[AT] Knowing when to call it a day

[Aaron Dickinson]

My parents chose to plant 5 hawthorns as part of there landscaping in 1972, not bad when they were new, inside a long flowerbed. Over the years the trees grew and the flowerbed shrank. They didn’t last long once the flowerbed was returned to lawn and me, mower, and limbs came to a meeting.  My dad also planted a thornapple in the yard causing my great uncle to ask my grandfather how they managed to allow someone into the family that would intentional plant thorny apple brush in their yard. My great uncle always fought thornapples in the fencerows on his farm, he did later comment at what a pretty tree it has grown into with proper pruning. 

Aaron Dickinson
Mason, Michigan

From: Carl Gogol
Sent: Saturday, November 16, 2019 3:51 PM
To: 'Antique Tractor Email Discussion Group'
Subject: Re: [AT] Knowing when to call it a day

After reading the extreme hate common on the list for Osage Orange I looked it up on line because the picture Dean posted of its growth structure looks so similar to my most hated tree, Hawthorne.  Everything you say is common to the cutting of Hawthorne.  Hawthorne has tiny fruit in comparison, but has the common need for sucker branches spaced 10 to the foot forces one to dismantle the clumps like a puzzle.
Carl
Manlius NY

From: AT <at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com> On Behalf Of Dean Vinson
Sent: Saturday, November 16, 2019 3:11 PM
To: 'Antique Tractor Email Discussion Group' <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Subject: Re: [AT] Knowing when to call it a day

Cecil wrote:  “I had not thought of taking the saw off the bar.  I will store that in the fuzzy memory bank for future use...”  That was the one bright spot for me of the whole experience, when I saw my chainsaw bar impaled into the ground:  At least the saw itself hadn’t been on the receiving end of all that energy.   The bar took a beating but I had a spare in the shop, so I was back in business today.

And “In the fireplace, the wood is so dense that a small pocket of moisture in the wood can turn into an explosion.”  Yep.  I burn a lot of it in my wood stove where it’s safely behind the doors, but even there I have to be careful when opening the stove to feed in more wood or even when opening the ash pan door… the sudden rush of air sometimes precipitates a frenzy of sparks that shoot out all over the place.

I went back out and finished cutting up that tree today, without further incident other than cursing the difficult nature of those trees in general.   I took the attached photo to show a particularly nasty section… it doesn’t all look like that, but a little bit is more than enough.

Dean Vinson
Saint Paris, Ohio



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