Life goes on - Summer 2016

Ok friends. I reposted Joe Monty’s small gasifier under Tom Collins Build (?) or Gasifier (?). TomC

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How the time flies !!

8 years ago this month we took a cross country trip driving east to the Atlantic coast ,then headed back south west to the gulf coast , up through mid America , out to the Pacific and back home to Alabama… It was a trip of about 7500 miles . We usually put down 5-6 hundred miles a day.

Getting any type of news coverage driving coast to coast and back on wood was very difficult. The trip was right in the middle of the presidential election .

A lot of water has gone under the bridge and wood through the hopper in the last 8 years. :relaxed:

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Wayne, do you breathe the wood smoke some times? Because it looks like in the pictures you haven’t aged a bit. Did you stop at lumber yards and use their scrap wood? Where did you find all your wood supply to make a long trip and long miles every day, what is the secrets of doing this Coast to Coast feat. I am very impressed with what you have accomplished in the passed 8 years. You Are The MAN!
BBB and a hundred SWEM to you.
Bob

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Good morning Mr Bob.

Thanks for the comment but at my age an extra 8 years hits hard . I am just glad to be still able to get up and go. A lot of folks I grew up with are no longer with us.

My partners located and made arrangements for us to get wood scraps from a few businesses . Also I had a generator that was fueled from the truck gasifier that ran a table saw and electric chain saw for processing wood if needed .

Trying to stay clean is a challenge , especily when it comes to the maintenance of the unit .

Trying to stay on schedule and be a a certain place at a certain time was also a challenge .

Making the the trip in October of and election year was a bad time for any publicity .

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Wow Garry, better you than us. I still need more time.
At least I seen some green in that picture. I wish that was the color of my tractor.

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Thank you Wayne for developing this community for us and sharing your knowledge. I hope next year is my big wood gas year. I want my truck to taste some wood gas.

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Yeah Bill, it’s a bit early for snow, but it does happen. The earliest I recall a major snowfall was in the late 70’s, about 8" on September 24th. We like to claim that it “builds character”. In southern Manitoba the historical frost date is Sept 15th, but this year we just had killing frost October 12th. My land is further north, so it’s not surprising that it’s a bit harsher there. It was a very good growing season. I still have potatoes, corn and sunflowers to harvest, (apart from the corn that the sow bear and her cub ate… :imp:) so I would appreciate some nice weather yet.

It did make for nice pictures, the more stubborn poplars still holding their leaves, the tamarack are also still golden, not like a normal winter scene.

The news is that they are getting up to 6" of snow a few hundred miles north again, so winter is getting near. Time to have the woodpile in order, and maybe some snowshoes handy… :smile:

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Hey now, None of that S##w talk! This is a family friendly forum. Obscenity is not permitted.

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Sorry, I am bringing ugly news, and using foul language. Hopefully kids won’t be traumatized. I did hear it was snowing in North Dakota earlier this week…

I do know that the first undeniable sign of winter looming does tend to focus the mind on how to keep warm and what to do before there’s frost on the windows and minus 30 outside…

When will the topic change - after thanksgiving? That’s why we have thanksgiving on Columbus day… :stuck_out_tongue:

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Hey Bill, do you have any issues with Mr bear? Looks like it should be good bear habitat.

I don’t mind bears, except for their destructive potential, but the trick is keeping them away from your stuff and leery of people, otherwise there’s going to be a dead bear, and that doesn’t seem right if you have moved into their territory.

Fortunately bears here will be hibernating soon, another good thing about cold weather.

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We have avid bear hunters just down the road. I think they keep the population in check here. Yes we have Black Bear but haven’t seen any too close. The end of our driveway was the closest they came.

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That’s good. Mind you, I hadn’t had any indication of bears for the last 3 years. Black bears tend to cover a lot of territory, and don’t like people, if you see one at all it’s usually running away. But… If they ever get accustomed to people around, then they can behave like a very destructive wild dog / wild boar, food is their prime motivator, or anything remotely resembling food, they love eating seats off ATV’s, old paint rollers and hydraulic oil are all worth a go, can be an issue. I have an old Coleman canoe with a bite mark in the bow, some bear just had to test if it was edible when it was laying in the bush.

Fields and gardens look like buffets to an animal that will eat a wasp nest. High energy electric fencing is effective, and the only thing that will keep them out of beehives. A good dog should also put the run on a bear.

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I have a neighbor who feed bears. He buys bakery frosting in 55 gal. barrels. He sits at the pick nick table and doles out frosting on paper plates and they climb up on the table and eat. He often has mother bears come in with a couple of cubs. But he has been known to have 5 come in at one time. The cubs usually go up a tree and wait, while the grown bears have their pecking order and get their goodies accordingly. TomC

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Tom, does this guy go by the name of Grissley Adams? And has a pet bear by the name of Ben?
When I see a bear , I go the other way.
Bob

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Oh my God! That sounds like such a bad idea. Probably also violates local fish and game regulations. It does illustrate that black bears generally aren’t aggressive, but that’s depending on the time of year, and the individual bear.

One of these days the bears might just roll that fellow in frosting and have a snack.

Seriously though, the other major concern with doing something like that is those bears will lose respect for people generally, and associate them and their properties with food.

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Bill, wildlife researchers say that hunting bears can actually lead to an increase in bear population, as it’s generally the boars that are hunted, which reduces the number of cubs they would otherwise kill. I suppose it depends on what’s getting shot, and how great the hunting pressure.

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What this guy ( and his wife ) are doing concerns me a lot, but it has been going on for several years. I do not have the confidence he has that the bears are his friends — and that HE understands them. Yes you are correct that the Dept. of Natural Resources would through him in the poky for what he is doing if they every found out. My only feelings on this is, we allow the bears to be hunted WITH DOGS. The dogs have radio collars that the owners use to track the dogs while they drive on the back roads. When a bear is treed, the “great white hunters” go up and shoot the bear out of the tree. I don’t see that as hunting.TomC

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I agree, the guy is playing with fire, and making a potentially dangerous situation for anyone else in the district. Playing with bears with cubs seems very dicey. It is a testament to how intelligent bears are, and how timid they generally are.

However, not every black bear thinks it’s subordinate… http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/Bear-pulls-camper-from-outhouse-before-being-shot-152716705.html

I also agree with your assessment of the sportsmanship of hunting bears as you describe. Here the typical approach is to bait them in the spring. I don’t respect the idea of baiting in hungry animals out of the den that you had no quarrel with. Bears have their right to the land, same for wolves and coyotes, they actually do us and all the ecosystem important service. I feel the first effort to manage conflicts with such creatures is to use our supposedly bigger brains, keep the death toll down.

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Good point. Time for the Winter thread… Life goes on - Winter 2016

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