Weight of the Average College Girlfriend
Sunday, October 16th, 2022 08:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snoozefestaudioRight at the top of this, I'm gonna apologize to Peter Wohlleben for the tongue in cheek remarks I made at his expense in the previous entry, becuase, since then, I've gotten through another whole book of his, and he's a wonderful man!
Yesterday, Saturday, I was out in the back yard with my coffee by 12:30PM, to work on the fallen Mulberry project.
It was a crisp, 56F, with good breezes, colored leaves in the canopy, and more leaves on the grass. A perfect October day.
With my big clippers & hand clippers, coffee & smokes, earphones & Wohlleben, I stood by the main brush pile, breaking down branches, for four solid hours!.. until they were all gone.
--<>--
It was monotonous work, and my hand began to cramp, as my hand clippers began to dull, and loosen, But Wollhaben got me through it, and I got to the end of his book, The Secret Wisdom of Nature*, Which I'd only started on Friday, at work!
--<>--
Hour five was when the fun began, with the chain saw!
I cut off the last of the leafy branches... of the horizontal part of the Mulberry... and dragged them over to the spot I'd just taken four hours to clear... for future processing.
And it was a bit of work, because these last, 1st-order branches, were all pretty hefty and unweildy.
but after that, I had two, long, naked limbs, reaching horizontally across in space... a few feet above the grass... each 12FT long & 8-12IN thick... to cut up with my chain saw.
Hunk, by fat hunk, I cut & let them drop.
And once they were all on the ground, I cut some of the longer hunks in two, and rolled all of them awkwardly onto my side of the property line.
--<>--
Each 3FT hunk weighed around 50 to 60LBS, and I picked up and carried the first two, over to my limb pile, but figured out pretty quick, that if I kept that up, I'd probably give myself a hernia, and throw my back out.
So, I grabbed my hand truck out of the van, and used that to wheel the rest over to their pile.
All of these hunks were far fatter than the hunks of limbs from weeks past... the ones that, in weeks past, I'd thought were pretty damn heavy already!
You don't really understand the sheer mass of a tree... until you have to lug small sections of it from one place to another!
My ballpark figure, for the entire weight of this Mullberry, the day it fell, is... a good six thousand pounds... or three tons!
Three tons of mass, that came from the ambient atmosphere, over the course of sixty years.
And that's just above the surface!
How massive must those roots be, to have held up this, three-ton structure, at such a low angle to the ground, against gravity, for all those years... WHILE, the heartwood at the base was rotting away?
------------{=0=}------------
So, as of Saturday evening, two of the three main limbs, and two thirds of the crown, are now processed and gone from the fall site.
That third main limb... again, as tall as a tree in it's own right, still stands vertically off the fallen trunk... and is now the main focus of the project!
It's a good 30FT tall, and leans about 20 Degrees over the neighbor's yard.
Cutting it at it's base is out of the question, because it would fall straight across the breadth of that neighbor's yard... potentially damaging another chainlink fence on the way down... and would force me to work on it in their yard... possibly well into next April!
However, I do not have an extension ladder (and can't afford one), so cannot try to trim it piecemeal as it stands. And that's always dangerous anyway, because you can't always predict how branches will swing and fall... and you or your ladder could get smacked, and fall.
No... this vertical limb MUST be rotated down to the ground, into my yard... so that I can dismantle and process it, same as I've done with the first two!
------------{=0=}------------
Today, my 16" bar & chain for my chainsaw was delivered, so I installed it to the tool and, unlike with the 20" bar, I was able to fully tighten the chain.
I tested it out on the main trunk, to the right of that vertical limb.
I still cannot just slice through the main trunk like butter, with this bar, but I can hack my way through, carving large wedges that can then be busted out with a pry bar.
I got more than halfway through the main trunk this way today, until I heard a telling snap from within the uncut portion.
It was getting ready to give!
Almost the whole trunk hovers a foot above the ground, being supported only by the fattest part of the overturned base, and two extreme limb remnants that slammed deep into the dirt upon impact, so... this cut through the trunk, will result in both halves falling down to rest on the ground.
I couldn't cut completely through today, because I don't know exactly how that section of trunk with the vertical limb will shift, after separation!
so, in short, I know I can get through the main trunk with this latest bar & chain... but before I can follow through, I need that rigging for the vertical limb in place!
------------{=0=}------------
Back upstairs at the computer, I double checked my calculations, and triple checked on Amazon for suitable rope and pulleys... within my price range.
I need at least 200FT of poly rope, 1/2IN thick. And I found a 300FT spool for $45.00.
There was nothing cheaper that would work, but the tensile load specs said it could handle this job.
I then found a 4-Pack of M50 pulleys, for $35.00. Four is what I need. These were big enough to feed the poly rope. And their load specs were more than suitable to the task.
So, $80.00 was the pricetag... which is quite painful right now, in my current financial curcumstances, but... winter is coming, and I want this done before the snow flies!
------------{=0=}------------
Unsure how to pay for it, I put them into my shopping cart, and proceeded to checkout, just to see what the final cost would be, with taxes & shipping.
And after taxes & shipping, it was gonna be $97.00!
And I thought, Dammit, I just don't have it!.. I don't have $100.00 to throw away on this shit, and I won't, for the foreseeable future!
But then I saw the banner at the top of the screen... "Get a $125.00 Amazon Gift Card if you're approved for an Amazon Business Prime Card!"
--<>--
Now, I do have a handyman business... even though it's on pause.
And, I do currently have a credit score of 811... which is insanely high... thanks to the fact that I was doing so well for so many years, and didn't really need any credit cards, and faithfully paid off a car, and continue to pay my current car on time.
And now I finally have some regular income, from the janitor gig, with which to service a credit card debt.
But the beauty of this deal, was that, I would not be charging my rope and pulleys TO this new card!
Amazon's GIFTING anybody who can get approved for this card, $125.00!
Why are they doing that? Well, it's a dragnet to snare the few people left in this economy who even CAN pass the impossibly high bar for this card.
And the gamble is, that it's worth giving each of these people $125.00 to get approved, because over the long run, with interest rates as high as they currently are, these people will funnel far more profit to Amazon than they would've if they'd just stayed within their means.
So I applied, and, because I'm 811, was instantly approved, and now have a card with a $2500.00 limit!.. which I DARE not use!.. because servicing that debt would suck me dry right now... BUT... it IS there in the future, if I'm making better money down the road.
None of that matters tonight, because all I wanted was the FREE $125.00 Gift Card, which I also got immediately!.. and... THAT'S HOW I GOT MY 300FT OF ROPE, AND FOUR M50 PULLEYS TONIGHT FOR FREE!
--<>--
This was a... Mom Level, stunt, of financial wizardry!.. not seen in this household since before she died, in 2015!
And as long as I DO NOT actually USE that Amazon Prime Business card for ANYTHING... I got away with it!
------------{=0=}------------
SO!.. knowing now that I can hack my way through the Mulberry trunk with my existing chainsaw, and it's three different lengths of blades...
And knowing that 300 feet of poly rope, and four M50 pulley blocks are coming next Monday...
I am now clear to proceed with the most critical phase of the tree removal, before October is out!
------------{=0=}------------
I will anchor the rope to the base of a tree by the back fence.
From there it will stretch up to Pulley 1, on the vertical limb.
From Pulley 1, the rope will reach across the yard to Pulley 2, which will be fastened to the base of an Ash tree.
From Pulley 2, the rope will go back across the yard to Pulley 3, on the vertical limb again.
From Pulley 3, the rope will go back across once more to Pulley 4, on the base of another Ash tree, and then...
there should be enough length to extend from there a good distance, which can either be pulled by me... or by my car, if need be... to rotate the vertical limb down into the yard, and low to the ground.
--<>--
Presuming that the dead weight of the vertical limb is 1000LBS... which I think is about right, each pulley will cut that weight in half.
Such is the mechanical advantage of simple machines.
Thus, with four pulleys, it will be like pulling only 250LBS... which is still quite heavy...
BUT!..
The limb itself is a lever, so depending on how high I can attach Pulleys 1 & 3 to it, I get an extra mechanical advantage, which should reduce it's effective weight to around 130LBS... or, the weight of the average college girlfriend!
--<>--
So, if calculations are correct, then I only have to pull that college girlfriend weight about five feet, before gravity starts assisting me!
The ground itself will resist with friction, but If I can rotate that vertical limb about 60 degrees... gravity will just pull the whole thing down onto my back lawn!
--<>--
Again, the rope has a tensile breaking point of like 2800LBS, and each pulley is rated to carry 1800LBS of load.
The anchor trees are all very tall and healthy, so... the weakest links will be the knots I myself tie, to hold the rigging together!
Presuming I can tie knots that hold under the level of stress we're talking about... at all five points in the rigging...
...
...this should be a cake walk.
------------{=0=}------------
The rope and pulley's won't arrive until next Monday, so... this won't go down until the 29th, at the earliest.
This coming Saturday, the 22nd I'll just be breaking down the new branches I cut off yesterday.
--<>--
As for tonight... I'm just doing my laundry and getting ready for another week at Grape Elementary School.
°¦}
* Secret Wisdom of Nature was a fascinating and entertaining read, comparing the ecosystem to a clock, with all of it's intricate little gears working together... that he he surmises, and I agree, we don't fully understand.
It offers a lot of insight into what we do understand, with a bit of caution about how, even the most well-intentioned efforts to help the ecosystem can, occasionally lead to unintended consequences.
His opionions about different types of intervention have changed over the years, such as feeding the birds in your yard in the winter... which he was originally against, but then gave in to, and named the birds his family had helped to survive.
He feels that nature has more ability to bounce back than we give it credit for, but agrees that certain destructive human practices need to end, and be rethought... while some interventional methods also need to be rethought.
We don't fully understand the mechanism... but for our own survival, we do need the mechanism to function properly. That's our challenge... and, as the most powerful species on the planet, our responsibility.
https://soundcloud.com/snoozefestaudio
Yesterday, Saturday, I was out in the back yard with my coffee by 12:30PM, to work on the fallen Mulberry project.
It was a crisp, 56F, with good breezes, colored leaves in the canopy, and more leaves on the grass. A perfect October day.
With my big clippers & hand clippers, coffee & smokes, earphones & Wohlleben, I stood by the main brush pile, breaking down branches, for four solid hours!.. until they were all gone.
It was monotonous work, and my hand began to cramp, as my hand clippers began to dull, and loosen, But Wollhaben got me through it, and I got to the end of his book, The Secret Wisdom of Nature*, Which I'd only started on Friday, at work!
Hour five was when the fun began, with the chain saw!
I cut off the last of the leafy branches... of the horizontal part of the Mulberry... and dragged them over to the spot I'd just taken four hours to clear... for future processing.
And it was a bit of work, because these last, 1st-order branches, were all pretty hefty and unweildy.
but after that, I had two, long, naked limbs, reaching horizontally across in space... a few feet above the grass... each 12FT long & 8-12IN thick... to cut up with my chain saw.
Hunk, by fat hunk, I cut & let them drop.
And once they were all on the ground, I cut some of the longer hunks in two, and rolled all of them awkwardly onto my side of the property line.
Each 3FT hunk weighed around 50 to 60LBS, and I picked up and carried the first two, over to my limb pile, but figured out pretty quick, that if I kept that up, I'd probably give myself a hernia, and throw my back out.
So, I grabbed my hand truck out of the van, and used that to wheel the rest over to their pile.
All of these hunks were far fatter than the hunks of limbs from weeks past... the ones that, in weeks past, I'd thought were pretty damn heavy already!
You don't really understand the sheer mass of a tree... until you have to lug small sections of it from one place to another!
My ballpark figure, for the entire weight of this Mullberry, the day it fell, is... a good six thousand pounds... or three tons!
Three tons of mass, that came from the ambient atmosphere, over the course of sixty years.
And that's just above the surface!
How massive must those roots be, to have held up this, three-ton structure, at such a low angle to the ground, against gravity, for all those years... WHILE, the heartwood at the base was rotting away?
So, as of Saturday evening, two of the three main limbs, and two thirds of the crown, are now processed and gone from the fall site.
That third main limb... again, as tall as a tree in it's own right, still stands vertically off the fallen trunk... and is now the main focus of the project!
It's a good 30FT tall, and leans about 20 Degrees over the neighbor's yard.
Cutting it at it's base is out of the question, because it would fall straight across the breadth of that neighbor's yard... potentially damaging another chainlink fence on the way down... and would force me to work on it in their yard... possibly well into next April!
However, I do not have an extension ladder (and can't afford one), so cannot try to trim it piecemeal as it stands. And that's always dangerous anyway, because you can't always predict how branches will swing and fall... and you or your ladder could get smacked, and fall.
No... this vertical limb MUST be rotated down to the ground, into my yard... so that I can dismantle and process it, same as I've done with the first two!
Today, my 16" bar & chain for my chainsaw was delivered, so I installed it to the tool and, unlike with the 20" bar, I was able to fully tighten the chain.
I tested it out on the main trunk, to the right of that vertical limb.
I still cannot just slice through the main trunk like butter, with this bar, but I can hack my way through, carving large wedges that can then be busted out with a pry bar.
I got more than halfway through the main trunk this way today, until I heard a telling snap from within the uncut portion.
It was getting ready to give!
Almost the whole trunk hovers a foot above the ground, being supported only by the fattest part of the overturned base, and two extreme limb remnants that slammed deep into the dirt upon impact, so... this cut through the trunk, will result in both halves falling down to rest on the ground.
I couldn't cut completely through today, because I don't know exactly how that section of trunk with the vertical limb will shift, after separation!
so, in short, I know I can get through the main trunk with this latest bar & chain... but before I can follow through, I need that rigging for the vertical limb in place!
Back upstairs at the computer, I double checked my calculations, and triple checked on Amazon for suitable rope and pulleys... within my price range.
I need at least 200FT of poly rope, 1/2IN thick. And I found a 300FT spool for $45.00.
There was nothing cheaper that would work, but the tensile load specs said it could handle this job.
I then found a 4-Pack of M50 pulleys, for $35.00. Four is what I need. These were big enough to feed the poly rope. And their load specs were more than suitable to the task.
So, $80.00 was the pricetag... which is quite painful right now, in my current financial curcumstances, but... winter is coming, and I want this done before the snow flies!
Unsure how to pay for it, I put them into my shopping cart, and proceeded to checkout, just to see what the final cost would be, with taxes & shipping.
And after taxes & shipping, it was gonna be $97.00!
And I thought, Dammit, I just don't have it!.. I don't have $100.00 to throw away on this shit, and I won't, for the foreseeable future!
But then I saw the banner at the top of the screen... "Get a $125.00 Amazon Gift Card if you're approved for an Amazon Business Prime Card!"
Now, I do have a handyman business... even though it's on pause.
And, I do currently have a credit score of 811... which is insanely high... thanks to the fact that I was doing so well for so many years, and didn't really need any credit cards, and faithfully paid off a car, and continue to pay my current car on time.
And now I finally have some regular income, from the janitor gig, with which to service a credit card debt.
But the beauty of this deal, was that, I would not be charging my rope and pulleys TO this new card!
Amazon's GIFTING anybody who can get approved for this card, $125.00!
Why are they doing that? Well, it's a dragnet to snare the few people left in this economy who even CAN pass the impossibly high bar for this card.
And the gamble is, that it's worth giving each of these people $125.00 to get approved, because over the long run, with interest rates as high as they currently are, these people will funnel far more profit to Amazon than they would've if they'd just stayed within their means.
So I applied, and, because I'm 811, was instantly approved, and now have a card with a $2500.00 limit!.. which I DARE not use!.. because servicing that debt would suck me dry right now... BUT... it IS there in the future, if I'm making better money down the road.
None of that matters tonight, because all I wanted was the FREE $125.00 Gift Card, which I also got immediately!.. and... THAT'S HOW I GOT MY 300FT OF ROPE, AND FOUR M50 PULLEYS TONIGHT FOR FREE!
This was a... Mom Level, stunt, of financial wizardry!.. not seen in this household since before she died, in 2015!
And as long as I DO NOT actually USE that Amazon Prime Business card for ANYTHING... I got away with it!
SO!.. knowing now that I can hack my way through the Mulberry trunk with my existing chainsaw, and it's three different lengths of blades...
And knowing that 300 feet of poly rope, and four M50 pulley blocks are coming next Monday...
I am now clear to proceed with the most critical phase of the tree removal, before October is out!
I will anchor the rope to the base of a tree by the back fence.
From there it will stretch up to Pulley 1, on the vertical limb.
From Pulley 1, the rope will reach across the yard to Pulley 2, which will be fastened to the base of an Ash tree.
From Pulley 2, the rope will go back across the yard to Pulley 3, on the vertical limb again.
From Pulley 3, the rope will go back across once more to Pulley 4, on the base of another Ash tree, and then...
there should be enough length to extend from there a good distance, which can either be pulled by me... or by my car, if need be... to rotate the vertical limb down into the yard, and low to the ground.
Presuming that the dead weight of the vertical limb is 1000LBS... which I think is about right, each pulley will cut that weight in half.
Such is the mechanical advantage of simple machines.
Thus, with four pulleys, it will be like pulling only 250LBS... which is still quite heavy...
BUT!..
The limb itself is a lever, so depending on how high I can attach Pulleys 1 & 3 to it, I get an extra mechanical advantage, which should reduce it's effective weight to around 130LBS... or, the weight of the average college girlfriend!
So, if calculations are correct, then I only have to pull that college girlfriend weight about five feet, before gravity starts assisting me!
The ground itself will resist with friction, but If I can rotate that vertical limb about 60 degrees... gravity will just pull the whole thing down onto my back lawn!
Again, the rope has a tensile breaking point of like 2800LBS, and each pulley is rated to carry 1800LBS of load.
The anchor trees are all very tall and healthy, so... the weakest links will be the knots I myself tie, to hold the rigging together!
Presuming I can tie knots that hold under the level of stress we're talking about... at all five points in the rigging...
...
...this should be a cake walk.
The rope and pulley's won't arrive until next Monday, so... this won't go down until the 29th, at the earliest.
This coming Saturday, the 22nd I'll just be breaking down the new branches I cut off yesterday.
As for tonight... I'm just doing my laundry and getting ready for another week at Grape Elementary School.
°¦}
* Secret Wisdom of Nature was a fascinating and entertaining read, comparing the ecosystem to a clock, with all of it's intricate little gears working together... that he he surmises, and I agree, we don't fully understand.
It offers a lot of insight into what we do understand, with a bit of caution about how, even the most well-intentioned efforts to help the ecosystem can, occasionally lead to unintended consequences.
His opionions about different types of intervention have changed over the years, such as feeding the birds in your yard in the winter... which he was originally against, but then gave in to, and named the birds his family had helped to survive.
He feels that nature has more ability to bounce back than we give it credit for, but agrees that certain destructive human practices need to end, and be rethought... while some interventional methods also need to be rethought.
We don't fully understand the mechanism... but for our own survival, we do need the mechanism to function properly. That's our challenge... and, as the most powerful species on the planet, our responsibility.
