Saturday done
Game today, which took up part of the day.
I spent most of the day ripping and tearing trees, brush and vines with the tractor and box blade. Got the big wild cherry to break loose and pulled it out of the creek. Will cut it to straight section and debark some strips on it and leave it to dry for a couple of years. Or if I get the saw mill up and going soon may just cut it to a 10 or 12 inch beam and leave it to dry. Looks like I can get 14 to 16 feet out of it.
Removed the rebuilt section of beaver dam this morning and Bill got in and removed a lot more this afternoon. They should be working all night to repair the damage. Soon they will have cleared all of the smaller stuff along the creek and all the way to the barn. That’s when they either leave or get dead.
Removed most of the stumps from by Bills garden plot. Got one more tree to get out and then fill and level the area.
Cut up all of the dried stuff I had pulled to the camp site. Now to split and load about half into the truck and bring up here for the stove. Several hundred pounds of nice dry cherry heart, good burning wood.
Lakebed is draining nicely. Hope to get back in there before the next rains get here.
Worn out and hurting all over more than any where so am gonna call it an early night. Gonna try to get up and out to the local flea markets and see what we can find. Tell the next exciting update… 😎
Themocracy
I know you have been fighting the “Beaver Wars” for a while, what “final solution” do you plan to use if you can’t run them off? (And I hear beavers are pretty persistant…looking back on that, and can’t think of ANY way to make it less, er, suggestive, so I’m just going to leave it alone…) If you shoot them, have you considered cooking them? Just wondering, since you cook all kinds of stuff, and I seem to remember the early trappers relishing beaver, when cooked properly. I believe there are scent glands that you have to take care of rather quickly, but the tail can be rather tasty too. (Maybe I ought to just drop this line of discussion, just looking back on it…)
Got into shredding old papers that I have been reluctant to throw out due to the information on them, shredded two full (very full!) 13 gallon trash bags yesterday of it, and have more to go today. After I get the file cabinet cleaned out of the old stuff, I can put the current stuff in there and make some room on the computer table. Before I burned the stuff, but it’s a lot more trouble to burn the stuff that you would think at first blush. Of course, if I had your wood stove, it would be a pleasant thing to do–just have a bag of stuff, and every so often toss a handful in the stove. Of course, ash production would go WAY up…of course, now that it is shredded it would be MUCH easier to burn, if you want it to boost output, let me know…
We’ve been talking about the final solution and have come down to killing them one way or another. Shooting seems the most humane, followed by getting a loan of a gator from the state. Problem is I don’t mind them being in the waterways, just not building in the running streams. Upper part of the old lake bed is fine, but with the shortage of rain/water the last year they moved to where the water was and have started causing trouble with a capital T. I keep hoping that if we destroy their dams on a daily basis that they will move back upstream to the ancestral home and leave the lower creeks alone. Has worked before but there were dogs around here then that loved to harass them.
And as far as eating them, yes, the scent glands have got to be removed quickly, and the meat par boiled to get both odor and hopefully most of the fat out. Then it can be cooked as you like. From what I have read and heard the tail is the best meat on the beast but is VERY greasy unless properly prepared and cooked. From the work they have caused me over the weeks/months/years, I am looking forward to trying some beaver tail cooked up several ways. And a few skins to make hats, collars, boots, and such with would be nice too.
Thanks for the offer of the shredded paper but it does create a huge ash pile and is light enough that still burning bits tend to go up the flue which is not a good thing when said flue is above a frp roof with lots of pine straw and other lovely combustionable materials laying on it. I have got to move heater/stove to replace said roof and in fact the entire structure but it being winter has so far prevented that. I need to go to Tractor Supply and get a couple of ells and 3 more 2 foot sections of 8 inch pipe and get started on preparing the new location. Today in the high 50’s and tomorrow in the high 60’s, then tuesday with a projected high of 73 would be a good time to get it done, except for the high probability of rain all 3 days. Just got to find the energy when the rain ain’t…
Yeah, beavers can be a real pill, from everything that I have heard. But hey, they’re just being beavers, which leads to people being people and acting like the top predator. Such is life. Let me know when you cook some beaver, I’d like to give it a try. I missed out on my chance for possum years ago, and have come to regret it. Of course, saying “I ate some GREAT beaver last night!” is a conversation-stopper to rival “I ate some great possum last night!”, but is subject to being misconstrued….. 🙂 Would like to see the furs, too, never have had the chance to fondle a real beaver. I better just quit while I’m ahead here….
Yeah, the ash pile from paper (shredded or otherwise) is HUGE. That’s the main reason I didn’t like to burn it. Plus, it takes FOREVER when you let a backlog get built up, and you have to have it in the proper container when you burn it (I use an old charcoal grill that has a cover) and you have to stir it often to keep it burning/make sure it all burns, and if you forget and get too close to the house the siding might suffer (voice of experience here…). All in all, shredding is a better way to go, maybe I could compost it….