Arizona Chickens

[Gallo del Cielo]

Hello hayseed, welcome to our AZ thread and

How slick and how thick are those ponderosa chips? Are you talking about the bark or outer layers that accumulates below the tree? I'm wondering how it compares in composition to the air-dried pine shavings I buy at the store.

 

[Arizonachicken]

Hi, hayseed, welcome!

 

[hayseed]

Thanks Arizona Chicken!

Gallo - they are pretty smallish chips. When they cut down a tree they throw the smaller branches in a chipper, the result is a chip approximately the size of, say, a quarter on average.

Someone advised against straw as being too moldy, which is probably great advice as we can get a lot of moisture around here.

What do you think about the chips? Yay or nay?

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

I had a very interesting day in the garden. I prepared a 4' X 12' swath for planting in the next weeks. I took the opportunity to dig down deep into the bottom and add all the branches that I had accumulated over the past six months. It's a wonderful way to get rid of lots of stuff that doesn't compost so well and inject a healthy amount of organic material to the soil. I layer it in the bottom of the garden and by the following year it is completely incorporated into the soil. I have gads of eucalyptus branches and palm bracts that are too big to bother trying to mix in with green material for a hot compost burn. But I had a compost bin that was filled to the brim with a mix of eucalyptus branches and other materials that were just starting to break down. It would make a perfect addition to the soil 3' down below the surface of the garden. I leaned over and reached into the bin and with a big bear-hug I grabbed a significant portion of the bin's contents. As I stood up and turned to carry it to the prepared garden bed, one particularly thick stick seemed to have a mind of it's own and threatened to escape my grasp, flopping around in the air. I hefted the bundle of branches and gripped ever so tighter so that I wouldn't lose a branch. Except that thick one. It suddenly lurched straight up into the air, up across my exposed neck and wiggled in the space between my ear and the back of my head. As it touched my skin I knew instantly what it was, even if it seemed impossible.




































Are you sure you want to see?

Yep, it was a snake. I resisted the urge to scream like a little girl and threw the bundle of branches with the trapped snake back into the bin. Of course my greatest and most instant fear was that it was a rattlesnake. Once I could put my glasses on and figured out that it wasn't, my heart rate quickly returned to normal. It didn't make any sense to me at all that there could be a snake here in the center of town. Fifteen years of experience informed me that there are no snakes in the center of Tucson. It was an exciting morning in the sunken garden.

My eyesight is so bad, I can't see anything within arm's reach very well at all. In retrospect, the space of time between picking up the bundle of sticks and throwing them down made me feel a bit like Mr. Magoo. There, that's my cartoon contribution.

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

Quote:
I might say yay! Really though, they might be great as long as the birds don't slide around on it too much. You definitely want to keep things dry too. And if they're free, why not try?

 

[Tracydr]

You have just put me in the worst mood! Ugh! When is it November?
I really want to move to Colorado but land is sooo expensive. Heck, I'm about ready to look at land in WY. I have to keep reminding myself what it was like when I was stationed at FE Warren AFB. 50MPH winds and -30 degrees. I have no idea what the windchill was, those were the actual temperatures sometimes.
Surely there is a happy medium somewhere? I was at Ft. Lewis for a year and I didn't mind it too much but can't talk my husband into it because his year there when he was an E-1 was awful. All he remembers of Washington was rain. I seem to remember a lot of scuba diving, seafood and cool weather, but, I was there in an El Nino year. I also wasn't an infantry grunt. Probably gave me a different perspective, since I was stuck inside the hospital doing my internship for about 120 hours a week.

Quote:

 

[pastrymama]

GalloHoly cow batman! I would have screamed and jumped up and down and given myself a heartattack! Glad you are ok.

 

[squeakyballs]

Gallo - what a pretty snake! I wonder if it was a pet? I'm not surprised there are snakes in the middle of town.

Did you have to change your underwear?

 

[constance]

Quote:
I WANT YOUR TOOLS

!!!!! So jealous. I was a custom woodworker/custom finisher before I went back to grad school. I can't do anything with a circular saw (they drive me nuts), but hey, give me a BIG cabinet table saw (I love Powermatic) and I am a happy camper. Swoon. I never did learn how to weld, and I really want to. Someday...

Anyway, I would not use sander dust or dust from table saws. It is too fine, will mat down and be a pain to deal with, and, based on my lungs, I think hard on the chickens respiratory system, too. The planer and even joiner shavings ought to be fine though. In the shop I was in, we set up a bypass system with some baffles so we could cut off the draw from the dust collector and have it only pull from what was currently in use. This may not work in a classroom setting, but just a thought.

 

[Tracydr]

Wow! Gallo, what kind of snake is that?I have a bunch of those city compost bins and I mistakenly filled them with largish branches which don't compost here in AZ since it's so dry. Now, after two years, I finally have a chipper and I need to get rid of those ugly bins. You've scared me into not wanting to empty them out! I was already a little creeped out, after emptying the first bin. I still have four more to go.
BTW, my parents live up near Desert Ridge, on the outskirts of Phoenix. They frequently see rattlesnake on the edge of the golf course and even in their from yard.