October 29, 2016

Yesteryear
One year ago today: October 29, 2015, I want $1,000 per oz.
Five years ago today: October 29, 2011, they don’t need me.
Nine years ago today: October 29, 2007, seven cents per month.
Random years ago today: October 29, 2010, the perennial beer-mobile

MORNING
           The dead tree from the back yard is no more. Here is your neighborhood hard-working tree service down to about the half-way mark. He uses the bucket to slice the wood into approximately six-foot lengths. Near the ground, where his chainsaw isn’t long enough to go through the tree, he goes in from both sides and uses the bucket boom to push the stump over. Thoroughly professional. The tree was a chokecherry, which I thought was a bush. Nope, he says they grow that tall in 12 years, then they die.

           So while he was here, I had him take the same dead chokecherry from the front yard that was dangerously overhanging the street. Same deal, he cuts halfway and uses the hydraulic boom to push the rest of the way. Why not a bigger chain saw? Because the one he’s using is plenty heavy enough when you are 65 feet in the air.

           Take a look at this classic photo. It shows the entire operation caught in a spray of sawdust caused by the early morning sunlight. As planned, I had him leave the stump as a memento. I had him do the same at the front but that tree was hollow on the inside. I did not pay to have the logs removed, so give me a chance to think what I might do with the pieces. He says the chokecherry wood is very hard, making it difficult to carve or work with. Hmmmm. Who remembers the difficulty I had finding durable wood for the gears I was cutting?
           I had him ID the remainder of the trees in the yard. Boy, to do I feel dumb. Most of them are not oaks, but camphor trees. And the ones overhanging the roof of the house have to come down. Otherwise, he says, the sap and dripping will rot the roof through in a few years. Time to put JZ to work. I was going to rent a bucket for $250 and we would have taken all day. This job, both trees, took 40 minutes and the price was not the $1,500 each quoted on-line. The cost was $185 each. I haul away the mess. Deal.

           Okay, there is one cat that is more compatible than the others. Still feral, he likes to linger when I am working in the yard. He’s also the one who pre-empts the other cats when I put a dish of chicken ones or pork fat on a dish. He doesn’t run away when I round the corner. No promises, no commitments, I’m just sayin’ this one is nicer.

Picture of the day.
Popular Mechanics, 1963.
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NOON
           Here is the chokecherry tree from the front yard six hours later. Sliced into pieces the city will pick up from the curb. The dead trees rot out from the core. I’ve seen this on many other trees being removed in the area so it comes as no surprise to me that no useful lumber can come from these pieces.

           Mind you, the tree in the back was not so bad, so I may try to salvage some choice sections. All the logs are big and heavy. This represents quite a lot of labor out of a guy like me. Color me tired. Now I’ll be sore and hard to get moving tomorrow morning. There was around five times this amount of wood that had to be sliced and the chain saw threw the blade four times. Two quarts of lemonade and man, I am ready for beddy-bye. Give me a hot shower. No, hotter.

           [Author’s note: don’t allow me to make this sound like just another chore that winded me. It is tough going. This is back-breaking labor for a man half my age. It took the entire afternoon because I have been unable to work at this pace more than maybe ten minutes, and then immediately require a ten minute rest. I love the exercise and keep it even paced. My cardiologist would have conniptions if he knew.
           The logs shown here, hollow or not, still weigh in at a soggy 60 or 70 pounds each. I have to roll them into place. The pieces of this tree may exceed what the city will haul away in one trip, and that tree was less than a third the size of that monstrosity in the back yard.]

NIGHT
           I decided to stack the smaller logs and got about half way before my heart said time out. I know what to watch for now [concerning heart symptoms], so not to even be concerned. I never push the envelope. You can see this is already a considerable woodpile just from the smaller branches. Alas, it is not suitable for burning as it would smell of mold and there were countless colonies of insects under the bark. Including some large cockroaches which won’t vamoose and crawl over your hands and the chainsaw. Gross.

           I haven’t piled this much raw wood since I was eleven and we got propane heat. I thought of what could be done to recycle the wood, like a birdbath or a sundial, but this is too far rotten. It’s not going anywhere until middle of next week; maybe I’ll think of something. The part of the tree where I was considering carving the house number is also more rot than wood.
           All told, this single tree required some 90 cuts with the chain saw, and probably another 30 more fore I get all the pieces within regulation. The city won’t pick up anything that doesn’t fit between the jaws of the scoop. When JZ gets here, we’ll make plans to trim back the remainder of the branches as advised by the tree expert.

           I got back inside and made hot chocolate. Reception was good enough that I listened to Matt Dillon apprehend some poker cheats. While I know nothing about antennas, I do know a bit about radio reception. Would you like to hear it? Good, because so many consumers don’t know the basic principle. Now this is just ordinary analog AM radio, but the theories apply to all radio. There are three types of reception. The first is just a piece of wire, which can only be “tuned” by varying its length to pick up the closest and strongest signal. That’s your crystal radio kit.
           If you rig up a “tuning coil” consisting of a capacitor and a loading coil, you can single out a broad range of individual stations. It is still a piece of wire, so the next step up is to amplify the incoming signal that has been “filtered” to select the desired station. Radio waves tend to be very weak, so the signal is given a boost before the audio wavelengths are filtered out. If you’ve ever owned a transistor radio, that’s an example. I think this type of receiver is called “regenerative”
           But the best type of receiver has the crazy name of “superhetrodyne”. People bought these “stereos” without a clue what the word meant. It is my understanding that it works by injecting an amplified signal that exactly matches the frequency of the incoming radio station. My guess is this causes harmonic amplification of the incoming wave. Then you put this relatively strong signal through some “low bypass filters” and the result is excellent sound.
           I could be wrong, as this is mostly opinion. But if this should get you interested in further information, remember the robot club is accepting new members. Even if I no longer have a tree to connect my antennas to. The audience will laugh now.


Last Laugh


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