wolc123

I’m guessing more like 1.5 but I haven’t bought a piece of lumber since COVID. I did spend $20 at TSC for nails and lag bolts to finish the lean-to though. I still have a 5 gallon bucket or so of the old iron square nails, that were still in good shape, and I pulled out of those old barns.

The nice thing about metal buildings is that they are essentially maintenance free. I used to keep all of my “stuff” on a couple old timber-framed 36 x 46 x 16 barns that my great great grandad built in the 1880’s. I imagine that the Amish built wood barns of today are similar, but probably don’t use American chestnut as the primary material, like the old ones did. Another thing I don’t miss about those old barns, was all the dust that built up on everything stored inside because wind could blow right thru the gaps in the siding boards. A boat, stored inside thru the winter would have 1/16” of dust in it in the spring. Now, my boat comes out of my metal pole barn in the spring just as clean as it was when it went in in the fall. The wood does have a more comfortable “feel” inside though. I was able to recreate that, with shops and a loft, inside my new metal building using “free” materials recovered from the two old barns that I demo’d. Stockade is very thorough in protecting their stuff during transport. Each bundle of gray steel was protected by a same gauge sheet of green. I used those, and more recovered materials (post and beams, rafters, etc) to add a 7 x 25 lean -to woodshed on the back of the back porch.

Not sure what the cost would be today, but I’d guess about 1.5X. This Stockade Buildings (ships from Ohio) 36 x 50 x 12, with (2) 10 x 25 porches was $ 27k in 2018. I would have made the side porch the full 50 ft length, but it was to close to my old timber framed barn. When that leaning old barn fell over, it landed within 1/4” of the new pole barn’s 25 ft long side porch. The rubble in front in the picture is the old barn, after it fell. One thing I like about the Stockade building compared to some of the others, is the 10 ft truss spacing, which makes for lots of useful overhead storage space.

I see that you got a mixed bag of smallmouth and largemouth. Smallmouth are my favorite fish , mostly because I haven’t caught anything else that out pulls them, pound per pound. They seem to at least double the pull of a largemouth, in that respect. Did you notice that on this trip ? Even though they lack comparative pulling strength, I wish there were some largemouth in the small Adirondack lake where my in-laws live (who we will be visiting this Holliday weekend). I like to eat bass and I find the largemouth to be a little easier to clean and just a tad better tasting, than smallmouth.

I saved all of the lumber and beans that I could, from those two old 1880’s barns. I sold about a third of it, used about a third of it, and have the last third in reserve. Some of that is stacked up in my pole barn loft. I got all the extra hand-hewn posts and beams, and many of the sawed rafters stacked or leaning against walls under the pole barn’s back porch and woodshed lean-to. That lean to is entirely made of materials recovered from those old barns, except for the tin roofing. That was also “free” to me, because every bundle of gray steel used in my Stockade buildings pole barn was topped with a green sheet of the same gauge, to prevent handling damage. I used those “greens” to cover the lean-to. Some of the leftover 6” and 9” square hand-hewn beams, I now have stacked under there, are 16 ft long. If they are left outside over a winter, uncovered, they will turn to powder in a year. I had them covered with tarps until I moved them under the woodshed/porch. I have about (30) left under there. I haven’t charged much for the beams and boards that I’ve sold, mostly to friends. Now that I’ve got everything safely under cover, I’m in no hurry to sell more of it. I’ve taken quite a few good bucks, in the last few years, as I was hidden behind those American chestnut walls on my deer blinds.

Yes they are, I still have lots of that stacked up in the loft of my pole barn. It’s likely from virgin timber from the area, that was sawed up back in 1883 when my great great grandad built our old barns.

Definitely no “dead spot” for me. My wife and I went out and built up our frozen fish supply a little on Saturday. We added (3) quart-sized freezer packs of upper Niagara river smallmouth from (8) “keepers that were between 12-1/8” and 18-1/2” long. We still had (3) packs of St Lawrence river largemouth bass in there but those are only good for men over 50 like me to eat according to the advisories in the back of the DEC booklet. The Upper Niagara smallmouth are ok for women and children. I’ve also been very busy on firewood and working on tree stands with my free time.

I really like my Ryobi 18 volt cordless drill. Not so sure on the sawzall though. I used up the charge on both of my batteries while, working on tree stands yesterday. I had to cut the last few boards to length with my gas powered chainsaw. When I ran out of boards, back in the woods, I drove the truck back up to the barn and cut the rest that I needed using a “proper”, corded circular saw. Many years ago, I really got pushed about cordless tools, when I ran the batteries dead on (2) of my dad’s drills, while trying to drill a single hole for a lag bolt on a tree stand. I ended up finishing that hole with my grandfathers antique hand cranked bit and brace. The cordless drill technology has come a long way since then. I’ve even done ok, using them on an ice auger.

I would not put anything on the bucket. Just tilt it up a little and then lower it to lift the front tractor wheels slightly, as you back drag at 90 degrees across the ruts. Your tractor engine weight will act as ballast. Later, if you bring in some loose dirt, you can back drag across the ruts with the loader down in “float” position. On my JD, I get “float” position by pushing the control handle all the way forward. The manual for your tractor should explain how to get that.

Have you got a loaded on the tractor. If so, you ought to be able to back drag over the ruts, and close then up most of the way, then go scoop up some fresh dirt and fill them the rest of the way, then heap on a little extra dirt. After adding that additional dirt, use the loaded bucket again to back drag and level.

Do you have a camper or know anyone with one that you could borrow ? If so, place it on the upwind side of the areas where they are spreading and wait it out in there, until the conditions improve. That’s what I would do, in such a situation, if I was affected like that. It would be fun. I spent a few hot muggy nights in this camper, while it was in our barn last summer, because the AC in it worked much better than the one in our house. I sleep a lot better at 68 degrees, than I do in the mid 70’s, which was as cool as I could get it in the house on those muggy nights last summer. That old camper AC will get that little unit down close to freezing, if I set it in “high”, no matter how hot it gets outside.

I’ve taken a couple of deer, during light rains the last couple years, from under a tree umbrella. One, from 8 ft up in a tree blind, and the other while seated in a tree hammock chair at ground level. Each time, the wind was less than 10 mph. I’ve also taken a couple of other mature does, during heavy, wind driven rains, from inside a ground blind (truck/cap style with large overhang/visor). I can also remember killing a buck within 20 minutes after a heavy rain stopped. I was in my truck cap blind, until the rain stopped, when I moved up into a nearby tree stand. It seems to me that while deer may “hunker down” during real heave rains, they tend to make up for the down time by increased activity when it stops.

10 ft is my maximum upper limit, but I am most comfortable about 7 ft up.

Thanks for the reminder. I definitely have some work to do on the stands and blinds. Thats a bigger priority to me than turkey hunting. The only turkey I ever killed was from one of my deer hunting tree blinds in the fall. That one definitely needs some work. It is too narrow and it is difficult to get into. Im going to take care of those issues before I try and shoot another turkey out of it this spring. I’m also going to fix up a couple of my truck cap blinds here at our place during turkey season. One is currently in a good turkey spot but I need to move it into a better location prior to the early September antlerless gun season. I also need to add hinged overhead fold-out shutters over the (3) glass sliding windows on that. None of those would open easily last deer season when the temperature dropped below freezing. I will probably put that project off (and the move)until June because that freeze up won’t effect the turkey hunting. The other one here needs a plywood floor patch by the back entrance. I’ll carry that patch piece back during a turkey hunt and nail it down after. im also going to build a new tree blind on the front edge of my woods,where I cure you have a double ladder that I bought from a former site member here for $ 20. I am going to move that wide ladder stand over to my parents woods, near the back of my foodplot (which is going to get some serious rework this summer). That will give me a stand near the front and back of that long plot, giving me more versatility for wind direction. I also made a new foldaway seat for my “trailer park” ladder stand over there, near the back of my parents woods, which I may also move a hundred or so yards. I’ll move that during turkey season, to the spot where I seen my last tom turkey and also saw (2) antlerless deer on my last deer hunt on this year’s New Year’s Day afternoon. The problem with that location, is that all of the high ground at the back of the woods, is too close to the trailers to use guns. It will be “crossbow only” for both deer and turkeys. Had we not just had 8 consecutive days of rain, I could have probably got it more than 500 ft from the closest trailer. With all this rain, the swamp back there will be full for sure, and that will force me to within about 400 ft of the closest trailer (crossbow setback is 250 ft, gun is 500 per NY regs).

Happy Easter everybody. My old barn is down but He is Risen !!!

I’ve been wanting to get some deadfalls cleared over in my parent’s woods for the last few weeks, but the weather has not cooperated. I finally managed to open up a couple trails yesterday. It was cold and windy, my favorite kind of weather for cutting wood, so I barely work up a sweat. I only had a 16” bar on my Stihl (model MS280) and I was wishing for my 20” to deal with a big ash that fell across one of the main trails over there. I’ll be sure to bring that on my next trip. Cutting from both sides, I was able to remove enough of the logs to get my dad’s and my sister’s side x sides through the trail.

I think that my neighbor said his Ruger # 1 was around 12 pounds. Not sure what ammo he had, but he claimed it was suitable for elephant. We shot it from a bench and I can vividly recall how tame that the recoil felt, compared to all of my slug guns. i would think that an old fixed power scope, like this Weaver 1.5 on my Ithaca featherlight, would hold up very well on your .458. That little “featherweight” shotgun is a real shoulder pounder. I never noticed it while hunting, in the late fall and winter, but I never shoot it from a bench without a good recoil pad. My shoulder is thankful that I only shot my ML, during the early September antlerless deer season this year. Touching that Ithaca off, in just a t-shirt, would definitely cause some serious bruising.

My neighbor had a Ruger #1 in .458 Win mag. I shot it a few times, and I was surprised at how tame the recoil felt, from that heavy rifle. I’d say that it punched my shoulder roughly half as hard, as my hardest kicking gun, a 16 ga. Ithaca featherlight model 37 deerslayer shotgun. How does the weight of your .458 compare to a Ruger # 1 ?

That’s awesome, and it’s great to hear that she is thriving there. Thank her for her service. It’s looking like she might have some opportunities to put those Russian language skills to use in the not too distant future. We stopped at West Point, with our youngest daughter, on the way home from dropping our oldest off at a downstate college. It certainly was an impressive place, and a very scenic location on the river. We saw that they had some women’s sports programs, but no field-hockey (our youngest’s favorite). She got recruited by several colleges that had that, including St .John Fisher, where she ended up. No serving of her Country for her, so far anyhow. It’s nice to have her, just about an hour from home. Our eldest had enough of the downstate college, 6 hours away from home, after a semester and a half (thank goodness). She came back home, got a decent-paying job, and is contemplating the Navy. We were only “empty nesters” for 1/2 of a semester. Both of them are in Florida on spring break right now.

Unless you do it yourself, you really don’t know for certain how long it was aged before it was froze. My money is still on, that it wasn’t long enough to get past rigor mortis. Maybe the guy lost track of how long it was in there, or grabbed one from the wrong end of the rail by mistake. Maybe the temperature regulation got messed up and everything in the cooler froze solid.

I like the single-shot smoothbore shotgun in ML season idea. It might have put an extra deer in my freezer last year, during the Holliday ML season. I caught the tail end of the Christmas blizzard on the first day of that last year. A considerable amount of wind driven snow must have made it into my muzzle that morning, then melted down into the powder charge, when I brought the gun in the house at lunch time. That was the second mistake I made that day. I should have left the gun out in my unheated barn. I also should have covered the muzzle, when hunting in the wind driven snow, that morning. That evening, I suffered my first misfire with my in-line ML, saving the life of a nice sized broadside doe at 50 yards. My old, NY-arms 12 ga single shot smoothbore would have had no trouble getting the job done that day with a plastic-cased smokeless-powder slug. If such a law passes (and I don’t believe it ever will), I would only use that shotgun on rainy or snowy days.

It’s probably tough because it was frozen before it got past rigor-mortis. That’s a very common mistake with deer hunters, and a critical part of the process if you like your red meat tender. Several ways to fix that now: 1) Take the frozen meat to a processor and have them grind it for sausage , hot-dogs, etc. 2) Get a pressure cooker, thaw it out, chunk it up, and can it. To prevent future occurrence, age the carcasses before processing at 33 - 43 F for 5 days if 1.5 yr old, 7 days if 2.5 yr old, 10 days if older. An old refrigerator with the racks removed works perfect for that, if the outside temperature is too warm.

That may have been an issue 20 years ago, but no problem these days, thanks to cell phones (unless you are hunting a spot that don’t have reception). I only hunt by myself up at my in-laws place but my phone is always with me. My father in law can be in most places I hunt up there in minutes with his loader tractor or atv. I think his new tractor has a lift capacity of over 2000 pounds. He had to upgrade a couple years ago, to handle his new snowplow. If I was way back, where it was difficult to get an atv close for the drag, I would skin the bear first and drag just the hide out, leaving the head and paws attached. That would be the toughest (and most important) haul. Next, I would go back for the 20-40 pounds of edible meat on my second trip (assuming the bear weighs 200-400 pounds live). That will likely be my plan anyhow, unless the temperature is predicted to be below 40 degrees at the time of the kill and for the next several days. With bear in warm weather, it is very important to get the hide off fast and get the meat cool. I know for sure that my best chance of getting a bear will be as a “target of opportunity” while I am deer hunting during the northern zone early northern zone ML week. Global warming has made that week very warm, the last 10 years at least. That is surely not going to change anytime soon. Keep your knife sharp and you have nothing to worry about.

Certainly it is true that the vast majority of bears taken in NY are "targets of opportunity" that are harvested by deer hunters, who happen to be in the right place at the right time. The reasons for that are: #1) bears are mostly nocturnal. #2) baiting is not allowed in NY. I am a pure meat hunter, and that is the main reason that I never had much desire to hunt bears. The problem with bear meat is: #1) Less than 10% of their body weight is edible. All of the rest is non-edible guts, hide, bone, and fat. #2) Meat from bears that weigh much over 200 pounds field-dressed tastes bad. The math here just doesn't work out for me (as a pure meat hunter). Why should I waste much time and money in pursuit of less than 20 pounds of ok-tasting meat, or a little more bad-tasting meat ? The answer that question, is that my father in law would really like a bear rug. For that reason only, I have devoted some time and energy, over the last 20 years since marrying his daughter, in pursuit of one. The bear population is definitely on the rise where my in-laws live, up on the NW corner of the Adirondack park, not too far from fort Drum. While I have yet to see one, I had a close call up there last October, during the early ML week. We found fresh tracks that were made (at night) while I was there. They have also captured a few daytime trail cam photos, and neighbors have seen several out in the daylight. Bears have been my primary target up there, about every other year, over the long Thanksgiving weekend. On the "in-between" years, when I still have a buck tag because I haven't filled it at home in the southern zone on opening weekend, bucks are my primary target. If I ever do manage to get a bear up there, it might be killed with my 16 gauge side-by side shotgun, and a Remington "slugger". Grouse, are my "secondary" target on those "every other years", so I bring along some # 7-1/2 shot for those. I have patterned that double with the slugs, and it groups pretty good, out to about 60 yards. Shots further than that, in the the heavy cover up there, are unlikely anyhow. This was a couple years ago up there on Thanksgiving weekend. I had a couple slugs in the double and was watching a spot at sunrise “buck-tagless”, and hoping to see a bear. We had to come home a day early that year, because it got warm and there was a big “opening week” buck carcass hanging in our garage that I had to process before it spoiled (the victim of another 16 ga Remington slugger from a different gun):

The lack of any frozen ground this winter took out my winter firewood gathering. With my spare “free-time”, I’ve already exhausted my supply of bucktails, making jigs for bass fishing. I’m not sure if they will like coyote tail jigs, but that’s all I that I got left, so I’m going to give it a try: Maybe I can get a few more of those before that season closes at the end of March.