Ch.19
Lee’s
New Idea
They awoke the next morning and Ann decided
to take a few days and just get caught up on cleaning around the house while
lee was busy carving and doing his thing. Ann felt as if she needed a new
project and would spend some time on the internet looking for something to get
into next. In the mean time it was refining the itinerary for their trip to the
Sequoias .
Lee felt as if had something pressing he
needed to do, there was still something missing he needed to take with him to
see the sequoias .he still needed some
way to send a throw a shot bag 130 ft. into the air with some degree of
accuracy. Lee considered a couple of options and one was using a crossbow with
fishing line attached to the arrow which would allow you to shoot over the
limb. Hopefully the arrow would be retrieved and then you could pull a rope
into the tree with the fishing line. Once a climbing rope was established then
you could pull the second line in if you want with the first line pulled in.
Next option was to try and throw a bag
high enough to get over a limb but even if a person was at peak physical health
this may take a while and expend a lot of energy trying to get the shot bag
over the limb. A shot bag reminds one of those little bags one uses to play corn
hole with. This is a game Lee thought must have originated in a prison
somewhere . Today's generation of youngsters must have never heard of corn
holing, because when we were kids as it
sure had a whole different meaning back
then as it referred to anal sex between 2 consenting adults .otherwise if non
consenting then it was rape anyhow back to the corn holing. Now it means throwing corn bags threw a hole.
Well both have to do with stuffing a hole and the similarities exist and surely wouldn't be a game that my kids
would play had I had any . I have seen them playing this at family and church gatherings;
they even have competitions where I guess you see how many times you stuff the
hole. Just didn't seem right to me, but then life changes meaning of things and
I am sure the naïve thinking of church groups sees no problem with stuffing
holes . In fact the catholic priests have been doing it for years to young
altar boys without batting an eyelash.
But let’s say if you had one of these
bags and it was shaped like the inside of a plastic pipe and again attached to
a stout line and when air pressure was applied to an air chamber at the base
and then instantly released the bag would shoot out of the cylinder flying the
through the air dragging the line with it. A small 12 volt air compressor could
provide the air pressure . The same solar panel and batteries for the winch
could then provide the power for the air compressor. If this was set up at the
base and angled at a sharp angle one could determine how much air pressure was
needed to reach the limb you were going for. It would also need a stand to hold the pipe firmly and to aid in sighting
in the limb you aiming for . this could be no larger than a 2 inch piece of
plastic pipe along with the air chamber could be broke down into a couple of pieces
and stuffed into the backpacks . Once in the tree other limbs could easily be
reached by simply tossing the bags and pulling new lines then moving the ropes.
Lee likened it to a those pumpkin shooters
one might have seen on TV launching pumpkins 300 ft. or more. Same thing only
using shot bags, as Shot bags are usually filled with lead and are smooth so
they are less apt to hang in trees but
heavy enough if they are suspended over a tree limb , a little shake will
usually dislodge them and then they will fall back to the ground where the fishing
line would be attached to the climbing line and pulled back over the limb the
fishing line was just suspended over. Lee
searched the internet and found a tennis ball launcher that could be used for
the same thing and was compact in design. He sent me the pictures he was able
to retrieve off the internet and asked me if I thought it might work, I looked
the pictures over and realized that fishing sinker lead could be used in the
tennis balls and a line could easily be attached by drilling into the ball when
you added the weight, or one could use epoxy to fill the balls but this should
definitely work and the bright green balls would show up good against the
forest line so aiming could be easier.an additional gun sight and fishing line
reel would be handy to have to retrieve balls. Lee just needed to build one and see just how
well it worked if nothing else it would be fun for playing with Susie. It would give new meaning
to playing fetch with Susie. And a great safe way to chase kids and critters
out of your yard, but looked like fun to me. I told him to go ahead in the
email I sent to him.
These are the pictures and a diagram he sent
me of the launcher he intended to build. You can see how compact it is and even
though this plastic doesn't look to strong, it is capable of withstanding up to
150 lbs. of pressure. In comparison, your car tires only run on 32 lbs. of pressure,
so you may never have to worry about it blowing up in your face. It was perfect
as you could easily pack it in the back pack and probably only weighed about 10
lbs. at the most. The batteries and the solar panels and compressor and
climbing ropes and gear would all weigh in around 100 lbs., and this would be
shared 60lbs. for Lee and 40lbs. for Ann as they had to pack all their equipment
into the tree they were going to climb. They
doubted that the forest rangers would
allow them to get that close with the old V.W. van to allow them to climb in
tree ‘s they shouldn't be climbing in anyhow.
The cross bow
works well but has to much power and could possibly hurt a tree if the arrow
was fired into a limb accidentally. This launcher thing was non harmless.
Lee only wanted
to feel what is like to climb a massive tree like a sequoia, not harm one
little bit of bit of it at all. Climbing wouldn't hurt it, as long as he had
everything well thought out. Lee was
trying to do that. Going over every detail in his mind, imagining every possible
scenario so they would be safe was the most important thing by far. Getting
arrested for climbing these giants if that happened to be would be a badge of honor Lee
would proudly wear the rest of his life. If this was the worse Ann could ever
get into then he would be glad to drag her to jail with him.
Lee looked around
his new shop and realized it was getting as cluttered as his last one, and now will
be getting even more cluttered as he set to work on the tennis ball launcher he
found on the internet. Ann sent lee a text and asked if he had plans for lunch
and could she bring something by the shop if he liked. Lee was on a mission now
to build a tennis ball launcher , damn the torpedoes , full speed ahead as he texted
Ann back with that she quizzed herself with his text and assumed he meant yes
when he said full speed ahead and so she texted back ‘ok cu later, me loveu.’
Lee laughed and knew what that meant. He started to get busy.
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