Okanogan 14x24 by a lurker :)

[OlJarhead]

welcome

If it's in the basement and the basement can get to 50+ in the winter then chances are you will be glad you have it.  Only thing to consider is that the vent pipe (s) do have to go up above the roof to draft so placing in the center of the basement won't be good but near an outer wall will be.

[OlJarhead]

Picked up two rolls of barbed wire and 25 7' posts for the 'orchard'.  Also plan on taking other measures (like string, electric etc) to discourage the cows and deer from eating our trees).

Will order trees today

Also ordered a work bench and vise for home -- don't have one and really need one though it will be in a 'shop tent' because I also don't have a shop!  Am excited though because I will be able to clamp down the rail pickets and strip them of bark now and have a place to install the tenon cutter and such.

Kind of exciting

[OlJarhead]

OK!  Got my Linear Current Booster and my Cistern Float Valve in and ordered my 190 watt solar panel to run the well off of

All I need now is the wire from the well to the cistern and a WHOLE lotta digging!

Can't wait!

Now I need to remember to print an order for my trees (they don't do online sales I hear) and then it's back to the cabin in a week to get back to work!  WhooHoo!

[OlJarhead]

I need a cabin trip!

  Just a couple more days and then I'm off!  Not sure what I'll get done but I'm thinking some milling and maybe a little logging.

Got my 190watt panel ordered along with cable and should be able to have it up and running soon!  Can't wait!

Also got my apple trees ordered and am planning a LOT of work over the next couple months

[OlJarhead]

Spent Friday afternoon, Saturday and Sunday morning at the cabin and it was bliss!  Got lots of clean up work done, burned slash and did some reading...then had to head home for Easter dinner and to watch the grandkids find all the eggs.

Next weekend will be heading back for more cleanup work and perhaps finally, some milling!  It's great to be out there and I cannot describe how awesome I feel when working on the property!

[ajbremer]

It's great to be able to spend time where you love the most. I'm going to feel the same way you do when I get my roof on!

[OlJarhead]

Had another great and productive weekend at the cabin!

We burned a TON of slash from around the cabin, moved the sawmill to a better location and milled up some 3/4" blue stain pine for future projects, fell, cut and chopped some fir for firewood, fell another fir for firewood (but didn't get to buck it up and chop yet), started on the orchard fencing and pumped about 350 gallons of water into the cistern -- and watched it run back into the well!  Can you say 'Check Valve'!?

Next trip I'll get the orchard fence finished and put in a check valve on the pipe to the cistern (there may actually be one there but it isn't working if there is) and begin the install work on the well pump power we're changing too.

We pumped a ton of water and were getting lots of the well when it was pumping and felt good about the results but then ran out later.....I then got the bright idea to check the level of the water in the well and discovered where all the water was going!

When we started pumping I didn't check the level but after 3 hours of solid pumping the water was at 54 feet (the pump is at 83 feet).  So I had LOTS of water still.  I pumped another hour and then checked the next morning and found the water at 21 feet!!!!

Only answer I can think of is that the water is flowing back into the well after we stop pumping.  I think it's time to install a check valve.

[pmichelsen]

After dealing with faulty check valves at my place I will recommend you go with a ball check valve. I have had good luck with them.

[OlJarhead]

After dealing with faulty check valves at my place I will recommend you go with a ball check valve. I have had good luck with them.

Do you have a brand you recommend?  I've got 1" pvc pipe to the cistern so am looking for an inline valve that I can install, bury and forget

[OlJarhead]

I've been negligent in posting pics lately...so here are some

My daughter came out last week (from Chicago where she's stationed in the Navy) and helped burn slash and clean up the place:)


She brought a friend along (strapping young Airman) and with his help and a neighbors help we moved the mill   I like it much better in it's new home and can drag logs past it much more easily now (and the big dead leaning tree can't fall on it now).


On this last trip my wife and daughter were a riot!  They took the ATV and trailer and ran around picking up all sorts of slash to burn and laughed the whole time!  It was so good to see them having so much fun and working on the land


Anyway, it was a fantastic trip and we managed to clean up a lot of ground.  When the grass starts to grow it might look a lot different!

[CjAl]

she must be at great lakes naval base. i know it well.

btw, what causes that blue staining on pine? i have noticed most the pineocally that we get milled turns blue

[MountainDon]

Blue stain is caused by a fungus found in/on mountain pine beetles. The fungus weakens a pine trees ability to fight off the beetle infestation. Many trees die from the beetle infestation. healthy uninfested pines once cut can be affected if the logs sit around with the bark still in place. The pine beetles love cut trees, burrow in and lay eggs. That leads to another round of new beetles looking for new trees to infest. nasty circle.

[OlJarhead]

Hmmm....thought it was a sap mold...either way, every tree I've cut and left laying on the ground for a long time has gotten it.

Trees I cut and mill right away never get it.

[MountainDon]

Trees I cut and mill right away never get it.

Yup!   

Read up here

or here

Mold grows on the surface. Blue stain penetrates the wood; I guess that's why they call it a stain.

[OlJarhead]

Thanks Don, interesting stuff!

[OlJarhead]

Interesting article (the first one) until the writer loses me with the 'climate change' and 'greenhouse gases' (neither of which are a 'foregone conclusion' by any means -- actually the greenhouse gas theory has been shown to be completely false in that there is no 'greehouse effect' at all but that's a whole 'nother discussion!  Though I could add that trees breath CO2 and therefore LOVE the additional amounts that may or may not be in the atmosphere -- ok let me stop here because I could go on and on and on about the arrogance of man and the 'flat earth' mentality of the Global Warmingists.......but I won't).

So, the beetle and the fungi give us blue stain and may have come from Afrika....interesting.

[CjAl]

So, the beetle and the fungi give us blue stain and may have come from Afrika....interesting.

so its tree aids. lol

sorry, bad joke. funny, but bad




thats interesting. so can it be transfered to healthy trees is they are.milled after infected trees?

[MountainDon]

Whether or not climate change, greenhouse gases and all that is real or whether or not the individual subscribes to any particular theory really does not matter. Mountain pine beetles were around over thirty+ years ago and we had the blue stain pine back then too. Back then my local lumber yard sorted the T&G 1x material into that with blue stain and that with no stain. They charged a premium for the blue stained boards back then as some people thought it looked pretty

[Don_P]

Bluestain and wood go together from the beginning.
I remembered a fair micrograph of it in cells in Dr Wheeler's wood tech course material From NCSU.
http://legacy.ncsu.edu/WPS202/fungi/decay.slides/sld009.htm
The bluestain hyphae are the darker material running horizontally within the rays. It tends to follow those "spokes" in as deeply as possible first then either goes though the pits (the valves of the cell) that join the vertical wood cells (you can see some of the bordered pits as what looks like bubbles on the sides of the tracheids and along the lower edge of the rays) or the tip of the hyphea simply dissolve their way through the cell wall and go cell to cell slurping sweet water. There are some better slides at SUNY you could probably find if its of interest.
These are some shots from topside, the fruiting bodies;
http://www.pbase.com/laroseforest/sac
We had one client that requested blue pine on his log home logs (I bit my tongue). They happily gave him what he requested. When we had a long wet spell prior to roof, the logs bloomed. Once we were dried in he decided to sand them and didn't wear a mask.  Nothing permanent but it is not a good thing to suck in.

It does not have to come from a beetle attack, the spores are all around us. During warm weather if I don't get a freshly sawed surface below ~25% moisture within a day or so spores landing on the wood will have adequate conditions to begin colonizing.

To prevent bluestain in freshly sawn logs or lumber there are 4 factors at play. It needs moisture, dry the wood. It needs oxygen, pond or spray the wood. It needs food, poison the wood. Or, it needs the right temperature, cold or extreme heat stops it.

If you do not debark you can often see the innoculation that occured when the sawblade pulled spore covered bark down through the cut.  To prevent that turn the log and enter clean wood as soon as possible.

[OlJarhead]

Got a $10 1" PVC Check Valve today

Hoping to get it installed this weekend!  Also heard my 190 watt solar panel will arrive tomorrow!  I might have to delay leaving until the panel arrives so I can try to get it installed too!

WhooHoo!

[JavaMan]

My trip is getting closer!  YOu'll have to fill me in on the snow and how much is left (if any) in the higher altitudes up that way.

Gonna start buying supplies this weekend.  Gotta get bearings for the front of the truck and put them in, too.

I'm starting to get "itchy" to get up there.  I sure hope the snow is gone enough.

I'll be interested to see what you all get done this weekend

[OlJarhead]

No snow anywhere I could see so I think you'll be fine!  It was 71 for a moment or two yesterday (around 4PM I think) and otherwise in the 60's.  Very nice weekend!

[OlJarhead]

Headed out to the cabin in hopes of fixing the water pump issue (ok actually the water losing issue) with a check valve.

When I got to the cabin I began digging (after firing up the wood stove and moving in of course) and exposed the pump pipes coming out of the well.  I discovered I had the wrong size check valve so ran to town to get something else -- made it by 6:45pm and they were closed!  DOH!

Next time I'll borrow my neighbors phone and call!

Next morning I ran to town first thing and got a new valve and some different couplers etc to make sure I had all that was needed.  Got back to the cabin and put in the check valve.



At this point all was going well and I pumped water for 6 hours!  That should have put a good 350+ gallons of water in the cistern.......

An hour after pumping I had 'ok' water pressure....hmmm......a little later and it was even lower....something still isn't right but it was better then before.

In the morning I was almost out of water!!!!  No real pressure and just a trickle coming out of the pipe.  SO I got a shovel and started digging up the cistern.  It was time.

My neighbor stopped by and watched for a bit, made some suggestions and then left to get another shovel (bless his heart!).  When he returned I'd exposed the lid and outlet/inlet pipes but had a bit to dig yet and he jumped right in to help out.


Both Richard and Sharon are great neighbors!

After some work we exposed everything and found a leak right at the inlet to the cistern.  I was also starting to realize this was a much smaller tank then I had been told.


Yup, that's no 1000 gallon tank!!!!  That ticked me off something smart but I just shrugged it off -- what can you do anyway?


The pipes were put in TOTALLY wrong and one elbow wasn't even glued at ALL!!!  Grrrrr


Hey wait a minute!  I thought I was out of water....not so, the cistern was completely full and I now suspect it ALWAYS was.  Or at least I'd filled it and overfilled it whenever I used any water...it was clear that as long as I put pressure on the tank by pumping water into it past the inlet line that there was enough pressure to force water past the leaks and down to the spigot.

I sort of put things back together enough to at least say it's better then it was and left it exposed until I can get back with parts to build it correctly (in two weeks).  Couldn't get the siphon action to start again though so only had a trickle coming out of the tank when I left   Oh well, I have to replace the inlet and outlets anyway so next trip I'll fix that, install the float valve and hopefully get the water moving again.

[MountainDon]

I've lost track..... the cistern was in the ground when you bought the land?

Looks like our tank. You can get an extension for the manhole if you decided you wanted more readily available access.

[OlJarhead]

I've lost track..... the cistern was in the ground when you bought the land?

Yes.  We were told it was a 1000 gallon cistern (I think the realtor may have said "pretty certain" but either way I KNOW he said 1000 gallons and we took his word for it) and it was installed on the hill above the cabin about 40 feet higher.