Scrounging Firewood (and other stuff)

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I burn 6+ cord a year so that is only a few years worth. Plus I am always impressed how you scrounge up so much wood with a couple saws, a little trailer, and up until a bit ago a suby!

I do worry just slightly that I might have lost scrounger points having got rid of the suby in favour of a somewhat more superior vehicle. I mean, we all remember @dancan with the UTV and all the awesome scrounge he used to stuff in there with the towbar dragging on the ground. It's just not the same now he has a trailer and ute and stuff. I figure I'll just have to scrounge more now to make up for it.

Today I thought I'd move some uglies stacked alongside the woodshed and split and stack the swamp gum I plan to take to my brother down in the big smoke. I moved the splitting block closer to the pile and found this guy underneath it.

16th  Apr 1.jpg

He's a juvenile blue-tongued lizard. This was an improvement on the last reptile I found under the block which was a juvenile black snake.

16th  Apr 2.jpg

They ultimately grow to be a bit over a foot long and give you a fright as adults with their more sharply defined stripes that look like a tiger snake at first glance. As I've said before, we have strict naming rules in Oz. Why are these called blue-tonged lizards?

16th  Apr 3.jpg

A bit of nature for young Cowlass.
 
I have a friend that is in hospice care and his family is taking his gun collection to auction to help pay the bills. He's a lefty so most of his stuff doesn't fit me. He has Montana's, Dakota's, Ula's, Nula's, Coopers, Kimber's. But he also has 13 Ruger #1's and #3's. The family let a select group of friends buy anything we wanted before it went to sale. I just wanted something of Steve's as a keepsake, so I bought a Ruger #3 in 25-35. It is a custom barrel and comes with the original 375 Winchester barrel. I also got a Leupold VariX3 1.5X5 to go on it. Nice little scope for a nice little rifle. I'll get pics up when I get the scope mounted. I also bought 4 boxes of Hornady 110 gr FTX ammo and 200 rounds of new brass. Should keep me stocked up for a while. He also had a Ruger #1 in 38-55 I wanted, but I just didn't have the cash right now. Just spent 10K on a hunting cabin and bought a new JD X540. If I'm lucky I'll have some cash flowing by the time his guns go to auction and I might get a chance to buy the other 2 guns I wanted. It's sad when a friend gets sick and goes downhill so fast. Steve's 78 and last fall he was working, driving, shooting, and hunting. He was in an accident in November, swerved to miss a herd of deer in the road. Totaled his Tundra, and when the air bag popped, it cracked his sternum. While in the hospital for the accident they found his stomach was full of tumors. Since the first of the year he has lost 50 pounds and sleeps 16-18 hours a day. He was a suite and tie guy, but fit in with us blue collar guys, like he belonged. He is a member of our every other week lunch bunch that meets at Barley and Hops for a couple IPA's. We haven't met since he got sick. It's kind of creepy buying his guns before he passes, but his son said the the hospice bill for last month was $18,000. I guess that's why we collect all the stuff we do, to ease the burden on the kids, when it's time to cash out.
 
I do worry just slightly that I might have lost scrounger points having got rid of the suby in favour of a somewhat more superior vehicle. I mean, we all remember @dancan with the UTV and all the awesome scrounge he used to stuff in there with the towbar dragging on the ground. It's just not the same now he has a trailer and ute and stuff. I figure I'll just have to scrounge more now to make up for it.

Today I thought I'd move some uglies stacked alongside the woodshed and split and stack the swamp gum I plan to take to my brother down in the big smoke. I moved the splitting block closer to the pile and found this guy underneath it.

View attachment 730529

He's a juvenile blue-tongued lizard. This was an improvement on the last reptile I found under the block which was a juvenile black snake.

View attachment 730533

They ultimately grow to be a bit over a foot long and give you a fright as adults with their more sharply defined stripes that look like a tiger snake at first glance. As I've said before, we have strict naming rules in Oz. Why are these called blue-tonged lizards?

View attachment 730534

A bit of nature for young Cowlass.
If you get them to open their mouth the tongue is actually blue, learned that info watching Nat. Geo.
 
Aaahhh Spring!! First real outing. Temp right now 57 . Was a bit on the coolish side when I got to Von's so I was dressed with thermals, work cloths and a hoody jacket, good breeze blowing. The Jacket disappeared shortly after I got the saws warmed up. I moved up the row of Willow to a multi stem 6 or 7 of them, small guage, coming off an old stump. 3 hours of 'fall stem', cut/sstack brush, cut a few rounds of firewood and back to another stem. Lots of stoop, bend, grab, toss. Left with 3 or 4 stems still to go and a huge stack of brush. Couple small piles of firewood rounds that won't need splitting. Von showed up with his tractor so I had him pull a couple small logs that were laying across the creek from my last outing in January.

Nice feelign of well being after all the exercise!!
 
If you get them to open their mouth the tongue is actually blue, learned that info watching Nat. Geo.

Correct! I had to take about 20 pics to get one of him sticking his tongue out because there is about a 1 sec delay before my phone will take a pic and he would have put his tongue away again. After a bit he flattened out his body and hissed at Cowlass so we let him be.
 
Correct! I had to take about 20 pics to get one of him sticking his tongue out because there is about a 1 sec delay before my phone will take a pic and he would have put his tongue away again. After a bit he flattened out his body and hissed at Cowlass so we let him be.
I would've sh!t my pants. Looks a lot like a venomous snake at first glance.
 
I have a friend that is in hospice care and his family is taking his gun collection to auction to help pay the bills. He's a lefty so most of his stuff doesn't fit me. He has Montana's, Dakota's, Ula's, Nula's, Coopers, Kimber's. But he also has 13 Ruger #1's and #3's. The family let a select group of friends buy anything we wanted before it went to sale. I just wanted something of Steve's as a keepsake, so I bought a Ruger #3 in 25-35. It is a custom barrel and comes with the original 375 Winchester barrel. I also got a Leupold VariX3 1.5X5 to go on it. Nice little scope for a nice little rifle. I'll get pics up when I get the scope mounted. I also bought 4 boxes of Hornady 110 gr FTX ammo and 200 rounds of new brass. Should keep me stocked up for a while. He also had a Ruger #1 in 38-55 I wanted, but I just didn't have the cash right now. Just spent 10K on a hunting cabin and bought a new JD X540. If I'm lucky I'll have some cash flowing by the time his guns go to auction and I might get a chance to buy the other 2 guns I wanted. It's sad when a friend gets sick and goes downhill so fast. Steve's 78 and last fall he was working, driving, shooting, and hunting. He was in an accident in November, swerved to miss a herd of deer in the road. Totaled his Tundra, and when the air bag popped, it cracked his sternum. While in the hospital for the accident they found his stomach was full of tumors. Since the first of the year he has lost 50 pounds and sleeps 16-18 hours a day. He was a suite and tie guy, but fit in with us blue collar guys, like he belonged. He is a member of our every other week lunch bunch that meets at Barley and Hops for a couple IPA's. We haven't met since he got sick. It's kind of creepy buying his guns before he passes, but his son said the the hospice bill for last month was $18,000. I guess that's why we collect all the stuff we do, to ease the burden on the kids, when it's time to cash out.
That's gotta be rough. Was lucky to get in home hospice for ma. She lived longer than anyone expected and passed rather suddenly. Being at home put the daily living care on dad and to a lesser extent me. But it was not only the place and people she wanted around it saved countless thousands of dollars.

Dads paying for it physically now. His back is bad and he lost a lot of muscle mass especially his legs. All the inactivity from being homebound to tend to her really pushed his health to a bad place.

Now he is struggling. Had another fall that either was a minor stroke or triggered one. Has lost the ability to use the walker for more than a couple steps. Using a wheel chairs become a reality he never wanted.

Any chance that's online bidding? My sons a hard lefty collector though I know he blew his gun money on a 308 AR last week.
 
I looked at the new Ranger, but it did not seem to have the room I was looking for. They had a beautiful Velocity Blue F-150 extended cab 4X4, with the 10 sp auto, but I told him the price was way, way too high. They marked it down over 20%, so I stretched! Has back up camera, navigation, tow hitch and 120 V electric … plus 19 MPG city and 24 HWY … how could I say no!

It was more than I wanted to spend, but I have had the Escape 9 years, so if this one lasts longer (and it should) I'll get my money's worth out of it. For the wood hauling, towing the ATV, and going up and down the 2 mi 4 WD road to the cabin this vehicle is just much better suited for those tasks.

Wife would not give the OK till she drove it … today … then it was game on, she was just fine with "the truck she did not want to drive"!

It is surprisingly peppy for a big 4 WD truck, and the mileage ratings almost put me in shock! Other folks I know that have them (with the older 6 speed) are very happy with them, so I am confident I'm going to really like this thing.
 
I looked at the new Ranger, but it did not seem to have the room I was looking for. They had a beautiful Velocity Blue F-150 extended cab 4X4, with the 10 sp auto, but I told him the price was way, way too high. They marked it down over 20%, so I stretched! Has back up camera, navigation, tow hitch and 120 V electric … plus 19 MPG city and 24 HWY … how could I say no!

It was more than I wanted to spend, but I have had the Escape 9 years, so if this one lasts longer (and it should) I'll get my money's worth out of it. For the wood hauling, towing the ATV, and going up and down the 2 mi 4 WD road to the cabin this vehicle is just much better suited for those tasks.

Wife would not give the OK till she drove it … today … then it was game on, she was just fine with "the truck she did not want to drive"!

It is surprisingly peppy for a big 4 WD truck, and the mileage ratings almost put me in shock! Other folks I know that have them (with the older 6 speed) are very happy with them, so I am confident I'm going to really like this thing.
Pics, please!
 
I looked at the new Ranger, but it did not seem to have the room I was looking for. They had a beautiful Velocity Blue F-150 extended cab 4X4, with the 10 sp auto, but I told him the price was way, way too high. They marked it down over 20%, so I stretched! Has back up camera, navigation, tow hitch and 120 V electric … plus 19 MPG city and 24 HWY … how could I say no!

It was more than I wanted to spend, but I have had the Escape 9 years, so if this one lasts longer (and it should) I'll get my money's worth out of it. For the wood hauling, towing the ATV, and going up and down the 2 mi 4 WD road to the cabin this vehicle is just much better suited for those tasks.

Wife would not give the OK till she drove it … today … then it was game on, she was just fine with "the truck she did not want to drive"!

It is surprisingly peppy for a big 4 WD truck, and the mileage ratings almost put me in shock! Other folks I know that have them (with the older 6 speed) are very happy with them, so I am confident I'm going to really like this thing.
Looking good Mike. :rock2: Now you can retire the 'stang from saw hauler.:laugh: Lots of electronic gizmos and gadgets in the new trucks. I'm stihl learning all the stuff in the 250 and iv'e had that a year.:dumb2: You'll love the back-up camera when hooking up your trailer.
 
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