Chapter 157...Cutting The Barn Wood

Just a quick story about some things we do around our property.  As you know we have been trying to clean out the barn.  First we had to get rid of the bales of hay in the loft, next we took out the extra lumber and finally we can clean up the ground.

But first a another cool view from our front door:

And:

OK...time to start working.  We brought all of the tobacco poles and extra old lumber up from the barn and stacked it on our driveway.  Since we have no use for it, building wise, we will cut it up and use it to burn.  I know some of you think that is crazy but whenever Mike and I wait around for people to come and take things they don't show up fast enough, lol.  Basically...you snooze you lose.


Mike uses the back of the trailer as a cutting table:

Uh oh...while Mike is doing that I notice that we have bees flying all around us.  They are carpenter bees.  I researched them and found some interesting information about them.  First the males don't have stingers...at least that is good:)  The females can sting but they very rarely do unless they are highly threatened.  The carpenter bee drill holes into wood to rear their young.  They like untreated wood best.  Once the holes are drilled, which are an almost perfect 1/2 inch round circle, they drill in about one inch and then turn right and drill some more.  They create tunnels in your wood.  In the winter they will live in those holes.  "They mate in the spring and set about to clean out and enlarge the old tunnels or to excavate new ones as brood chambers for their young. Each chamber is provisioned with a portion of "bee bread", a mixture of pollen and regurgitated nectar, which serves as food for the larvae. An egg is deposited on the food supply and each chamber is sealed off."
About Carpenter Bees

Anyway I found that interesting...although I am not happy about the holes they drill: 

OK...back to the cutting.  We have a another system:)  I stack the wood on each side of the trailer.  Mike goes back and forth between the sides and cuts the wood:

Nice clean cuts of wood ready to be stacked:

Mike stacking some of the wood:

Almost done with our pile:

Mike cleans up:

Back to the barn.  We still have a lot of loose hay on the ground:

We take some garbage bags up top and get to work.  Mike starts stuffing the bags:

18 bags full and that will be good for future seeding jobs:

Mike cleaned up the rest of the barn and blew it out with the blower:

Next we clean up and clear out the back building.  Now that we have the top of the barn cleaned out we can store some odd ball items down there and make more room in our storage container:

First load going down the the barn:

Mike is in heaven.  He has a whole big shelf to spread out his things:):

And on a last note.  The carpenter bees were just the beginning of the problem.  Since the bees add nectar and food to the holes other birds want to eat what is in the holes.  Unfortunately we have a big woodpecker that wants that nectar.  Not good.  We really have to fill all the holes before our whole post falls apart:

That's all for now.  We have just been doing the normal routine maintenance around the property.  Most of our time is spent working on the store:)

Have a wonderful day and I will write again soon:)