Araucaria's habitat.

Discussion in 'Members' Systems' started by Curramore1, Dec 7, 2011.

  1. Curramore1

    Curramore1 Junior Member

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    5mm here in total, better than a poke in the eye with a blunt stick. Winds here weren't too bad. Restumping my outdoor deck area this week with tallowwood and yellow stringybark 100x100 cut on-farm and air dried for 12 months, nice to work with instead of the crap they try to sell you at retail timber outlets. Was a bit rusty at the start using the dumpy level and staff as it has been a while. The decking material is still sound so am just inverting it and relaying after denailing and running through the planer thicknesser. Nice when you get to work on your own place for a change.
    S.O.P, I have a few hectares of mature hoop pine that I will not yet cut because the price is too low for me. When I cut it and mill fresh I spray household bleach over the wet boards to deter green mould and fungal attack and dust with a light sprinkle of powdered borax to deter insect attack before I strip it out and stack it with a sheet of corrugated iron strapped over the top. What treatments do you use?
     
  2. S.O.P

    S.O.P Moderator

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    The chipper treatment.

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  3. eco4560

    eco4560 New Member

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    W O W - did you take the whole tree out?! I get frightened when pruning and standing on tip- toes. And there's power lines...
     
  4. Curramore1

    Curramore1 Junior Member

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    Sometimes it is just better to take the whole tree out? Only takes a storm with a now, top heavy tree to blow over the power lines and cause a lot more damage. All trees like this should be permanently removed near power lines. What did that little exercise cost? People who plant them near the power lines should pay for their removal. No wonder the cost of grid power is so high. The tree is on a dangerous lean to boot. Did you end up removing the whole tree in the end? I would have parked a dozer behind it and cut the scarf and put the blade against it and cut the falling cut and pushed it over or used a hydraulic ram jack or two and pushed it over in 10 minutes or so, but then you probably have to fill out a risk assessment and work plan and fifty million other necessary arse covering bits of paper and arrange the traffic controllers and spotters and 5 or 6 other mulcher feeders, truck drivers and assorted personnel . Not even a salvageable stick of timber either, probably got chipped anyhow. Makes me cranky to see continual costly cosmetic and other pruning near power lines when the tall growing vegetation should be completely removed under them period and replaced with lower growing species.
    You have a hazardous job, but someone has to do it, good on you. You probably thrive on the challenge I suppose. Keep safe.
    I would receive about $200.00-$240.00 for that as an optional log cut and snug to a semi-trailer accessable log dump.
     
  5. S.O.P

    S.O.P Moderator

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    OK, it leaned into the other tree because of internal decay maybe caused by an injury many years ago (there was a calloused wound on the side of the tree), or the grader sidethrow of dirt from the road surfacing pushed up against the trunk may have started it, or when they put in the inground Telecoms, they would have trenched just outside the structural root zone.

    The powerlines weren't a huge issue being on the other side of the road at that particular part. The trees had never be pruned as they were well clear. The entire area was named after the farmer that owned it (generational farming family I suppose) who gave up diarying 20 years ago and now basically run a few cows on his reasonably degraded land to keep the grass down. He now is selling chunks of his land for housing development or single properties.

    Trees were heritage-listed and I guessed 80 years but someone mentioned 120 so I'm not sure. 35m high. We needed the tower to lighten the wind sail and attempt to reduce the damage to the neighbouring tree when the tree was pulled down. No one was brave enough to scarf it because of the fletch on the tension side lifting. Cut that under load and you could have a "barber chair" taking one's head off. While it could have been done, it would have resulted in tearing off a lot of branches from the other tree and that isn't cool when it's heritage-listed.

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    Reducing the wind sail and strapping the trunks together:

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    The trunks were strapped together so we could get a tower with greater reach from further away as the tower originally pictured to get that high had to be parked in the potential fall zone (from cut branches).

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    Tree was released from the other tree by cutting sections from the top. Each time a section was cut, it fell further into the other tree and reached the point where it got too violent. A rope was attached and a tractor went for the pull. No luck but it did pull it to the side so the trunk was clear of the tree and sections could be cut to reduce the weight.

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    The guys in the tower got tired of pushing off big sections so it was deemed short enough to reduce the pressure on the fletch at the lower trunk. This was cut with two loud cracks and one temporarily stuck polesaw.

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    Then felled and pulled with tractor.

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    Farmer took every chunk. Even the smaller ones. Which was nice. You can see the internal decay travelling through the trunk before it would probably begin to hollow later in life. A foul smell was associated with it

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    One tractor and operator, one tower and operator (2 different towers on two days - one part day), 2 traffic controllers, one chipper and 5 of us. Could have got away with 3-4 of us as we didn't need to rip the logs and get them through the chipper. That just takes time and fuel with the 66 and maybe the 46 doing the smaller logs. If you hired a huge chipper and fed with an excavator, or used a log truck, you can cut down on time. Usually it's cheaper for us to work through ripping than hiring extra equipment.
     
  6. S.O.P

    S.O.P Moderator

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  7. Curramore1

    Curramore1 Junior Member

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    True, forgot all about it. Place is all dry, brown and nasty at the moment will take a few new pics this week.
     
  8. S.O.P

    S.O.P Moderator

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    I was just kidding. In the thread is a better place for them.

    Went up and took 100 Vetiver with me to start on planting hedges where nothing else will grow expecting to have some soil moisture after that rain. Nope, not a hint. Dug it anyway and that wasn't the smartest idea, only a small furrow but still, hard work. Vetiver will barely survive, wouldn't have gone through with it if it was any other plant.
     
  9. Curramore1

    Curramore1 Junior Member

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    View attachment 2863 Old Forrers 5x5" piston pump and Lister ST1 with Anderton clutch. View attachment 2862 Feijoa flower View attachment 2861 Wampi flowers.
    36mm of rain in about 10 minutes late last week, much ran off even through the contour banks, yeoman's plough lines and swales to fill the thirsty dams. Most welcome, but I wish that the first cathartic real rains of the season after a big dry were not so violent, electrical and brutish. This week have been recommissioning old diesel Lister ST1 and a 5x5 inch Forrers piston pump from mid last century, a bit of tinkering and a few blisters and away she went. Just have to think of a name for this one, the other one I have the same is called "Bertha", this one may be "Eartha" but has not taken well to running on a used vege oil mix like "Bertha". Might have to call it "that bitchin' pump" yet, but early days. It is lifting 6000Litres of water an hour 70 metres up over 500 metres through 50mm poly pipe using just over 300mL of fuel an hour. Diesel is $1.50 a litre here atm, so about a dollar per 12000Litres or for those in the US, 3170 US gallons for about $0. 84 cents. The downside is that it weighs about a tonne and is a crank start. Will try to attach a link to a video soon when I find out how.
    In the food garden the egg plants are all in fruit, lettuce abound, parsley dying off, broad beans finished, climbing beans and sweet corn in full growth, chokos in flower, Grumichama tree with first heavy crop, olives with small fruit, mulberries in fruit, last of the late Valencia oranges, feijoa in flower, wampi and lychee in flower.
    Early mornings serene, hot dry Northerly wind days to 36 degrees until late in the afternoon, cooler, pleasant evenings at 19 degrees with a Northerly as well, must be a big low pressure system down to the south west. Rain on the way.
     

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  10. Curramore1

    Curramore1 Junior Member

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    Too hot to work outside any more. Just did the old Meyer-Briggs personality thingo again after a couple of decades, still an ENTJ after I was thinking I was mellowing a bit. Still in the 3% of the population along with the likes of Roosevelt, Nixon, Thatcher, Steve Martin, Steve Jobs and Whoopi Goldberg. A natural born leader? Just have to go and tell my cows that, they must have missed something.
     
  11. Terra

    Terra Moderator

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    Rain is great news , lot more fun in mud than dust.

    What about calling the Pump "Miss Piggy" I think having names for machines is essential .
     
  12. Curramore1

    Curramore1 Junior Member

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    She hasn't earned one as yet, but I agree Terra, probably needs to be a little more rotund, pinker in hue and a bit more bitchy. I have a ute named Orby, a motorbike named Prescilla, a tractor called Flatty and a quad bike called Rhonda the Honda. Even all the breeder cows have names, each years weaners a different theme, last years was weather events so we have Tsunami, Cumulus, Cyclone, Hurricane, Sirocco, Khamsim, Hail, rain, Snow........... The best name ever was a cow called "One horn, down horn, roan" though. We have a bit of fun naming 40-60 heifer weaners destined to be breeders each autumn. The 2015 theme has yet to be decided, possibly world leaders........
     
  13. S.O.P

    S.O.P Moderator

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    Mind if I ask if this looks like Wampi to you?

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  14. Curramore1

    Curramore1 Junior Member

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    Hi SOP, no leaves not crinkly enough, looks more like a sapote or similar.
     
  15. S.O.P

    S.O.P Moderator

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    Hmm, don't think Sapote. Just had one fruit, was marble-sized, golden brown, flesh like a lychee?
     
  16. Grasshopper

    Grasshopper Senior Member

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    looks like a soursop ????
     
  17. eco4560

    eco4560 New Member

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    Longan?
     
  18. Curramore1

    Curramore1 Junior Member

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    Hi Eco, I agree, sounds more like a longan. Great! I've never had much luck with them as it is a tad cooler here, envious now, but you can't have everything can you.
     
  19. S.O.P

    S.O.P Moderator

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    Yes, come and share in our bountiful crop of 1 fruit.

    Got another tree that could be Wampi, I'll take a photo when I can for an ID.
     
  20. Curramore1

    Curramore1 Junior Member

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    One fruit, early days yet, I said the same about my Kensington Pride mango tree about 6 years ago, it is loaded with about a 1000 small fruit right now. Your longan may do better with other trees changing the microclimate around it instead of being so open? I put living screens of chokos near some of mine to block the wind a bit etc., now they are a bit of a pest to control, but choko tendrils lightly steamed with some grated fresh coconut is one of my favourite summer veges.
     

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