tamarack

The income difference between the US 1% and the other 99% is obscene, and comparing it to the poorest half is even worse. However, that last paragraph demonstrates "innumeracy"* - inept and/or deceptive use of numbers. The poorest half represents 165 million Americans and perhaps 70 million (a guess) or so wage earners. A Google search shows 614 US billionaires as of last October. Those fat cats' income has gone up 9 times as fast as incomes for the lower 50% but "90% of the pie" is a ridiculous claim. * "Innumeracy" is the name of book sent to me some years back by my son, who knows I like to fiddle with numbers and would understand how other such fiddlers misuse arithmetic.

About the same fraction the loggers get here. However, Wally World is apparently charging more for flour there than Hannaford is here. we get 5 lb King Arthur unbleached for about $4 and the bigger producers like Pillsbury and Gold Medal are likely 10-20% cheaper. Of course, even at those retail prices your uncle would be getting less than 25% for his wheat.

Subjectively, the windy days have been far abundant than average. I noted their effect - not a good one - on my woodlot in the April thread.

Hickory and white oak are generally in the same heat value class as hophornbeam, as is Osage orange, which rarely exceeds 20' in height. Black locust is up there as well. The only hickories within 70 miles of here are some planted shagbarks about 4 miles to my southeast. Most northerly natural occurrence in Maine is along Rt 1 in Woolwich, across the Kennebec from Bath.

Reminded me of a 20+ years ago article on weird lawsuit results. One on the list was a guy who put his RV on cruise control then went back to the galley to fix his breakfast. Winnebago was dinged for a huge award, including a new RV. I bought an 8foot pine 1x6 at lowes on Saturday for a shelf in my work shop. Its was a decent grade but still a basic 1x6. $11.57 That's $2.89 per board foot, and from your description it was a #2 grade, relatively small red* knots. Best sawmill-delivered price I found around here for #2 logs was $0.40, or 14% of that price Selects get more, up to $600, but that's till only 21% and selects generally have 50%+ clear, knot-free lumber which might cost twice the #2 boards. Loggers and landowners aren't getting much if anything from the huge lumber prices, but when those prices crash it's inevitable those guys will be asked to take a cut. * Red knots are formed from still-living branches and don't fall out of the board. Black knots, formed from dead branches, are loose and sometimes depart from the piece, and are allowed in #4 (and below) boards.

Very best is hophornbeam (aka ironwood), a relatively small tree usually beneath the main crown canopy. (In NNJ "ironwood" was used for an even smaller tree of several other names - blue beech, musclewood. Hophornbeam was almost unknown there, as blue beech is almost unknown this far north.) After HH comes red oak, sugar maple and beech, with yellow birch and white ash a tic behind, the latter being the finest of all woods to burn when still green. "Ash wood green or ash wood dry, a king shall warm his slippers by." The very opposite is balsam poplar, as one Allagash woodsman noted, "You couldn't afford the oil it would take to burn [green] balm-o-Gilead!" A co-worker when I lived in Fort Kent wished to learn the age of the BPs in his dooryard, so drilled one with an increment borer, a small brace-and-bit with hollow bit so a small tube of wood could be extracted and rings counted. He pulled out the extractor and water ran out of the hole for a couple minutes. (Fresh-cut fir isn't much better.) Entertaining 12z GFS, 72 hours of near-constant RA totaling a bit more than 0.8" - NNE spring at its finest.

Nearly all balsam fir - high water content and low heat value even when dry, and most is far beyond where I can lug it to the road. Maybe burn the nearby stuff next September. Fir is the most vulnerable species during leaf-off, aspen when leaves are out. I don't think today's wind will bring down any more.

Not a drop from this last system and another windy day today. The woodlot has lost more trees from wind this cold season than in any of the other 22 years here. Not many wildfires in past years around this area, but today's wind and tomorrow's miniscule RH ups the danger. Glad it's not on the weekend when folks will be raking and burning.

Back here after the Pittston Farm trip. Most snow we saw looked like 8"+ on high ground a few miles south of Jackman. Had a brief white-out there (vis <50') as a gust emptied some treetops. Hit a few minutes of S+ on Rt 15 heading toward Rockwood, then switched to logging roads, which were snow-covered with a 2-track from earlier (sparse) traffic - fun drive in our 2WD 15-passenger van. Got to Pittston Farm at 4 PM, about 6" with S- and temp was 29 and their 2 windmills (towers ~100') sounded like a heavy-lift helicopter when the wind hit. Low 20s Friday morning with winds like Thurs, cloudy all day with some S- in the AM, high of 48. Only got down to 40 Sat morning, about 60 when we headed home at 1 PM, snow all gone except on some shaded north slopes, gravel roads dry other than the occasional mudhole, and they weren't as slimy as on Thurs afternoon. The fields are usually covered with geese when we're there in late April but saw none there - heard a flock pre-dawn Sat and saw a lone bird in the river (South Branch Penobscot). Good times, had to be careful eating there as the food is so good.

Forecast for Pittston Farm, where our crew is going for a men's retreat, this afternoon thru Saturday noon. Could be worse - Fort Kent, 100 mils farther northeast, is expecting 2-4 today and 1-3 tonight, atop whatever fell last night. Nice late April wx. Today: Snow showers. High near 33. West wind 10 to 15 mph, with gusts as high as 30 mph. Chance of precipitation is 80%. Total daytime snow accumulation of less than one inch possible. Tonight: A 30 percent chance of snow showers before 4am. Cloudy, then gradually becoming partly cloudy, with a low around 25. West wind around 15 mph, with gusts as high as 30 mph. Friday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 51. West wind around 15 mph, with gusts as high as 30 mph. Friday night: Mostly clear, with a low around 33. West wind 5 to 10 mph. Saturday: Sunny, with a high near 58. West wind 5 to 10 mph.

Nice, looks like 3"+. In town is just over 1500' evel while Saddleback base is near 2000'. I'd guess this place is closer to the latter (in elev.) RA+ last 10 minutes with one distant but long rumble of thunder that put our dog under the computer desk where I'm sitting. She's probably still a bit shell-shocked at the very close strike late last month. That one came after a couple distant rumbles.

Their shortest is significantly lower than here but the longest, not so much (top 3 only, short POR), with winter's total: 11/25/08 to 3/11/09*: 106 101.4" *Earliest last measurable (17 days after the biggest snowfall and tallest pack of our 23 winters.) 11/17/98 to 3/22/99: 125 79.2 12/7/06* to 4/17/07: 131 95.3 *Latest 1st measurable (Earliest was 10/25/05.) 11/1/01 to 5/14/02*: 195 72.5" 11/8/19 to 5/9/20: 183 85.1" *Latest last measurable 10/31/10 to 4/20/11: 171 100.5" Average period: 155.2 Median: 156.5 Avg. SN shortest: 92.0" Avg. SN longest: 86.0"

Did our "install" late last fall - heat pump was rarely used this winter but will take care of our AC needs this summer.

Jim Fixx, author of "Running", which helped trigger the start of a running craze some 40+ years ago, was out for a run when his heart quit, permanently - age mid-50s.

Very true, but folks less active than you need to remember that beer has calories (something like 10 per ounce, less for lights), and far more from carbs than from alcohol. There's a reason it's sometimes called "liquid bread" in Germany. (And everyone's metabolism slows with age, some more quickly than others.)

Current forecast for Clayton Lake is 5-10" thru tomorrow night. Only 3-6" at Pittston Farm where we'll be going tomorrow afternoon thru Saturday noon. It's at about 1100' but we'll be at 1300-1500 on the way in.

Brownest salmon I've ever seen. Seems early for kyped jaws, too, but maybe that's an effect of their southerly locale, or the fact that Sebago is one of the only 4 Maine waters where they are native.

Alewives are running. (Not yet up here.) Prime lobster bait, also loved by stripers.

Typical hold-it-close-to-camera pic but still looks like a 20"+ brownie. My canoe is still under than back porch, will probably not float it until mid May.

Maine regs would've been a lot different had the pandemic arrived during the previous administration. (For better or worse)

Would be a nasty drive to Pittston Farm, 10 miles west from the north end of Moosehead, Thursday afternoon (Men's retreat Thurs-Sat) if that verifies. For once I'm rooting against snow.

The 4 Maine sites averaging 70% of norms, and without CAR it's only 56%. Have to go below the Mason-Dixon line to find lower percentages.

Was the season's biggest snowfall and the ugliest 10"+ event I ever hope to see - 10.7" from 2.67" LE, mashed potatoes that splattered upon landing and wouldn't stay on the branches (fortunately) and it was back and forth with 1.14" of 33-34° RA on NE winds while NYC had its 21" snowicane. Snowblower was broken and moving that slop with the scoop, with an unfrozen driveway beneath to prevent easy sliding, was far more difficult than the 24.5" that fell about 370 days earlier. (Of course, if I'd known how warm March would be - 10° AN through 3/21 - would've been smarter to just leave the stuff alone.)

If some single-leader growth is your goal, I'd suggest pinching off all but the best-looking bud, probably the one on the left in your pic. Otherwise the tree is likely to have 3-4 separate leaders. Some folks would prefer that look, similar to a multi-weeviled "cabbage" pine.

Elevational to the extreme. Farmington co-op an my place each got ~10" from that event at about 400' elev (co-op over, MBY under) while the Temple cocorahs obs 6 miles west of the co-op and at 1220' recorded 26.4". Latitude helped a bit - highest co-op total I saw was 30" at Jackman, about the same elev as Temple. Then there were the 2 kids (HS or college age, can't recall) who thought they would try the "glades" on the back side of Sugarloaf. It's dense forest with lots of fir and spruce of all sizes, totally unskiable and they ended up neck deep and calling for help. Parents were billed for the rescue.