Fred Morgan

One thing for sure, raking up the scythed grass and putting it around your fruit trees really is great. I prefer to think of my lawn as a producer of mulch...

For a while, I was cutting my grass with a scythe, which worked very well, but I discovered an easier way, sort of by accident. I ran out of pasture for our horses, so I put them in our lawn (which is more an orchard truthfully). Amazing results. Granted, I have to go around with a wheelbarrow and collect their "presents" but they tend to deposit those under the large trees - and this really works out well for my garden. They produce about a half a wheel barrow a day...

A bit of history, or so I am told, lawns originally started as a place for the knights horse to graze. Chargers were very valuable, so they sure didn't want them to go far, and it was a sign of wealth to have a lawn. Horses eat about twice as much as cows of roughly the same size, and their presents are a lot easier to handle.

Anyway, probably not what you are looking for - but just thought people might find it interesting.

One more thing to add that might make you perhaps rethink this.

If one continues to mature and remain open in their thinking and willing to change, there is a very high probability that your future self will consider your current self a douche-bag. So, you might wish to treat those you don't agree with more gently, or expect in the future to have some very harsh thoughts about your younger self.

For example, I know that my 21 year old self would have thought for sure I am a tree hugging liberal now. lol

I tend to find those who are so certain they are right, and anyone who doesn't agree with them are wrong, or a douche-bag, are either young, or not open to personal growth.

It isn't so much has having a different opinion that matters, but a lack of respect for the right for others to be wrong, including ourselves that makes a person an undesirable person to be around, and to discuss ideas with.

Having bought more than my share of equipment - the problem is that people assume they can use a piece of equipment because they can buy it, and start it. Honestly, unless you are going to use it A LOT, you are better of renting the equipment, with the operator. As your nightmare points out, it is easy, so easy, for something to go wrong, and then, hopefully, the least you will be out is money - too often, someone gets hurt, badly.

just my dos colones, only worth about 1/5 as much as two cents.

I think if one wishes to live simply, the first thing is to cut off listening to advertisements. lol One thing I have noticed is those who live back in the forest here in Costa Rica don't even have television - and are happy. Once a tv shows up, all of a sudden, more trappings of an industrialized life show up as well. As a species, we ten to be happy with food, clothing, shelter, till we start seeing others with much more.

I know for myself, I rarely want more than I have, until I travel to the "flesh pots", and then it takes a bit to get over it.

Having an affluent life style AND living in an intentional community may be at odds.

Just my opinion.

keith s elliott wrote:Dale...those are saplings, not trees! Hehehe! Just kidding...

Shrubbery... a sixty foot tall tree here is pretty short, on average, about 120 usually. Dale, I agree, you generally don't bother with a hinge on smaller wood. We had to drop a 3 year acacia that sprouted up in my garden area - about six inches in diameter, hardness of maple, if not more. a worker took it down with a machete..., but it was at least 80 feet tall.

Keith your point regarding tree type is very important, there are some trees here in Costa Rica that are very "brittle" so you have to be very careful when dropping, since the hinge isn't going to work very well.

When I was up north, I used to cut wood for firewood, you get pretty good dropping trees after a while, since I would go into tree farms and thin out the weed trees. Of course, the farmer isn't going to be too happy if you damage a good tree in the process.

Hi Keith, I dropped it complete, limbs and all. I had nothing to climb with, now, I have everything, so now I would go up top and de-limb it first, if I had an option.

What really makes it fall correct is a properly cut hinge, just like a door. I can usually nail within a foot where I am aiming the top of the tree. But, impressive. I once had to drop a large walnut tree between power lines - not fun at all. It was huge and so I had to use 3 wedges just to be sure. The funny thing is I contacted the power company and they wanted nothing to do with it, they wanted to wait till it fell over - I wanted the wood.

One other thing which is interesting is that sometimes you can tell that a tree is starting to develop a hole, because the base is much larger than normal.