The box around the can was a bit grease stained. That seemed odd, but who knows where such grease comes from. The expiration date was for next week.
The can itself was a bit bowed outward. Why did I open it, despite all my horrible canning experiences two years ago? I DON'T KNOW! What was I thinking?
A geyser of spoiled anchovy-flavored olive oil shot out of the little can when I popped the top. A splash ended up on the top of my scalp, where I could feel it settling down. Up my arms, all over my hands, a splash by my waist.
That was incredibly disgusting. But at least I got a good title out of it! And very little food was spoiled, and nothing else that I could tell—amazing, for how much of me was covered.
In less disgusting news, we had a nice rain overnight. The weather was supposed to turn sunny today, but everything felt damp. Phil could, perhaps, have laid blocks, but since he would have to do a lot of difficult lifting to finish the corner, the idea of doing that in slippery conditions didn't appeal.
So he spent all day sawing lumber for our friend. It was a good day of work, and he made good progress, but it got off to a rocky start.
First, he had to load this 16' long, 18" diameter oak onto the mill. He had a new idea about how to do so, but the idea didn't work very well. It actually tipped the mill over. Remove incredibly big log, hoist the mill upright, then reset all the leveling wood supports.
And, after all that back-breaking effort, he was just back where he had started.
I think it took about two hours to get that one log into position, ready to saw. The sawing, too, was not easy with such a heavy log: the mill would scootch over, almost falling off the wood supports.
Happily, because of what Phil learned with the first log, the second, almost as large, log took much less time to load and saw. And Phil finally was able to move all the large logs off the trailer. Thus, instead of sawing a board, stacking it next to the mill, then moving the board onto the tractor tines and driving it over to the trailer and unloading it there (very inefficient), Phil could saw a board, put it on the tractor tines, and drive it over and unload. The less materials handling, the better.
The first two logs Phil stacked to the side (he was unsure how to off load the 16' trees). Here he is stacking the boards on the tractor tines, moving them over to the trailer.
I am thankful we have such an ideal work area: the "parking lot" between the road and our metal building is flat, and with the driveway and the 25' setback before the orchard begins, we have a perfect mill space, even on the ridge, so it drains quickly. We had first thought to set up the mill downslope from the metal building, but, as Phil thought about the weight of the logs, he figures he would have tipped the tractor.
With the lumber all neatly stickered (little wood shims put between lumber to keep it drying out) and carefully stacked, the trailer looks very nice.
And, best of all, the day passed without anything breaking! So Phil really did get to work from about 8:30 until after 5:30 with only a short lunch break, working the whole time. It feels like we haven't had many days like that, so I am grateful for this one.
One of the nice extras of sawyering is the large pile of sawdust. The bits of bark and oddly shaped extras will be a cleanup challenge (if a log is curved, there can be a good amount of waste in finding a solid plane): perhaps some we can chip, almost exactly where we need it.
So, no new progress on the underground storage, but I did take a photo of all that Phil finished on Saturday.
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