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Saturday, June 15, 2013

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:)

11 comments:

  1. My dear friend Lisa;
    What you and Mike consider as "normal routine maintenance" would be considered "above and beyond" for some of us! I am really enjoying your blogs.

    Have a good weekend! Which leads me to ask... what do you do to relax?

    LilyLady

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    Replies
    1. We do like to work together:). As I told my SIL yesterday we do relax. Every day Mike and I take a nap, get up make coffee and enjoy it while sitting on the patio. Then we go for a second round, lol. Life is good:):)

      I hope you have a great day!!

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  2. Is the post the result of woodpecker damage, or, did you chisel the nest out of there?

    That barn would make a Great Shop for Mike! WOW!! What space!! I would be jumping up and down for all that much room LOL... Shame it isnt next to the house, it would be perfect, but, being down where it is, there is too much of a chance that vandals would steal everything that went into the place, what a shame...
    I wish you well...

    Jesse

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    Replies
    1. Mike is on live with the barn storage:) I really don't think amy vandals would come in. There is still a long boarded and fenced drive to get into our property and cameras at the entrance and inside:) There is also only one way on and one way out. I sure wouldn't want to get stuck/caught in here, lol.

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    2. Oops I missed part of your comment.

      No we didn't chisel the nest out. The woodpecker did that dandy work all by himself...grr!!! We need to fill it still.

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  3. Hello what part of tn is this? Thank you...rush

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  4. Wood bees can be very nasty. My husband got stung twice when moving some landscape timbers once.
    Keep some Absorbine Jr. for stings. I put some on his stings and within 20 min he didn't feel any pain and a few minutes more you couldn't see where he was stung. I used it on 11 yellow jacket stings once with the same results.

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    Replies
    1. Supposedly the carpenter bees don't sting. The males don;t have stingers and the females need to be threatened before they will sting. Ours didn't sting.

      That is horrible for your husband. I can't imagine having that many stings. Thank you for the tip about the Absorbine Jr. I didn't know that. I used to use that for sore muscles.

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  5. About those bees and woodpeckers, the upper railing on our deck looked just like your fence post. GRRRRRR!!! I've been filling the gaping holes with wood filler. Now it looks like Swiss Cheese! If we weren't trying to sell this house, I'd paint the freakin' deck with creosote!! LOL!! Just kidding. But seriously, I think I'm going to paint/seal the deck with this stuff by BEHR. It's called BEHR PREMIUM Solid Color Weatherproofing All-In-One Wood Stain & Sealer. I used this on the deck of my previous home and had no problems with neither bees nor woodpeckers.

    I do, however, enjoy swatting the soldier (male) bees into the woods behind us! lol.

    As always, the place looks uber-meticulous. =D ^5

    CocoaNut

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    Replies
    1. It's amazing the damage that can be done from animals and pests. We haven't filled anything yet. I guess ours will also look like swiss cheese.

      I do need to get some paint on those poles after we fill them.

      Good luck selling:)

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