Splittin' Up Sandy

They say firewood warms you twice; once when you split it, and the second time when you burn it.

RG, aka 'Workforce-1' with his first splits.
A knotted maple round from Sandy's
throwaway roadside woodpiles
 put up a tough fight.

Definitely the cutting and the splitting was a warming experience, and by the time I came indoors, I found it so warm inside, I had to turn the heat down.

Ditto for RG, a.k.a. Workforce-1, who learned to split rounds today, and a few things about sawing and prep.

It's been hard to find easy to carry pieces. Most of what I've scavenged has been a minimum of 40# with many sections weighing 60-100#.

But it all makes for some excellent wood for seasoning.

Quite a lot of red oak and a white hardwood that I can't tell whether it's white oak or maple, or some other tree.

The block Workforce-1 is resting the fiskars x27 on is (was) a stunning piece of wood — it almost calls out to be sculpted.

Here's a couple of views of a red oak cut. The ends that are "white" have been exposed to the elements for some time, then in a dry storage. The ends that are red are the parts that are fresh cut.

I think we burned about 700 calories apiece sawing, moving and splitting rounds today for a couple of hours.

Now we just have to wait a couple of years for the red oak to season.

The two ends on the left have been exposed to the elements for
some time, and have 'whitened.' The section visible on the left
with the red interior, is a fresh cut, revealing the true color of
the red oak heartwood. 

Pulling Up Roots

about a 48 inch wide trunk, lifting the integrated
concrete/paving stone driveway up a foot, and
roots and other vegetation 7 feet in the air.
A large void beneath is just visible.
CLICK TO EMBIGGEN

 Tonight K-dog took a slightly different route than we have the last few months. Up a street that I haven't walked since I started cutting and splitting my own firewood. Which is not long. September or October. So, after muscling and cracking numerous trunks and limbs from Sandy's wooden victims, it was with a fresh appreciation for trees that I renewed my acquaintance with some of the most prodigious specimens in the neighborhood.

There are plenty of 60-70 footers around. And in the general area trees with diameters of 40 inches are not uncommon. The monster tree above, which belonged to a friend — 44+ inches across, it's root system towering above head high, and lifting up tons of driveway paving stones — missed grandma's house, but damaged another friend's chimney. Mercifully it did no further damage.

But look at that stump on its side! If a mere 16"x17" section (see below) weighs 100 lbs, that gigantoid stump easily weighs north of 3 tons.

16 x 17 = 103 lbs

16x17" of White Oak?

Suddenly it strikes me while walking under these majestic creatures, called "giant weeds" by some, that even a 30 foot 12 inch branch can weigh an enormous amount.

How do they hold themselves up without beams and struts, not to mention all those wet leaves and occasional ice storms. What incredibly strong sprouts these are.

So as I passed one such 45 inch wide behemoth on a nearby avenue that night, I marveled at it's foot high root systems tucked between the sidewalk and the road and how it had taken an elliptical shape 45 inches this way, but only 30 that way.

Before that, I'd just walked by them, or occasionally mountain-biked over their incredibly  gnarly and challenging roots.

Prefers to walk at night. Will take any available walk.

LIGHT OF THE MOON
I guess it's a paradox, but walking the dog at night is as good for clearing the mind, as it is for pondering all kinds of things. The sensory experiences of the night come in such a constant stream, despite the obscure vacuum of darness between the street lamps, that it's a tall order to get any actual productive thinking or meditation done.

I'll have to work on that. But the stream of consciousness is usually a stimulating one anyway, even if one whose clarity I seldom bring back indoors, with the dog.

Usually it all seems to wait outside until the next night-time walk.

And the dog waits inside for the same.

Dog Walk Challenge: Spot the Arborist

Today's dog walk photo challenge: Last cuts at sunset.
Spot the arborist taking down the tree.

K-dog gets to Work

K-dog: often called on to pose for camera test shots before an assignment.

This one taken before the my industry chapter's Annual Holiday Luncheon at Valbella on West 13th St.

Sorry I couldn't bring you pooch, you're always dressed for the occasion, and it's a guarantee you'd have loved the snapper!

GPS BS — the evidence

Deep in Gatsby Country

So, here's the evidence I was at Sands Point's tip this afternoon, cruising on the bike.

But according to the GPS I was nearly a quarter of a mile offshore in the water, amongst other unrideable places.

Anyway, if they come for you, saying the rental car GPS said you were speeding in a work zone, here's proof even a reputable GPS manufacturer's device can just flat out make things up.

There are quite a few posts earlier in this blog, where the unit said I achieved speeds of hundreds, if not thousands of miles per hour.

To me, it always felt slow. I have no recollection of breaking the sound barrier on any of my rides this year (but I'll reserve the right to say that that doesn't mean I didn't).

The darn GPS (see map above) seemed to think I mysteriously wandered off course, over fences, walls, forested sections, boggy creeks, and who knows what other impenetrable terrain, somewhere back at Sand Point Preserve. Nice job Garmin, whassup with that? Nope, it did not happen; my skinny 23 mm tires are only good for road, and a wee bit of gravel. The track looks convincing, but there is, however, no diagonal road going into and through Long Island Sound.

The two girls walking a puppy in the bottom photo can be my alibi. They saw a guy with the modern equivalent of WWI fighter goggles (thanks Gordo, last time I let you pick out my prescription riding glasses, but they do keep the wind out like no other!) and a camo biking vest* taking pics at the end of Middleneck Road.

You gotta make some trade offs. That aerodynamic cold-weather roadie gear is not in the budget, and the MTB clothes get the job done. They might look out of place on the road, but they work well when it's 43 F.

Nice job resurfacing the old potholed corner of gritted teeth

Proof we have castles, and a turret or two, in the US. In fact there's a really
big one up the road at the preserve. This is just a little folly in comparison.

What a month, you'd never guess ...

That a short few weeks before, the remnants of Hurricane Sandy were packing their bags and a Noreaster was setting up a snowy shop.


Back on Oct. 29-30, this pond was overflowing it's banks, through the sheer rising of the all areas waters, and being blown west to meet the creek.

"As calm as a mill-pond," they say and that's more or less what it is when it's calm. When it's not it's an unwelcome guest in a few people's basements.

That's where that Cat 5 hill comes in handy. Best place to be perched when the Sound gets out of hand.

 

Curious Canine Contentment

Koda likes to run free as much as any dog, but his level of excitement is contagious when the leash comes out.

In fact, a run off the leash in the park "does not count" in his book.

The day is not complete without at least one or two good leashed walks.

Here, he powers up a steep hill, through a sun flare; an old sled dog pulling a slow biped musher behind him.

Perhaps the last of the fine days. Late November is about as deep into the year as you can hope for pearls of sunlight like this. (It's supposed to hit 60 tomorrow, BTW on Dec 3.).

looking downhill on Shell St.

On a bike, this is a short steep Cat 5. It feels like the Col du Tourmalet.

Walking it is a lot easier.

As he rounds the corner, the penguin retriever is illuminated by the western sky.

Shell St. About as steep, but not as long of a climb.

The old glacial moraine, here, has a lot of old fissures and valleys, and this a view down to  one formed at the end of an ice age past, when things were warming up.

Strange to think this was once a frozen wilderness, at one time.

"The Laurentide ice sheet advanced and retreated over a period of 60,000 years. The last advance reached maximum 22,000 years ago, extending from southeastern Alberta across what are now the Great Lakes to the east coast. 

Two lobes surged down the Connecticut and Hudson river valleys, sculpting the land and depositing the moraines and outwash that would become Long Island. 

Sea water was locked up in ice, lowering the sea level by 350 feet compared to today; from Cape Cod southward, the coastal plain jutted out 50 to 100 miles further than the present-day shoreline, almost to the edge of the continental shelf."

Mind you, in about a month or two, those icy days might not seem so long ago.