Friday, August 30, 2013

I called Garvin this morning and left a message on the answering machine, which he returned a couple hours later.  I asked him to cut down the tree he located at the centre of the area, drive a nail in the stump and measure 150 feet in every direction.  If that put him in the woods, he should tie a piece of surveyors ribbon.
   So he came over and worked at that til the time his uncle said he should come back.  He worked 3 1/4 hours and got mostly done.  So he will come again and then I'll call Wayne to come look at what has to be done.  So, some progress, anyhow.

Thursday, August 29, 2013

Yesterday I went down into the labyrinth clearing on my 4-wheeler with Garvin, my neighbor's nephew with  a 200-foot measuring tape and an axe.  We measured and found that the clearing is not nearly large enough.  So we located where the center would have to be, which is in the woods, and I had Garvin peel that tree with the axe to mark it plainly.  Today I got some surveyor's ribbon or tape or whatever they call it, that bright plastic ribbon they use to mark locations and boundaries.  I will have Garvin cut off the tree about 3 feet high, and drive a nail in the top of the stump.  Then the tape can be hooked on that and he can measure out in every direction and tie ribbon on a tree to mark the limits.  Half or so of the circle will be in the woods, and that will all have to be cleared. I will call Wayne again and have him come look at it.  It seems to me that there will be enough wood that is big enough for pulpwood that I might possibly get someone to do it for free if I give them the wood.  But it is disappointing to have to do more clearing at this point.  I hoped I could just plant.

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

I have not had much free time to write, but I have a few things to report:
     I got sick and spent 2 nights and the day between in the hospital, where they said I was dehydrated and low on sodium, which they corrected by IV.  When I got home I started to cough and blow my nose again.  I didn't feel up to going down there myself, as I had planned, so I sent Vincent (a wwoofer who was here with his mother, Evelyn) to the labyrinth spot on my 4-wheeler, and he used that to drag all the logs off the area.  But then he measured to find the centre and found it wasn't as big as it is supposed to be.  He found it was 130 feet across instead of 300. I had better measure again, to be sure, but it is hard to see how a smart boy could be very wrong about it, when he had a 200-foot tape to use.
    When I had Wayne in to do the clearing, I offered to get a tape, but he said he could measure it; I don't remember how.  I told him 300 feet in diameter.  I have been looking at my original diagram and figures and what it comes to is 238 feet in diameter if the pathway is 6 feet wide and 218 feet if it is 4 ft.  But it doesn't have to be much wider than that, or at least doesn't have to be well-cleared outside that.  There could be stumps, &c out there  On one side it goes downhill fairly steeply, so that side doesn't have to be cleared far.  But the other side there are larger trees and humpy ground.
      I will have to measure and then talk to Wayne.