Found Dreaming

My ass is draggin'

I was cited a few weeks ago for fire clearance on my property so the last two weeks or more have pretty much been consumed by getting that taken care of. With a few acres of sagebrush this is more than a simple matter of pulling a few weeds or running the weed eater. I have never been cited in nearly two decade out here but I will admit the last five years or so the desert has been encroaching back.

Made a tool I call a weed popper. This is a 2" galvanized steel pipe with a 8" or so V cut into the end of it. This is used like spear fishing for the single large tap root of the plant. Once a good bit is achieved a 4 x 4 stands in as fulcrum for this lever and the offending brush is extricated from the earth. I actually bent this pipe using a cheater and standing on it so I made another using a heavy 2 1/2" pipe. Some of these bushes had roots pop up that were bigger than my arm.

Anyhow, I am done with that now and have orders backed up so it was back to the foundry today... hoping to caught back up once again by weeks end.

Could you poison the sagebrush Harry, was the brush getting too close to your house

Mike

You could kill it with poison but then you still have the dry vegetation there. Rules here are no non ornamental vegetation within 100' of any structure and with my outbuildings and such that is close to the whole property. Thats ok though because I really did need to get rid of it. Like I said the last five years or so I have neglected it and the desert was growing back in. As long as I keep at it I can just pull the drag a few times each year and they dont have a chance to grow back.

Sagebrush is a very dry and oily, woody bush and they go up like a match, where I am keeping a good clearance is important because a wildfire can move quickly across this ground. So I am certainly not complaining about having to have done it in fact kind of glad they gave me the push. This stuff covers all the properties around me as they are vacant parcels and having that defensible space on my own property is what will save my buns if a fire gets close. That and a hydrant I will be getting hooked up soon. I brought a couple home off jobs I have done in the past and have a couple hundred feet of 1 1/2" fire hose. I have fought at least half a dozen fires in this valley since we have been out here helping to protect neighbors homes, I dont want to have to count on a bunch of people showing up here so being able to lay down a lot of water and having clear ground between me and stuff that will burn is important.

The weed popper works great, just wears the hell out of you slinging that heavy pipe. Probably stacked out at least a few tons into 7 piles that will be burned after January 1st, we have a three month long burn season.

We have also neglected our yard for several years, this year we have been fixing that back up. Used to have huge BBQs here and the yard was really nice. I have had people walk into it and stop dead with a whoooaaa because of the stark contrast from the desert outside the fence. Anyhow, it has been a ton of work but starting to get back to the point where we really enjoy spending time in it and once we get it all back in shape it isnt a huge amount of work keeping it there.

My wife has been at me for a long time to clean our back yard up, in the phot is a spotted gum tree and they shed their bark all the time, and its a great fire starter, the bark a few weeks back was about 2 ft deep around the tree and with three schools in our area and kids being kids its a wonder it hasn't gone up in flames yet, but I have cleared most of it away now. She actually wants me to get rid of the tree all together, they can shed a branch at any time

Mike