Prepping for Tree Felling

I spent part of the day hauling logging cables around the farm, laying them out and trying to get the right lengths setup. I'm lucky to have had them left on the property when we bought it and I have used them quite a bit over the years. Between dragging logs and directing the falling trees when I cut them down they have been ultra handy.

These are the 3 trees that need to come down. The smaller one is leaning funny and I will need to get it out of the way first. The 2 taller trees will be falling towards where I was standing taking the picture. I have a 15 foot wide window with which to drop them so I will be climbing the trees a bit to get the cinch placed up a ways so i can use the come alongs to tighten the wire and put tension on the tree to fall where I want it. My preference is to be safer than sorry when dropping trees near buildings.

I got the new chain on the saw, gassed it up, filled the bar oil, and am ready to go for today.

I had a fire in the pit most of the day and earlier I pulled steaks from the freezer to thaw. I cooked them up for dinner and to save a couple to slice into nice strips to put into the freeze drier today.

The tenth load run through the unit came out around 7:30 pm.

The larger shreds of cheddar are incredible and the potatoes came out super good and tasty.

The tomatoes are crazy good and I like them WAY better than sun dried. The wedges had some that weren't fully dried but no problem since they are getting eaten fast. The cauliflower is great and weighs more than the broccoli but still has a styrofoam texture. The pineapple needed a bit more time so it went in for another couple hours. By about 10:00 pm they were done and I pulled them off the tray and let the machine defrost overnight.

Today I am going to be cutting down at least one tree, putting the next load of food into the freeze dryer, The ARISS SSTV is supposed to be going from the ISS and I am trying to receive the image with my RTL-SDR and discone antenna. I'm hoping the antenna will work to get the signal. I have until the 31st though to get it figured out.