Spring planting has begun.
We got the peas in over a week ago and the rest of the early cold crops (bok choy, kale, lettuce, radishes, etc.) a few days later. It’s been quite warm for about a week and only turned more “normal” today.
I have to say, this Chinese global warming hoax is astonishingly powerful to bring in the growing season a month early and then let it go on an extra month in the fall. It was even strong enough to make the USDA move our zones a little further south. Pretty damned impressive for a global hoax. Maybe we could work that magic on peace and world hunger.
Anyway, last year we tried a mesh of straw tied together with what we thought was biodegradable twine. Surprise: it wasn’t. We left it in place to hold down the fresh manure we’d laid out. It did its job and wasn’t completely terrible to pull up and throw away. But it was a waste. Next year we’ll know better.
Meanwhile, we went back to the supplier from last year only to be told that there was no manure available this year. No explanation. Just that they were not supplying it.
We cast around and found a supplier on Craig’s List. It was Very Not Cheap but it was good quality delivered—six yards worth. We’ve been using up the last of the wood chips from the fallen hickory and covering it over with the new manure. It looks very nice.
We’ve been laying out what we want to plant in the two main gardens and the raised beds. It’s still under discussion. But, at least, I’m going to try sugar beets and sorghum again this year. Last year we didn’t get enough yield to continue the experiment. This year may be different. I’ll have more next month.
We cut down two of the three apples that were most infected with cedar apple rust. I haven’t tackled the last one—the Granny Smith—yet. That’s next on the agenda.
I mentioned last time the wood processing. I managed to get rid of all of the old wood in the shop and started on the “new” wood—wood from last year. I did the persimmon wood. The apple, chestnut, and mulberry are next. Then, I’ll attack the big pieces of cherry and hickory, finishing off that area so we can do other things with it besides holding down the earth with heavy pieces of wood. I’ll do a full post about it eventually.
The plan is to attack the remaining fallen wood tomorrow and cut it into manageable pieces. But that depends on the weather.
I’ve been on and off again on a lathe project (See here.) for some time. The short version is I got interested in larger lathe projects and bought a used Delta that promptly self-destructed. Twice. Frustrated, I ended up buying another lathe and, through a set of histrionic machinations, ended up with two lathes: a Jet and a Grizzly. Someday, I’ll write about it.
Anyway, that left the Delta as a boat anchor. I found this frustrating. Ninety percent of the Delta was still usable: the headstock, tailstock, tool rest, bed, and motor were fine. The only problem was the pulley system.
One of the things I like to do is reuse old wood. I’ve talked about this before. But a problem with using old wood is taking a nine-pound log and turning it into a seven-pound piece of stock. Most lathes have a bottom speed of about 600 rpm—or 10 revolutions/second. This means that a nine (or ten or twenty) inch piece of irregular wood is turning in front of you ten times per second.
It is bloody scary.
What I decided to do was take the old delta and find the smallest motor pully I could find and the largest shaft pully and hook them together so that I’d have something turning much slower. This turned out to be a 1-inch motor pulley and an 8-inch shaft pulley, giving me a 1/8 ratio. The motor was set up at 1750 rpm, so the resulting RPS should have been about 4. There were flaws in my calculations so I ended up with about 5.5—still, a lot better than 10. I tried it out and it was fine. Still a bit scary but nice.
The lathe is now a fixed speed, which is curiously frustrating. When I’ve done this with multispeed lathes, it was run slow until the rough stuff was done, and then run faster to get the piece smooth. I may end up redoing the lathe into just a couple of speeds but for now, since it is for roughing only, I’m going to leave it. It does its job.
The last part of that project is to put usable wheels on it. I don’t have room for the lathe in the shop so the plan is to store it next to the outside door and when the weather cooperates, pull it out and rough out the logs. Then, pull the lathe back into the shop when I’m done. The wheels I got are levered. That is, there’s a lever to bring down the wheels to move the lathe and then lever them up to set the lathe down solidly. But I have to mount them.
There’s a downside to this processing. If I just sawed the wood, I’d get rectangular boards. By turning them into rough blanks, I’ve turned them circular, losing a substantial part of the wood. For example, an 8x8 inch piece of wood has a cross-sectional area of 64 square inches. A circle of radius 4 inches (1/2 the 8 inches) has a cross-sectional area of 50.3 square inches—22% less wood.
But I don’t have a sawmill and my bandsaw doesn’t like wood much thicker than six inches. But I can rough turn a ten-inch log without much trouble. (Maybe twelve if it’s not too irregular and I’m feeling brave.) There are also length considerations. I can cut about four feet on the bandsaw without too much trouble but I can’t really turn more than three feet on the lathe.
I have seen a video that shows a technique of milling wood up to about twelve inches thick (the length of my chainsaw.) I’m going to give that a go.
I’d like to be able to make lumber out of all this fallen wood. And more. My friend William has some good-sized cherry logs holding down his backyard from a fallen tree last year. Once I have flat stock, I can turn it into boards using the jointer/planer/table saw approach: jointer to get two flat sides. Planer to even them out. Table saw for the last edge.
Or maybe I’m being too ambitious. My jointer only takes eight-inch boards, anyway. And where do I dry it or store it? Up in Vermont, I have a field of perhaps ten or fifteen cherry trees. All of them need to be eventually taken down—up there, cherry seems to grow to a certain point and then start to fail for some reason. They’re going to fall down eventually. I’d rather harvest them and replant before the wood rots.
But that’s the same problem: cut, dry, and store. Where? Build a solar kiln up there and leave them for a year? Maybe. If the chainsaw method works out. Otherwise, I’ll need a sawmill and I just don’t have the trees to justify that. At that point, it has to become a business or it won’t get done. I don’t want to start another business. I’ve got enough projects. Also, you end up with two-inch-thick boards that need to be milled down to spec. Again, as I mentioned, I’m really only set up to handle eight-inch stock.
And even if I do all of that, what projects do I have on hand to use the wood? How many menorahs, pill cups, spinning tops, and boxes can I make?
But it hurts to see wood wasted. It’s just a wonderful, practical, and beautiful resource. There was a field of hemlocks on the property we have in Vermont. Before we ever got it, whatever rots hemlock got to them and there are fallen, rotting logs all over this one section of the property. Hemlock is lovely wood. Not a hardwood, like cherry, but a nice softwood sort of like pine. (See here.)
Instead, the trunks are rotting into the ground releasing CO2 and methane into the air, doing their bit for global warming. I’m sure it’s helping microbes and small animals but the hemlock loss isn’t a natural process. It happened quickly—similar to the chestnut blight. If it were a natural loss, it would be different. I don’t want the same things to happen to the cherries.
So, I’m at a loss. Hopefully, I’ll figure something out.
Posts
