I don’t want any dinks, gooks, chinks, sand niggers, russians or any other devolved form of the human species here. If you don’t like that, go phuque your face. That’s just how it is. I’m tired of deleting your low life asses registration because I don’t speak or do animal. I understand that the socialist democratic committee is looking for your kind. Go there. Quit signing up on my blog if you don’t love freedom and America.

Yes. It’s Christmas. It’s not happy holidays, or kwonzer or any other happy horse shit crap. It’s Christmas. If you don’t like it move to Iran or some other third world shit hole and see what your politically correct bull shit gets you.

Moving on. I had a fairly productive week. I continued with clearing and decided to change the location of the pole barn shed so it wouldn’t be visible from the road. The area I’m going to use now has a lot more cover which will help protect it during storms.

Finally there was a rainy day that allowed me to burn some brush. We started with a slow steady rain that was perfect for lighting off the fire pit. After pouring some gas on the wet wood I tossed in a match and within two minutes I was faced with what resembled a forest fire in Kalipornia during a drought. This fire went an easy 30 feet in the air and I began to worry about the paint on my truck parked 50 feet away. I’m standing there going “WTF?” when my helper goes “I done built me a good fire. I put all that lighter knot in there.” Looking over I quickly realized that the pile of lighter knot I had gathered from several rotted pine trees was missing and that my eyebrows were starting to melt. I’m looking for a new helper if anyone is willing to work for 30 dollars a day.

Well, the fire died down in about 3 minutes and probably raised the local temperature by several degrees. Realizing that his lives work was about to be extinguished by the rain my helper began a mad scramble to add more brush thus keeping alive some dream of immortality. So we burned brush. And we burned brush. And we burned more brush. I can’t begin to tell you how rewarding it is to be hauling a ton or so of brush to a fire pit in the rain, with water running down your butt crack all the while arguing with someone over whether you should be out looking for more lighter knot or simply burning brush. I hope to god he never discovers tannerite.

Anyway, we managed to get five piles of brush burnt in between the heavy rain spells and having to argue over lighter knot. After about 5 hours we were ready to load up, wait on the fire to die down and began the swim home.

The roads out weren’t as bad as expected. There were a lot more mud puddles but going slow tamed them easily. Unfortunately they wouldn’t be so easy to navigate the next time in.

I went back out today and mostly spent the day planting bamboo. Last week I bought two different varieties of bamboo to plant there. One grows to about 70 feet tall and is expensive as all get out. The other grows to about 20 feet tall and is expensive as all get out. I wanted to get them in the ground as fast as possible.

Needless to say, I was very disappointed to find that the very, very expensive bamboos was not happy with its’ new home and had decided to pass on. I have absolutely no idea why it would take such a socialist democratic point of view since the lady who sold me the bamboo assured me it was a very conservative type of plant. Anyway, I moved it into the shade in hopes of reviving some sort of American spirit and possibly salvaging some of my cash.

The other bamboo on the other hand seemed happy with the new home which gives me great hope for a future of 20 foot bamboo.

So between the clearing and the forest fire a lot of area was opened up this week.

 

 

 

 

 

Today I also noticed that the mulberry seedlings I planted are putting out sprouts. I’m keeping my eye out for some mature trees to get cuttings from so I can possibly make some mulberry wine next fall.

I bought a Stihl FS 560 C M brush cutter and does it ever cut brush! I am able to cut more brush in four hours than two of us were able to do in several days. It also does an excellent job of mulching which reduces the growth of brush piles.

To the left in this picture you can see a path which is nearly wide enough to get my truck through. I have to widen another path which connects to it then I will be able to drive about 1/4 of the way across the property. To the right is a fire pit we dug that is ready for a match when the weather is right.

The paths I’m cutting are quickly turning into a maze back there. A lost of them wander on for a bit then abruptly end. Others just wander then connects somewhere to another path. I’ve got an idea of laying out some GPS points and cutting a twisty path just wide enough to get through the brush where I’ve not been yet. Then go back and cut a bunch of dead ends and loops. Total waste of time but fun.

Last time out I planted seven mulberry tree rooted cuttings. I should have potted them then planted next spring but they had been sitting on the kitchen counter for nearly a week and I felt I should at least get them in the ground to give them a chance. If the hogs don’t trample then and they survive the winter they should be growing fast next year.

I have five lemon eucalyptus seedlings in pots which will be planted next spring plus 50+ seeds in a starter tray. I’ve read that they are notoriously hard to start from seed so it will be interesting to see how many, if any, actually sprout. The seedlings seem to be doing well since all five have put out sprouts after being moved to larger pots.

I have two 12 inch tall trifoliate orange in new pots. One has put out sprouts, the other just sits there looking ugly and thorny. I put about 30 seed in the fridge today for stratification which takes a month. I have another 100 seed ready for stratification and am planning on doing about 20 a week for several weeks. I hope by next spring to be able to plant several a week to get my living privacy fence underway.

Last trip out I laid out a 12×12 two story pole barn shed with plans to start construction early next week. Though I’ve watched dozens of building being laid out at construction sites it took a lot longer to do it myself than I expected. However I kept moving stakes and measuring and finally ended up with a square layout. The ground I’m building on is slightly sloped and will aid in drainage since I’m building the floor about a foot and a half off the ground.  I’ll put several inches of gravel underneath before the floor goes in then mound gravel around the outside perimeter. I’m mounding it to help stop wind from getting underneath as well as for drainage.

The second floor of the shed will consist of a 6×12 room and a 6×12 covered porch. With any luck I’ll be able to sit outside in the morning, sip coffee and shoot miss piggy while listening to Enigma.

So that’s the current plan subject to change on a whim. I still need to figure out how to get across the swamp, get to the back of the property, drain the swamp, fix the road and cure world hunger. OK You caught me. I don’t really care about world hunger but I do need to get a raised bed garden going.