Picking stuff up

Had a good month of finding stuff on the wheel.
I found a nice 14mm Made in USA Craftsman Socket over near work (3/31/14):

Then I grabbed a couple big rounds from a Chinese Elm tree off the curbside on my way home. It was a reasonably smooth ride home from there all loaded up on the big dummy (4/2/14):

I found this excellent Hairy creature jaw on a run in the canyon near the house. I stashed it nearby in a somewhat relocatable place hoping the insects clean the bones for me by the fall. Or I will forget about it and never see it again (4/18/14):

Then I had one of the best single road find days of my life on Tuesday April 29th, 2014. I found a big honking 4xl reflecty safety jacket in the middle of the road at 7am on my way down to white rock for training. Then I took a lunch break out at the overlook and found a lacrosse ball on the way back to class. Lacrosse balls are excellent to juggle with and really satisfying to hit with a baseball bat, but I don't really endorse that activity in a neighborhood or in close quarters...
Scene from lunch at the overlook

Then after an afternoon of unsatisfying training activities, I took the long way home from White Rock, around the bandelier loop, and while climbing slowly out of a canyon somewhere, I looked over to the side of the road and saw this gleaming out at me amid the detritus of some recently removed trees:

I stashed it in my musette and kept on riding.

Then at the top of the long climb before the back gate, I saw an excellent pink Pedro's tire lever waiting for me on the side of the road. I picked it up as it began snowing reasonably hard. I took a break, put on my jacket and rode on home through the snow flurries.
4/28/14, the dubious collection of the road find day of infamy

It was a good day.

Lots of things from last week

Scored yet another arrow (number 4 or 5?) and whole pile of marking flags.

Arrow found right at the intestine and diamond on the lab side. I imagine someone realized they were heading to work with some weapons and jettisoned them out the window. Alas it had been run over, it now is carbon trash. Flags found in bike lane on canyon. Picked em up mostly so they did not become pokey wires in the bike lane.

Aida and Wink256 took a chariot ride around the block. Wink did not freak. Aida might be a bit happy

Got even more wood. Mostly Cherry and Apple. Will need to season the living crap out of it before it goes in the fire, but it will burn for a long time. Spent about half an hour cutting it down out of a massive brush pile on the other side of the neighborhood. Pretty easy 1/2 mile ride back to the house afterwards.

Went to the opera in bandelier last saturday night. It was fun. Aida was entranced for 10 minutes and then happily played in the dirt for the rest of the hour and a half. We got to take the bus 4 times on Saturday, Aida was thrilled about this too. Click the panaroma to see on flickr.

Found this feller on my road bike. I thought is was a big wasp, but I think it is a black and yellow party beetle:

After studiously avoiding a smartphone for a while, I have to say, I am digging the iphone and all the photo options. I also like having the pocket GPS, I have been using Run Keeper to log walks with Aida and neighborhood cruises and I jumped on the Strava moronwagon to help log the local punishing climbs for both running and riding, helps me be a bit more rigorous in my self monitoring. I don't really care to share em, nor will I facebook spam out all my rides, but I will be making up dumb new segments for myself, as I am pretty sure there are a couple road bike rides and runs that that no one else does. The greater quality pocket cam will help on the blogging documentation probably, see gratuitous coffee picture:

Alive and Former Trees

As promised, in the continuing wood gathering series:

Scored a ponderosa pine youth from the landscaper across the neighborhood. Ferried it home in the pouring rain and muddy trails. Planted it on the outskirts of the .18 acre homestead.

A big burl that dropped off a ponderosa and blocked a neighborhood path. Aida and I cleared the path and fastened the rest to the chariot for the burning.

Previously
Aspen
MOAR WOOD
More Wood Hauling
Wood Hauling

Aspen

Nice big lump of aspen grabbed on the way home from work. May go back tomorrow with a saw and cut down some of the bigger stuff to decent size to haul home. I will post it if I do.

Pretty much going to change the blog subtitle to "pictures of curb score wood on the big dummy"

Previously
MOAR WOOD
Wood Hauling
More Wood Hauling

MOAR WOOOD!

By far my favorite use of the Big Dummy, swooping in and getting some curb find wood. Some nice clean burning aspen today. Saw it on the way home a couple blocks up the road. Asked the owner about it, he gave his blessings. I rode on home, got the Big Dummy, flew back up the road, loaded up everything and was back home in 15 minutes. Good for a couple days of heat at least. Woo. Anyone else in Los Alamos want their wood removed via bicycle, please let me know.

Previously:
Wood Hauling
More Wood Hauling

More Wood hauling

My neighbor at the end of the block took down a pretty good sized piñon tree that was blocking the view around the corner. He also took out a juniper tree. I saw my chance, gave him a call got the blessings to go wood scavenging. I got two really heavy loads of piñon and juniper and I am pooped. Piñon is the heaviest and sappiest wood I have ever worked with, it burns hot and long and completely cruds up your chimney, but it is a NM staple. This tree was half dead and probably predated the manhattan project, but at least it will keep me warm this winter.



I did grab a few piñon nuts from a cone to see if I can get them to grow. The birds and squirrels are amazingly good at eating all the good ones. I opened a few, but they were all shriveled. I have a seedling growing in my yard that I planted a few years back. It is doing pretty well. Most of the piñon below 7000 feet in the area have died off in the last 15 years due to prolonged drought, but the few that are in town here seem fine.



The ride was less than a quarter mile to get the wood. the first load was a bit tough, the second one was half piñon and half juniper and it was a cakewalk. I probably will just walk up there with a wheelbarrow and trim the remaining branches with an axe to get some good sappy kindling.

I was able to score a small haul of cottonwood earlier this summer. Cottonwood and aspen are the anti-piñon, they burn hot and fast and clean. I think wood hauling is my favorite use for the big dummy thus far.





Including a big batch of elm that the tree owner would not let me haul off on the bike (he insisted on delivering it to my house via pickup), I probably have scored a cord or so of free wood from the neighborhood over the past few years. Good stuff.

previous wood hauling on the big dummy

Wood Hauling

More short hop large load hauling. Some neighbors two blocks up the street have had a pile of cut wood in their lawn for at least 5 months. I saw them watering their garden earlier in the week and asked if they minded if I hauled that off. They did not. So I saddled up the dummy yet again and got two good loads of wood for the winters burning. I will need to do some chopping and splitting, but that is good fun. It was way more wood than it looked in a random higgledy piggledy pile in their yard.

First load:


Second load:

Maybe a third of a mile each way?

First load again:


All I know is that it is much easier to load (and overload) the big dummy with split lumber as the last time I scored some free firewood:

Hauling away

About two miles up a gradual hill with a nice load of split pi#&241;on that a couple of friends of mine gave me when they moved this week. It was tough going with the wide load I could not get out of the saddle due to the wobbles. I did not drop any at all.

I was able to load the bike up while it was on the Xtracycle Kickback centerstand. It worked great. It is hard to engage the centerstand with the wide loaders on, but you usually can just rest the bike propped up on the wideloader, however it is really hard to load the bike with a heavy load this way, so I am really happy the centerstand is so burly and handled the loading with aplomb. That was a hell of a sentence.

Need a bigger bow saw

Los Alamos had a big forest fire in 2000, the result is that there are a ton of burnt standing and fallen trees in the area. The trees are good and dead, but usually the main trunk of the tree is excellent burning material. You can buy a wood cutting/gathering permit from the forest service for 20 bucks for 5 cords of wood a year so you can heat your home. We don't have a wood stove yet, but will get an insert this year or next. The wood gathering helps clear out the deadwood and transfer the fuel load off the mountains and into neat piles next to your home.

My buddy Adam and I went up into the mountains to retrieve a load of wood. Unlike the rest of the much more efficient wood gatherers we used only hand tools. They got more wood, but we made far less noise. Here are some pics and videos of the enterprise. We will go gather more meagre amounts of fuel when we become less sore. We pretty much suck at this and need bigger bow saws...

The inadequate handtools of doom!



Interesting Wood bugs abounded




Aspen field, roots lived creating the new growth, we dropped a big standing dead aspen, we are morons:


The day's haul



Ash blackened rubes


My half of the haul


Need the bigger bow saw


I made a pretty good pile of wood


Mostly aspen and ponderosa pine. Next more gathering and more sawing and perhaps some splitting action.