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Took my pickup for a test run yesterday. No more bearing whine. I went down to the company lake to check my swarm traps. No luck yet. Temperatures are still too cool. While I was there I checked the Bald Eagle nest. This nest has been active for about 20 years now and I could see at least one chick in the nest now. Several years ago I spotted 13 eagles around the lake one winter day during the migration. This is as close as my phone camera would zoom in on the nest and one adult (sitting up and to the left of the nest).
I thought I would add this. This is not how I would recommend how to plant trees unless you want an impenetrable wall.
There was two small open tracts of land here totaling about ten acres. Our company biologist decided we needed to plant Pecan and Oak trees. He ordered the pecans and acorns and we stored them in our warehouse. Each of these bags were about 200#s apiece and there were a lot of them. I told the biologist that that was way too many seeds to plant in those small plots and he stated that half of them wouldn’t sprout. We ate so many pecans we were sick of them.
Planting day arrived and he hired a local farmer to disc up the plots. He then brought in a manure spreader and loaded equal amounts of pecans and acorns in each load and spread them on the plots and then ran the disc over them again.
This took place around 2002 or 2003. The trees are now fighting for space and are 30′ tall and more. You can’t even throw a rabbit through the mass. I don’t know where our biologist got his information about half of the seeds wouldn’t sprout but they didn’t know squat about the Neosho River bottom soil. It would surprise me if there was a dozen seeds that didn’t sprout. The only trees that are more than 2-3″ in diameter are the ones near the very edge.
About 2007 we burned off the grass on the lake dikes and also the tree plots. The biologist came by about a week later and had a fit telling us we had killed all the trees. I told him it would be a good idea to have someone make a couple of passes through them with a small brush hog. He would not hear of it.
This is what the forest looks like today. It would be a great place to cut tipi poles.
I got a string made and this is the profile. It took a few steps to get to this point, now I need to do the final sanding and spray a finish on the bow. The scale I am using says 45# at my draw but it feels heavier because I haven’t done any shooting for a couple of months. Time to get back into that.
Please pardon the dirty floor.
The finish line is getting nearer and I’m already dreaming up my next bow build. I’m thinking of a Curly Tiger Maple riser and limbs. I’ll use iron nitrate on the wood like I did on my flintlock mountain rifle stock. It will be an interesting build.
I got out my India ink pens and filled in the center accent stripe that I tried to dye. I’ll know to saturate the wood several times if I try that procedure again.
I started out good staying in the the center stripe but toward the end my eyes were getting tired and I made a few wobbles.
And more sanding………………
One thing for sure. That chunk of wood is getting a lot lighter in weight.
I went out yesterday to hang two more bee swarm traps. I have access to about 800 acres of timber and river bottom land that is owned by the company I retired from. I did some high water travel and turned around at one point. I knew the water was too deep. This is three days after the rain we had and the water in these pictures is still moving at a pretty good clip.
My turn around point. I could see water over the road at least 3/4 mile ahead and know there are two spots that are wallered out. County grader doesn’t maintain much down here and this water is moving toward me.
Looking back where I came from. The water crosses back across the road about 1/4 mile away and runs off into an old creek drainage. It is deep at that corner but is passable.
The wood ducks love this flooded timber.
I haven’t quit, just busy.
I had planned on being in south Arizona this week but my plans were changed. I would have taken a bow but this was not an archery event. It is a border watch operation in the cartel land near the border.
But, here I am.
I put the limbs on and set the bow in my tiller tree. First picture is where the bow will be around brace height. Second is about where it will be at my draw length around 26″ The tiller is close enough that I’m not going to mess with it for now.
Now I started working on the riser shape. Lots of sanding done and lots more to do but I’m liking the shape of it.
