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Fat lighter......

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    • Fat lighter......

      ....fat wood, fat pine, etc. Call it what you will, but today I found the mother lode. I was surveying 2 contiguous pieces of property, one 38 acres and the other 5 acres. The 5 acre portion was transected by a powerline right of way into 2 acres in the front, planted in pine and 3 acres in the back, consisting of old growth hardwood. The back 3 acres contained the single largest concentration of fat lighter I have ever ran across. Especially odd was the fact that this area was 99% hardwoods. The hardwood has completely overtaken the pine in this area (the fat lighter is a pine by-product) as evidenced by the majority of the lighter stumps being still rooted in the ground and upright, many waist high. Also cool was several of the stumps had cuts where some of the lighter had been harvested way back when (long enough ago that the cut marks had grayed over to mach the rest of the stump). There were no less than 40 intact stumps on this 3 acre piece.

      I found one stump that was from a fallen tree so I grabbed it up and carried it out. I also found a smaller piece and brought it out.

      It's not uncommon here to run across older plats where the property corners were/are lighter knots. These things will simply not rot. Well, as I was dragging out the smaller piece toady I was following a cut line along the property boundary and the line was marked every 100 or so feet with squared off pieces of lighter driven into the ground. It was awesome. I have a couple of pictures of the 2 pieces I brought out and will take pictures of the stumps in this are to give you an idea.....it's unreal.
      If your Doctor is a tree, you're on acid.

    • Foresight wrote:

      Oh damn, I just noticed in the second picture that the small piece is laying on my badass hickory walking stick....I'll have to remedy that when I get out to the parking lot here in a couple of hours.
      I see it, just the handle...

      I had a bad ass hickory walking stick that me mum gave me one year...some bastard stole it outta the back of my truck...had many miles on that puppy.

    • I just cut mine as I need them. The best come from osage orange (bois d'arc, hedge apple and many other names for it). It's a lightweight wood that's as hard and durable as you could ever hope for considering it's weight. It's a midwestern tree, but I happened to stumble across one here in SC and the owner of the property had trimmed it back so I appropriated a piece.
      If your Doctor is a tree, you're on acid.

    • Foresight wrote:

      I just cut mine as I need them. The best come from osage orange (bois d'arc, hedge apple and many other names for it). It's a lightweight wood that's as hard and durable as you could ever hope for considering it's weight. It's a midwestern tree, but I happened to stumble across one here in SC and the owner of the property had trimmed it back so I appropriated a piece.
      We've got Bode ark round here, had a Dentist friend who made a Bow outta one, came out pretty good. Maybe when the apples come out this summer I'll cut me some, find em on the side of the road in hedge rows, lots a times they are being taken down by the state cause they are a dirty tree next to the roads.

    • TrafficJam wrote:

      That is cool. I have a stupid question...how do you recognize these? To me, it's just a dead stump.
      Don't need to know what it looks like girl... The smell is unmistakable... Wish they made perfume that smelled like it :P ... I would rip out stumps in FLA building Golf Course's with a Track Hoe( No socks, not Jackie Joyner Kersee :rolleyes: ) that were the size of old Vee Dubs...
      1 Fish, 2 Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish...

    • Toli wrote:

      TrafficJam wrote:

      That is cool. I have a stupid question...how do you recognize these? To me, it's just a dead stump.
      Don't need to know what it looks like girl... The smell is unmistakable... Wish they made perfume that smelled like it :P ... I would rip out stumps in FLA building Golf Course's with a Track Hoe( No socks, not Jackie Joyner Kersee :rolleyes: ) that were the size of old Vee Dubs...
      Did he just say crack hoe? :D

    • Toli wrote:

      TrafficJam wrote:

      That is cool. I have a stupid question...how do you recognize these? To me, it's just a dead stump.
      Don't need to know what it looks like girl... The smell is unmistakable... Wish they made perfume that smelled like it :P ... I would rip out stumps in FLA building Golf Course's with a Track Hoe( No socks, not Jackie Joyner Kersee :rolleyes: ) that were the size of old Vee Dubs...
      Thank you for that description, I understand exactly what you mean.
      Lost in the right direction.

    • Foresight wrote:

      I just cut mine as I need them. The best come from osage orange (bois d'arc, hedge apple and many other names for it). It's a lightweight wood that's as hard and durable as you could ever hope for considering it's weight. It's a midwestern tree, but I happened to stumble across one here in SC and the owner of the property had trimmed it back so I appropriated a piece.
      That stuff's pretty hard on a chain saw when it's dry..I've .made some nice knife handles with it...colorful.....Horse apples for fruit.
      I may grow old but I'll never grow up.

    • socks wrote:

      Foresight wrote:

      I just cut mine as I need them. The best come from osage orange (bois d'arc, hedge apple and many other names for it). It's a lightweight wood that's as hard and durable as you could ever hope for considering it's weight. It's a midwestern tree, but I happened to stumble across one here in SC and the owner of the property had trimmed it back so I appropriated a piece.
      We've got Bode ark round here, had a Dentist friend who made a Bow outta one, came out pretty good. Maybe when the apples come out this summer I'll cut me some, find em on the side of the road in hedge rows, lots a times they are being taken down by the state cause they are a dirty tree next to the roads.
      That's the name we go by down south...have no idea how it's spelled so I didn't want to try and look ignorant...any more than I have...sounds more like bodock from what my father called it, I spent most of a day as a kid watching a black ant/red ant war up in a huge bodock tree.
      I may grow old but I'll never grow up.