.  We'll be eating turkey for a while after TGD.

Got an unexpected wrinkle this week which, oddly enough, set me to working on edit notes - just to give my brain something else to think about for a while.  It helped while I was doing it.  Too bad I can't work on edit notes while I'm trying to sleep because my brain went after the wrinkle with a vengeance that night.  Still not a thing I can do about it, but the ol' brain doesn't bother with that.  It just climbs on the hamster wheel and runs.  It would've also helped if I could've gone into the woods, but it was close to dark when it occurred and then the next morning it rained and by afternoon it was windy.  Blerg.

I also really need to go fishing, but the weather's been a turd for that.  If it's not raining and cold, it's windy.  Nerts.

Okay, well, that's enough out of me for today.  I'm sure there's something I'm forgetting.  If you want an update on something that's not here, ask.  I'll most likely answer you.  

How was your week?