More Things I've Learned

Let me start 'way back about 55 years ago. back then I was an avid down hill skier, recreational only.Part of living in a small town was the ability to work (for free) in the off season clearing new ski runs on the hill. I learned from the old pros that if you piled brush , tree limbs in a tepee shape, the fire would burn in and up, and all the fuel would fall in to the center, and be consumed. The fire burned hot and clean and the only thing to do afterwards was to kick in a few ends and the clean up was done.

2:00 pm Burning in

Fast forward to today, and the skills learned back then, are put to good usage on the acreage when clearing more pasture. If I had a message for the young people today, it would be "Get involved. You never know when the skills learned will be used in the future, and the learning is free."

2:15 pm 

4:00 pm

3:00 pm

My Dad way back said that if you needed a job done and didn't have the tools or know how, go to the library, read or buy a book and buy the tool. You will have the knowledge and resource forever.


I took advantage of the Experimental Aircraft Association  resources to learn how to oxy-acetylene weld to aircraft standards. I passed all the tests and I tested a lot as it was going to be my butt hanging out 1 to 12000 feet above sea level. The transition to stick welding was easy after that.


About 7 years ago, this guy got into horses. Horses are expensive to maintain by the way. The farrier bills were running about $130 every 6 weeks. I watched the farriers a fair bit and said " This is not rocket science, I can do that." Now how to do it right was another matter. I lucked into an on-line course for about $65.00 and have been doing my own and a few other horses when people could not get a farrier. By reading the references, I found out how to cure a horse of kicking, and how to safely handle a difficult horse. As a bonus I was able to solve a spit hoof issue that 5 other farriers could not do. The horse is now split- hoof free for 5 years. More info at http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=5420428411794914404&postID=7173096389353942415


With the hard times on us, I don't see why more people don't get involved . The $65 has saved me about $6700.00 in farrier fees, and counting! The instructor was Angie Senter through Universal Class Inc. No, I don't get any royalties or benefits due to this plug.


The overall goal of this class Horseshoeing 101 is to produce competent and confident farriers that can create functional and healthy hooves. This will be accomplished by: An in depth study of anatomy, A working knowledge of tools, equipment, and shoes, Understanding the reasons and history of trimming and shoeing, Learning how to create a balanced hoof through trimming, Learning how to correctly shoe a healthy hoof, Understanding the methods of corrective shoeing for structural abnormalities, Evaluating a horse for structural abnormalities, Assessing and treating almost a dozen hoof diseases and ailments, Learn how to own and operate your own business and Expanding vocabulary of horse terminology.

This course involves an in depth look at equine hoof anatomy. In order to fully understand the material the student must have a high school reading and writing level. This course is supplemented with internet based graphics so a high speed internet connection with a quality graphics card would be beneficial. The physical use of a horse is not a requirement.

Instructor Angie Senter teaches several courses on aspects of horse care for UniversalClass. She owns and operates Senter's Quarter Horses - 21 acres of Palouse ranch land. Her business includes a boarding facility, training and lessons arena, breeding services, massage and farrier services as well as trick horse performances and training.

I guess the point that I am trying to make, is that learning is easy, and cheap especially with the Internet. The other message is " Get rid of the Gameboys, ipods , and other electronic gadgets and start developing the life skills that may be required in your future. Who knows where this Recession/ Depression/ Economic meltdown may go?

Sequel to "Primitive Times" Post

I am remiss in not telling the rest of the story, so to speak.
The pump specialist showed up as promised, and basically said "I don't think it's the pump, or power line, let's try something". Of course, at this point, Elaine and I were both saying "Let's get this fixed. Our time  without water is long enough enough"

The service tech went over to the truck and came back with a controller panel for the system, plugged it in, turned on the power, and low and behold we heard the really great sound of running water!

The total cost was $120 for the controller and $400 for the call out from Edmonton (2 hours away). This guy was fantastic, helpful and knowledgeable. It puts faith back into the field!

He also recommended changing out the pump in the near future, as 14 years is a long time in our hard water service.

Some good news, and some bad! Right now we are thankful for the fix and will look at the pump change-out in 2012.


Go to the link below to see the cause of the frustration.


http://wildwestfarm.blogspot.com/2011/02/primitive-times.html




I hate to post without a picture, so here it is. Brooklyn is about to get moved off  by Alpine, as nobody (except me) gets that close to her pile!

Men's Shelter II

 It's coming along. This is 1/2 of the fire wall between the shelter and the church ready for insulation and dry walling.

 Here is the first half of the fire wall almost completed. It needs 2 layers of 5/8 inch drywall per side. 12 foot panels are real heavy.

Hopefully the second wall of the fire wall will go up at 9 am tomorrow. It gets dropped down 4 feet into the crawl space, then glued to the layer of dry wall then moved out to give 1 inch of air space between the walls. The contractor figures on 15 people to lift and slide into position. The design is such that it will give a 2 hour fire protection. Hopefully, that will never be used! Ideally (in my opinion) it would be paneled on the ground and then lifted, but the 60 foot span is too flimsy to allow that to happen. Who am I to argue with the experts. In the mean time, at 09:00 early, we will do it the hard way.

Sushi

What else do you call a koi that is rapidly outgrowing his 35 gallon tank?

We've had him/her for about 3 years ever since he was a fingerling. Other than the dogs and the horses, the fish are the only ones with names. Currently he is about a foot long. I guess one of these days I'll have to take a trip back to the pet store and see if I can barter for a replacement. Anybody got any other suggestions? I hate the thought of him living up to his name.

Besides, the rule still holds that you should never name anything that you could eat. 8-}

An Open Letter to Politicians....Response

Well, I sent my list to all the political parties in Canada (Federal). See link below.
The response was not what I expected. Maybe I'm an idealist, but only ONE party chose to respond, and that was in a very general "will take it under advisement". There was absolutely no response from any of the other parties! I would guess, that none of them could meet the requests for a representative. The election is now history, and so is my optimism.


http://wildwestfarm.blogspot.com/2011/02/open-letter-to-politicians.html

Too Hot, But the Work Goes On.

It was stinking hot today 25 C (78F) and very high humidity. I got the gallon of raspberries before the temp maxed out, so that was good. I figured I would toss in a picture to make some folks hungry. It looks like a gallon per day for the next 10 days. No, I didn't eat any. They are all in the freezer.

 Today was mow the driveway day. To do that i needed to run some fence so the automatic mowers didn't go visiting at the neighbours. They have been known to do that in the past.. Below is the rig on the back of the quad trailer for running the wire. It works extremely well.

 I gave strict instructions to the mowers to start at the roadway and work their way down. So much for listening! Tucker is hiding behind a tree in the shade. Alpine is well away from the driveway.

Then there is Biz! She did what she was told and ate near the edge. You know it's hot when Boots is in close and laying in the horse' shade. Brooklynn stayed on the deck, in the shade and was  king  Queen of  her domain.

Yeah, you! I'm watching you! Now get back to work up at the roadside. I mean it!

Here are Five Things that I dislike, not in any particular order:

  

 1. 1. Roll backs

This just says to me “ Look, I am still making loads of money, but I’m trying to make you feel good about the over pricing that I have been charging you”. It’s the same thing with 3 cents a litre off gas prices. I really don’t want to belong to your silly club anyway. Just take the 3 cents off at the pump.

2.     2. TV sequences that are to be continued.

 In    In  most cases they don’t say when they will be continued. Tomorrow? At what time? Next week? Or never?

3.      3. Distracted drivers

I am getting tired of near misses by people talking on cell phones, primping in the mirror or in one case reading a book on the freeway. There is hope for this one as the province is implementing a distracted driving law. I guess there is a sequel to this one because I also dislike over regulation. In this case a hefty ticket may boost the common sense level.

4.      4. People who are consistently late.

Sure, everybody is late now and again for a good reason, but showing up consistently ½ hour late for a meeting, church or whatever, doesn't say to me “ Look how important I am”, but rather “See how disorganised I am”

5.      5. The word “Like”

It seem s that almost every person under 20 (in some cases, 30) has to use this word at the start of every sentence, and several times within the sentence. I almost feel sorry for them when they hit the work force and find out that their potential boss considers them illiterate!  


What are some of your peeves? I hate to think that I am all alone out here.

A Downer and a Cure

My  truck went and blew a spark plug (again) and is in the shop waiting for repairs. The plug took out the cap and coil causing the truck to sound like a very old tractor or a threshing machine. The last time this happened, my mechanic was able to heli -coil the head. Hopefully, I will get lucky this time also.

When feeling blue, how can I stay that way when I look at this face?

A trip down memory lane also helps. I can't believe the time has gone by that fast!

Then if I go way back in time to my high school days, I think of the fun I had building this boat in the basement during Christmas vacation. Eight feet long, four feet wide and twelve inches deep. For all you metric types, I'll let you do the math. With a 10 horse power motor and racing prop, it did an honest 32 miles/ hour. I had it all over Lake of The Woods for four seasons.  The boat cost about $50.00 to build and  was worth every penny. Believe it or not, two people fit cozily inside. When the big waves came along, powering down got the nose to come up, and it was dry in waves up to four feet high.

There! I feel better already!

Progress is being Made!

Alpine Black Magic is progressing well! With a lot of TLC ( and a certain amount of caution), I can now get her to give all four feet without trying to kick me to death. The old rope trick was applied twice, once with the farrier and once when she was being particularly snarly. After that, she got the message and will give the hind feet OK. Due to the really bad weather and treacherous footing in the paddock, I took to riding her on the main ( county) road. This has gone very well. She is naturally inquisitive and getting to be very trusting. Currently I have put on about 5 hours on her.

Someone at one time has spent a lot of time or money on training her. She has a great stop, a great one rein stop and will walk on command and trot on command. She backs up the best of all our horses.

What she does not like is a tight rein. A loose rein and a slight wiggle of a finger is all it takes for a turn. Slight leg pressure tightens the turn . Neck reining is foreign to her at this time. What I need to do is find my old riding buddy and see if she has dressage training. That aspect is foreign to me, and i don't want to mess her up.

I didn't get all the time on her that I wanted, but now that Elaine is back, she can take over.

The thumb is healing well and I am off to see the Doc tomorrow, probably about some physio.

Life is real good on the Acreage!

Is Big Brother watching?

YOU BETCHA!

This is SCAREY..BUT OH SO GOOD! AMAZING comes to mind..Check this out!

Check this out ...

This is the photo taken by PoMo photographer Ronnie Miranda that appeared in our Tri-City News last Friday (24-June).

When you open this up, check the left hand side where you can upsize the photo, and click on the Yellow print "view with GigaTag".

This is actually scary.  You can see - perfectly - the faces of every single individual - and there were thousands!

Privacy? 

THERE IS NO PRIVACY..

 http://www.gigapixel.com/image/gigapan-canucks-g7.html

  This was sent to me by a friend. If you think you can get lost in a crowd, think again!

More of Life on an Acreage

Our friends showed up with 4 teenage grand children, plus a teenage friend for the annual ride a horse on the acreage day. Busy? Exciting? You betcha! With only 3 horses, they were lined up and waiting for a turn. Each one seemed to prefer a particular horse. Here we have a sort of  horse race down the paddock. Who won? I think they all did! I had help hauling the saddles and tack, but I still didn't mention this activity to the Doctor today. Nor did I mention trimming some feet and running the chain saw!

The trip into Edmonton (twice) went well in spite of some torrential down pours. I took Elaine into the airport Thursday night, then went back into the city Friday morning, all in rain and high winds. She is off to Pennsylvania for 10 days.

The trip to University Hospital was productive. The X-Ray showed the bones to be healing well and I get to go without having the bones pinned. Yahooo! I get to wear the splint for another three weeks around the clock, then I can start taking it off in the daytime for another 3 weeks, with no heavy lifting allowed. I figure for doing the heavy work that needs to be done, I can slip it back on while doing it. After 6 weeks, I go back in for another X-ray  to see how its progressing.

What I learned from this:

1. When you have a possible dislocation, pull harder to reset it so that if any bones are broken they will realign.
2. Don't try out a strange (new) horse bareback the first time
3. Even when frozen, it hurts to have a thumb reset. (refer to #1)
4. Thumbs are useful for all sorts of things we take for granted every day.
5.People always want to shake your hand when it's in  a cast.
6. People look at you funny when you shake hands left handed.
7.If you talk nicely to the Doctor, he will comply with a request that allows you to hold the reins in a cast (splint)
8. It is possible to trim a horse while in  a splint (don't tell the Doc about that)
9.It is very difficult to use a steak knife left handed!
10. I don't bounce as well as I used to!

Frugal, In a Cheap Way

When it came to taking the old rail and A frame fence down, it came to me that there were a lot of good things in that fence, namely the 15 pounds of 8 inch spikes that I put in to make the fence about 7 years ago.

On closer investigation, it seems that only a light coating of rust was on them. This made them salvageable for some future project. They pounded out OK and the crow bar removed them without bending  many. A few smacks with the 2 pound ball peen hammer on the anvil corrected that issue.

Now, I need to start figuring on some inexpensive project that I can recycle those dudes into.

Certain people by the name of Elaine have called me a pack rat in the past ( plus a few other things alluding to cheap), but seriously, how could I just burn up these logs without doing a recovery attempt?

Just the other day, a friend was looking for some aluminum flashing. I know I had two partial rolls in the shed. When I went to retrieve them I found that I must have thrown them out when I cleaned out the shed last fall. Now, this is a prime reason, never to throw anything out, or to clean out a shed, for that matter.

My friend had to go and purchase enough for a small job.

Lesson learned: Never throw out anything, for you never know when you might find a need! All junk is potentially good stuff looking for a home!

What Would You Take?

Here is the scenario. We were experiencing a power outage that was massive. It was reported by Fortis to extend from Onoway all the way to Edson, including Woodlands County plus 37 other counties. In other words, the high winds likely took down some transmission towers. We have 25,  9 day old chicks and 12, 9 day old turkeys that need heat.

What to do? Fire up the portable generator and the problem is solved! Not so! The dude would not start!

OK, over to the neighbours to borrow theirs. While I was pulling out of the driveway, a Department of Swamps and Marshes fellow in a half ton pulls up and says that there is a wild fire just over the hill and that we should be prepared to move out immediately with minutes notice.

OK, I went back to the house, told Elaine what was going on and started packing. We were done in about 15 minutes, and ready to go. I hooked up the generator and got heat on for the chicks, then put halters on the horses with name tags, owners name and phone numbers  duct taped inside a plastic bag to the halter. I figured that if the fire crested the hill, I would cut the neighbours fence and turn the horses loose. He has a quarter section with very few trees, short grass and lots of room.

The wind was from the south east  gusting to 65 km/h and the fire was climbing the hill into the wind. Our friend lived on the downwind side of the fire  and kept us posted on what was happening. I drove down and talked to the fire chief and looked at the situation. I figured the fire would climb the hill to the crest and then meet the wind front which would likely stop it dead in its tracks. The real hazard was in the direction of the wind, towards our friends place. Anyway, they had a helicopter spotter and 16 men plus 2 pumpers on the ground and they soon had it out. They took their time getting into the source because there was a tree across the line and wires on the ground. Even though the area had no live power, they had to wait until Fortis isolated that run of line.

OK, that is the overall scenario.

Now, what would you take in 15 minutes notice?

All we packed went into 2 large boxes and a couple of shopping bags.

Medicine, a change of clothes, camera, computer (it has 10,000 family photos on it), Tooth brush, ID, wallets, Bibles, Tax files and that was basically it!

Fortunately, there was no need to evacuate, but it really focused our minds on what was important. All the rest was "Stuff", and easily replaced.

Now, what would you take. I would be interested in knowing.

I can really appreciate what are neighbours to the north in Slave Lake  are going through. Approximately 40% of the town was burned down and about 7000 people evacuated. We were lucky!

The picture is not of our fire, or of Slave lake.

Rest Day!

After the previous week and a half, I declared a rest day. This can be seen in Brooklynn for one. She got herself worn out watching all the shenanigans going on with the Well Technician, the steamer truck, and all the work going on trying to keep the horses, chickens, dogs and us all watered.

It is amazing what we take for granted! You turn the tap on, you get water. You flush, water is taken away. After a week with neither water, or unlimited flushing. we got to realize just how lucky we are. Going back to "early primitive" I found it to be a full time job just getting water for all the critters, in a form that was usable.

We don't pamper our horses with a barn, heated stalls or things like that. One of our dogs, Boots, will not drink water from a tap in a bowl, but prefers to eat snow. Yep, even at -40 C . The rest of us like warm water. This gave us a look at what it must have been like in pioneer days, in the dead of winter trying to survive until spring, when a harvest could be planted. My ancestors showed up in Canada from England, had a crop failure and barely made it. Their homestead was never registered as they didn't make the first year let alone the three years required. We still had heat, so did not have to spend a whole bunch of time cutting and hauling firewood. We are truly blessed in these days. We figured we did good at -30C, surviving a week with no water and a few days with a frozen sewer line.
Life as a horse is much simpler. Give them food, give them water and they can make it. The cold made them go into hibernation mode, sort of. Don't move, huddle up and conserve energy.

The Canada Weather office is forecasting another month of severe cold, but I don't agree with them. I have one dog shedding hair, two horses shedding hair, so what do they know that we don't? I will take a horse prediction of spring over whatever a mere rodent can predict. After all, gophers are just slightly smarter than wheat. We shall see.

The last two days have been spent doing the bare minimum as far as acreage work goes, and a lot of time sleeping, 12 hours the first day and 10 the second. The activity also caused a weight loss of 8 pounds over the week. The balance of the awake time was spent mostly eating.

Come warmer weather, I will likely be replacing the water well pump. The controller failed, not the pump, but the well tech guy says it is due to failure as it's life of 14 years is getting up there for a hard water service. I also see some changes that need to be made in the sewer lines, such as clean-outs that are pointed the right way, and a proper "Y" drop leg to the underground part.

Some day, about 10 years out, we will look back and think "Remember the Good Old Times on The Acreage?" You betcha!

An Open Letter to Politicians

Once again the sabers are rattling, and it appears that we are heading for a spring election.

Now, what I am looking for in a politician is:

1. Someone with high moral and ethical standards that can serve as a role model for us and the future generation that may be voting for the first time.

2. Someone that will listen to the electorate and vote as they advise, NOT as the leader, or party whip dictates. This is a democracy, where representation is supposed to be by  the people.

3. Someone that will stand up for what is right, preferably in alignment with the Word of God.

4. A person that  will state what he is going to do for the good of the Country, Constituency, and individual

5. A person that can be distinctive in their goals to the end that they are different from their opponents.

6. Someone that will fight for the rights of a democratic country.

7. Someone that will go to bat for the little guy to the point of taking the power away from some parts of the civil service and getting back to responsible government.

8. Accountability for campaign promises.



What I am not interested in:
1. Name calling and opponent bashing. The party that does the least of this is likely going to get my vote this election. Watching would- be leaders trash talking, personally attacking, and disrespecting their opponents does not meet my criteria (see 1 to 8 above). I want to hear why YOU are best suited to being MY elected representative, NOT what a scumbag your opposition is.

2. Party policy. Democracy is based on representation by the people, and voting the party line and being punished for voting the way the constituency desires, is undemocratic and in effect is dictatorial.

3. More bureaucracy. When I lived in my home town there were something like 3 government agencies. When I left, there were 41.

4. More government regulation. At this time, the government is over regulating the individual.

5. Vague, wishy-washy promises. Tell me what your game plan is with clear, concise goals and objectives!


Please let me know if you can meet these criteria, and you likely will get my vote!


emails have gone out to:  Stephen Harper, Michael Ignatieff, Jack Layton, Rob  Merrifield, Green party
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Only 6 More Months to Go

The BBQ is down for the winter, although if we should get a mild spell, say above -10C I might think about firing it up . The snow shovel is by the door ready for use, and it will probably get used a lot! It's not much fun standing outside BBQ'ing when it's much colder than that.






This morning, it was -15C and had snowed most of the day yesterday. The horses tend to take it in stride. They are so well insulated that the snow will not melt on their backs. We leave it there as an extra blanket for them.














The water trough and salt block get lots of use during the cold weather. Dry hay tends to cause a need for more salt in the diet. You can see the electrical cord going to the floating heater. Tomorrow, I will be putting the wooden box and insulation around the tank, plus a half lid to cut down the heat loss. I was too slow in draining the garden hose yesterday so it was frozen when I went to fill the trough. 100 feet of frozen hose, coiled up (with difficulty) in the hallway to the house solved the problem. Today, I was a lot faster in walking the hose to ensure the last of the water was out of it.









The drive way was ploughed with my timber and truck to give it a chance to harden up. The snow is not as slippery when packed so it makes the climb up the hill a little easier on the vehicles. Elaine has a front wheel drive with aggressive snow tires on all wheels. It is very seldom that her car won't get up to the house.

My truck is a 4 wheel drive with very aggressive tires and gets used to pull friends and visitors out of the ditch when necessary, generally 4 to 5 times a winter. When the truck gets stuck, my neighbour will come over with his 350HD and pull it out.

Winter! It is a hardening experience in Alberta.

Surely there must be somebody in the deep south that would love to experience watering horses, feeding chickens and shoveling snow for a few months this year. I would be willing to swap acreages for a little while, say two months starting in January?

Did I mention that we also get frozen water lines, power outages and blizzards? Truly a fun experience!

Let me know if you decide to take me up on the offer.

Lots of Things Happening in the World!

http://globaldisasterwatch.blogspot.com/

This is a link that I picked up from somewhere that tracks most of the major natural calamities going on in the world. I don't normally view stuff like this (other than what shows up on the news), but this is a concise summary of major happenings and explanations as to why, from a scientist's viewpoint, not scripturally.

It makes an interesting read, and I can knock off a few places that I once thought that I would like to visit.

The Lord blessed me by plopping me down in a place that doesn't have earthquakes, floods, tornadoes famine etc. Compared to some places, I can put up with the minor annoyance of mosquitoes and extreme cold.

When summary sites such as this come up, is that an indication of a paranoid mentality in the world? What do you think ? Are we being desensitized to major events in the world by all the exposure? When 5 people are killed in an avalanche , it makes world news for days. Am I at risk of becoming jaded? Doesn't anyone print/ publish good news anymore?

Stimulus Package

This was sent to me by a friend who is a better economist than I am!

 Governments of all level are always talking about and promoting “Stimulus Packages”. Most people do not know how a “stimulus package” works, so outlined below is a good example.

 

It is a slow day in the small Saskatchewan town of Pumphandle and  streets are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and  everybody is living on credit.       A tourist visiting the area drives through town, stops at the motel, and  lays a $100 bill on the desk saying he wants to inspect the rooms  upstairs to pick one for the night.     As soon as he walks upstairs, the motel owner grabs the bill and runs  next door to pay his debt to the butcher.       The butcher takes the $100 and runs down the street to retire his debt  to the pig farmer.     The pig farmer takes the $100 and heads off to pay his bill to his  supplier, the Co-op.     The guy at the Co-op takes the $100 and runs to pay his debt to the  local prostitute, who has also been facing hard times and has had to  offer her "services" on credit.     The hooker rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill with the hotel  owner.      The hotel proprietor then places the $100 back on the counter so the traveler will not suspect anything.     At that moment the traveler comes down the stairs, states that the rooms  are not satisfactory, picks up the $100 bill and leaves.     No one produced anything. No one earned anything... However, the whole  town is now out of debt and now looks to the future with a lot more  optimism.     And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how a "stimulus package" works.

Why Engineers are a Pain!

Today was get the truck ready for winter. So, down to Canadian Tire I go to get the oil, oil filter and other goodies. I drained out the old oil which was pretty gross, then tried to get the oil filter off. No way would my filter wrench fit over the filter. Back down to Can Tire to get a larger wrench. Well, this is about where I hit the problem. I could see the oil filter, but I couldn't get at it. I could just barely see it from top. I could barely see it from the bottom. If I looked in over the front left tire I could see it and just barely get the wrench on it. Then I found that there was no room to turn the wrench, even with the swivel handle. Grrrr! Professional Engineers!

Finally, I was able to turn the wrench about 1/8 inch at a time to loosen it up. Now, I ask you, what engineer in his right mind would put an oil filter that is supposed to be changed every 5000 km, in such an awkward place. It's no wonder that there are so many Found On Road Dead vehicles. Who takes their vehicle back to the point of purchase and pays $125.00 / hour shop rate? The one stop oil change locations are also pretty pricey. If I ever get to one of those, I am going to do a visual ( with a mirror) on the replacement filter, 'cause I can't see a guy making $14.00/ hour going to all that trouble.

I thought that maybe this was the exception, so I looked at the wife's Government Motors vehicle, and it was even worse! The same idiotic design engineer must have been working for both companies!

Hint, when you get your oil changed at a service company, make sure that they actually change the filter!

My rant to start the week!

Popping Stumps

In the good old days before the world went mad, I would have brewed up a mess of low grade explosive and popped these dudes the easy way! Now, I'm forced to do it the armstrong method. One of the handiest tools on the Acreage is the good old hickory handled pick axe. Mine is my grandfathers, made by Garant way back about the turn of the century (not this one, the last one). The leverage is tremendous at about 12:1 when you step on the pointed end and reef on the handle. So about 100 pounds force gets you 1200 at the working end.

The pick gets used to pry out rocks, dig trenches, free up ice bound drainage ditches and now again to lever up a heavy block of firewood. Very useful and no moving parts to break down.

Sure, a small cat or a front end loader, or a medium tractor would do a quicker job, but it sure wouldn't be cheaper! Fortunately, I have only 3 acreas full of stumps, so it's do-able. In two hours, I popped out 15 wheelbarrow loads.

Besides, it's good exercise, and cheaper than going to the gym. I have this thing about peddling my butt off to go nowhere. This way, I can look back and say "Wow, I did it"

Unfortunately, we are 6 miles out of town so the Tim Hortons coffee and doughnut , which I craved, was out of reach.

I was looking at the new picks in the store the other day, and I see the hickory handle has been replaced by plastic, and the steel looks kind of fragile. I doubt the new- and- improved one would last as long as mine has. The modern method of getting the stumps out would cost about $1800.00!