An oak kicks my butt, and a flowering tree attracts many wild pollinators.

In which Hal and MM get consecutive license plates and almost consecutive driver's licenses; the sun comes out,  and the rain; Hal gets his butt kicked by some huge oak rounds, and the last alder log is sectioned and made into half-rounds for splitting, and Hal relocates the fast come-along.

The butt-kicking:
The oak sections have been waiting by the side of the road ever since that day last week when we decided that the dump cart wasn't strong enough to carry them.  I had made some preparations- ordering some log tongs and bolting a 2x12 across the front of the truck bed to use an an anchor point for a come-along to winch them onboard, or a rope and pulley.  I backed the truck down the creekside road to avoid having to turn around, and put down the 10 foot 2x12 ramp, and connected up the slow (÷2) come along. I started with the largest- I figured once I had that down everything else would be easy.

Except that the round kept pushing the end of the ramp up instead of sliding up, and the come along was excruciatingly slow.  The rope pulley was easy to rig but I couldn't budge the log. Eventually I used the come along together with a 5/8 manila rope rigged into a taut-line hitch, which allowed me to take a bight out of the rope when the come along had drawn its full 4-foot range.  (I had looked and looked again to find the 1x come along, but with no success.) The 2x come along configuration was too slow and dead easy to pull; I have two come alongs, so as not to have to keep reconfiguring and possibly losing parts.  In the end I did get the round about 1/3 of the way up the ramp, but then it slid off to the side repeatedly.

In the end I gave it a rest.  Lessons learned: sloppy thinking did not pay off.  Need some way to keep the log on track while being pulled up the ramp.  The ramp needs a stop added to prevent sliding into the truck when an object is being pulled.  I'm considering an a-frame arrangement anchored and pivoting just behind the wheel wells to lift the round without a ramp.  I'm thinking that a piece of steel angle across the bottom side of the ramp where it passes over the tailgate would prevent sliding.  And I'm thinking that I'd be better off bringing chainsaw, sledge, maul and wedge to the road and cutting up the rounds into manageable pieces to load on the truck.

Getting some splitting done:
Fueled by frustration I sawed up the last remaining log at the woodshed- 14" diameter by six feet long, which I cut into 5 lengths and split in halves for the power splitter later on.  Then I loaded the chainsaw, oil, gas, wedge, maul, and sledge hammer into the garden cart for my next expedition to get the oak rounds at the creek overpass.

Consecutive license plates:
But before all this happened, we had our morning excursion.  In order to register our cars we had to have pink slips from California DMV, and that detail somehow slipped our notice when we made our final car payments; getting the paperwork straightened out was MM's doing and finally the day arrived last week when the titles arrived in the mail.  Today we made time in the morning t go down to the DMV and register our cars and get Oregon driver's licenses.  We got through the DMV with a minimum of fuss, taking written tests and presenting our ID, getting our VINs verified, etc.  When the smoke cleared we had driver's licenses one number apart and consecutive license plates.  Something not many couples can say.  So that was today's treat.

But wait! another treat:

There used to be a bee hive right in the driveway, in a hollow oak: the seller had it removed, presumably because it was dying. As it happened they were taking down the tree on the day we first came to view the property. That oak tree is the same whose wood was giving me fits where they dumped it by the bank of the creek. Some of the hollow pieces still had honeycomb inside. So the area lost the services of the bee hive that day. This afternoon, the decorative front yard apple tree, jammed with flowers and blazing in the sunlight, was loaded with all kinds of pollinators like hover flies, visiting the flowers, but not domestic bees.  Showing that there is resiliency in nature.  I was happy to be giving these unsung creatures a feast for once. And when the sun had been shining directly on the flowers  few minutes, the blooms began to give off their perfume, sweet and evocative.

Post Script: After I didn't need it, I found the 1x come along stashed behind the seat in Big Blue, in case of need. When this happens, I usually leave it there rather than move it, so that I don't have to find it again.