good morning ya'll !

[lonehunter]

[size 1]Good mornin' ya'll .
It's almost 6:60 , still dark outside . My lab , "josie the wondermutt" is at my feet whinning because "trouble the cat" keeps jumping up and down for a ear scratching , other than that the only sounds are from the mouse clicks and the keyboard .
well that's not entirely true , the coffee is perking and i could swear i hear a fish or two calling me names from outside somewhere . funny, those fish like to say stuff about your mama wearing army boots and your brother wearing dresses and stuff like that , but once you get them on the business end of a fishing rod they sure fight like heck to avoid a face to face discussion of the matter , don't they ? it must be a fish thing i guess .
the maxwell house just finished filling and the smell is awsome , there's nothing like that first cup of the day . it could only be better if i were camping . davetclown has had a glimps of my place before , i'm a little off the beaten path , why i would need to go camping is still a mystery to me . i have more wildlife in the backyard than most campgrounds in michigan . yesterday , while doing my yardwork i could hear every tom turkey in the hood calling for a gal to be his own . we have a lot of toms out here , and it sounds like the hens are playing hard to get right now .
that yardwork is a killer . i'm not talking mowing the grass and sweeping the driveway . i'm talking wheelbarrel after wheelbarrel of gravel and sand being hauled back up the hill to fill in the holes that the last rain washed down . did some tree trimming too , the first of several 80' pines was cut down by yours truley yesterday , talk about sore arms , they started cramping up last night and hurt like heck . i'm gonna look like popeye the salor by the time i'm done , lol !
we've got a huge forest fire , largest state forest fire in the last four years burning just a few miles north of us , lucky for me the wind is going the other way and we should start our spring showers any day now . you know what that meens , another wheelbarrel workout for me .
whoops , sounds like "trouble the cat" has decided to wake up the rest of the family , i hear a few choise words comming from the back of the house , the rest of my gals will be up soon , so much for peace and quiet time in the country .
fake or not , i coulda swore i herd a fish badmouthing my daddy ,at least thats the excuse i'm using today .
it's time for me to run for the river before the lil' ladys of the house start giving there gums a workout , a guys gotta do what a guys gotta do .
hope your morning is just as good as mine . remember any excuse to go fishing today is fair game , use it to your advantage .
monday is only one day away . [/size]
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[callie]

Sometimes you just got to do it. I've got blister after blister from raking so much. I'm getting soft in my old age I guess. I heard about the wild fires ravaging a lot of acres in our state so far this spring. Man people have to be careful! The steehead bite is slowing without rain to fill up the streams and rivers in the NW part of lower Michigan. I've got the early hunt for turkey, and this morning was a meeting at work so I was unable to hear the gobbles. Heading to the woods after work.
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[davetclown]

good luck, if you are reading this before you get out in to the woods you are waisting your time. GET OUT THERE!!!

hope you bag your bird, just make sure the cat got out of the bag first....

this lack of rain is really bad, starting to look like a repeat of last year. keep us up on the fires if you wouldnt mind, I just get a blurp out of the news about it down here.
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[lonehunter]

good luck on that turkey hunt [cool].
our gobblers are on the small side , but they sure do make a racket first thing in the morning [crazy].

speaking of people needing to be carefull , we had two events down here this weekend .

first , a beaverton man passed from an ecoli infection after he used his teeth to break his fishing line attending omer's suckerfest . the virus strain originated from beaver droppings in the water .

the second thing was a beaverton man who pulled up a live airforce shell with his boat anchor at the tridge in midland.
he threw it in the back of his pick-up , took it to a party where it was tossed around a bit , then finally someone contacted the authorities about it . the A.T.F. came out and detonated the shell .
you could hear the blast for five miles around .

whatever happened to the days of pulling up an old boot ?
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[lonehunter]

yea, 1600 acres in the township just above me (5 miles away). the sky was just rolling with smoke , reminded me of a big storm comming in .
hey the drought has it's upside [cool]. the pines i'm cutting down are huge , no rain , no sap, no skeeters .
and they aren't as heavy as they normally would be .
i almost started to do the biggest one that overhangs the house .
it was all set to go when i started to recheck my lines and the come-along . i stopped .
dry weight of the pine figures out to be about 7 to 9 ton , it's on a 8 degree pitch twards the house , i can only go in the opisite direction in order to miss the house , propane tank and the septic feild .
my come-along is only rated for 1 ton [shocked].
i hope to beat the rains home after work with a heavier duty come-along .
i've felled 5 trees so far and have another dozen to go .
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[davetclown]

that is to close for comfort.

I came in from that direction when I came up your way last year. that used to be some beutiful country

I would have a hard time sleapin with those tinder boxes hanging over my roof. besides they do tend to rot out a roof fast by blockin the air flow.

I dont need to tell you to climb as high up the tree as you can to tie off your wench rope. notch it one third on the side you want it to fall in snug up the wench good then cut from behind about a foot higer than your notch cutting twards the top of the first notch. ONLY CUT 1/3 OF THE WAY THROUGH FROM THE BACK SIDE THEN DO THE REST WITH THE WENCH.

be sure your rope is at least twice the lenth as your tree is tall three times is better and is rated for 2 tons.

ya know a 1200 pound boat wench tied to a tree across the way would work a lot better than a come along. the trick is to keep constant preasure on the tree. you dont need 10 tons of preasure at the top of the tree. 500 pounds of pull at the top of the tree is like a 70 mile an hour wind.

This is realy a two man job, to bad you didnt have the urge to do it when I was up there last year, I used to be a pretty fair rope man. You should have seen some of the masive oaks me and my hunting bud roped out. branches weighted over a ton apeice reaching out 50 feet from the base of the tree over houses and across other neighbors lots.

it seemed like we always got the hard jobs. the ones where you could not get a hoist or bucket to.

I am sure you have done this before and if you have to do it alone be sure you at least have some one who can watch over you and can run and make a phone call just incase.....

I certainly respect the level of difficulty you are facing.....
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[lonehunter]

great minds must think alike , i did it just like you said [].
i used a 2 ton come-along , went up as far as the tow chain would reach , put the notch near the base 1/3 in . did the back cut up about 24 " from the notch .
cranked her down as i was cutting into it from the backside , running back and forth . it was a little windy , i wasen't going to take too many risks .
that tree was pulled over like a longbow after 10 minutes before i could hear the first crack . another pass with the chainsaw and then it was all cranking down with the come-along .
to get it pulling in the right direction in case it decided to spin with all those heavy branches that couldn't be trimed off (overhanging the house ) i tied a rope off from the top of the tree to the base of another .
then i took a couple 20' logs and rested them on the rope to provide a constant forward/downward pull . i figured it would save me a case of beer to a buddy , lol !
i missed my mark by about 6 feet , but all that did was take out a few branches from other trees that will be comming down anyway .
(made me run like a salmon on a flyrod too[blush] )
i was lucky everything went well .

now comes the dangerous part , trimming off all those compressed branches underneath the trunk .

all this work saves me a few thousand dollers from a pro , gives me more yard to mow , and gives the youngest a better spot to set up her star gazing telescope and fly her kites.
i can't wait to hit the foote dam this weekend , i'll need the downtime to recoupe [crazy].
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[davetclown]

Glad to hear every thing went down ok...

that is some tricky bussiness, no room for luck or guess and by golly...

nasa puts out some pretty good info for star gazers on a weekly basis. you want that I should forward one to you via email so you can register for thier emials?

they dont spam or share email address
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[lonehunter]

heck yea , that would be great !
she's always naming off diferent constilations at night .
she's now taking golf lessons , in the girlscouts (collecting her badges one after another ) and going to the rodeo's with her girlfriend and her parents , and fishing with her daddy .
she's a busy bee .
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[davetclown]

I forwarded a lunar eclips to you.... (todays email) when you get there you can register for the free emails....
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[lonehunter]

i got it , thanks ![cool]
another thing i recived today , a shiner [pirate] .
cut one branch and another one poped up from under it , felt like a pool cue in the hands of a sore looser , lol !
anyway , got some spawn tied up , the winter gear back out and plans to hit the au sable on saturday .
with luck i'll be starting to enter some fish in the 16 species contest this weekend .[]
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[lonehunter]

[url "http://www.ourmidland.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=14372998&BRD=2289&PAG=461&dept_id=472542&rfi=6"][font "Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"][#000000][size 2]Live WWII rocket pulled from river[/size][/#000000][/font][/url][font "Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"][#000000][size 2]
A live anti-tank rocket from the 1940s or 1950s was pulled from the water near Emerson Park on Friday, and detonated in Beaverton.
The rocket was found when a Beaverton couple fishing in the Tittabawassee River at Currie Parkway pulled up the anchor to their boat and found it tangled with the rocket.[/size][/#000000][/font]


i could only get part of the story on line .
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