Christmas Gifts with Hamm's Arbor Care

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Eight twenty three thirteen ten WI b A and ask
the experts. Joined this morning by Kevin Ham. He is
a master arborous with hams Arborcare the website hamsarborcare dot com.
That's h A m ms arborcare dot com. There's tell
a number eight sixty six five nine six five three
nine six. That's eight six six five nine six five

(00:24):
three nine six. Speaking of websites, I mentioned Hamsarborcare dot com.
If you haven't been a game of trees dot com,
today is the day to head over there. And the
reason Kevin is today is the last day for orders
to be delivered before Christmas, isn't it. By the way,
good morning.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
According to the United States Post Office, perfect so yes,
good morning John. Yes we're we're We sent out some
orders yesterday and Sophie was in formed by the Post Office.
There's a little sign up there. Hey, tomorrow's the last day,

(01:05):
so you could still get it now locally here. Maybe
you get them fairly efficiently, I don't know, but at
any rate, yes, they're a great stocking stuffer. The the
biochart Bodybarn shampoo.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
Smells great, Yeah, cleans.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
Great, squestering carbon what more can you ask for?

Speaker 1 (01:26):
It's it's it's everything and more. And you've got a
great special online as well, and folks can check that
out gameoftrees dot com. That's gameoftrees dot com, Order to
Day again, get the get those delivered and time for Christmas.
And the website gameoftrees dot com wildly popular by the way.
Everybody that I know, including myself that have used it,

(01:49):
I love it for all the benefits we've talked about.
And it's also very cool to utilize something you know
is a nice local product and local business. Speaking of
local products and local businesses, obviously you are a local
business and you create other local products as well, used
of course in the biochar soul, but you make quite
a bit of biochar and they are for folks that

(02:11):
know' let's real quick, it's think it's been a bit
since we've talked about biochar. What exactly does that do
for your soil and for your trees?

Speaker 2 (02:18):
Yeah, so we're you know, anybody that has any idea
of what tree services do. We generate chips. We have
a large capacity chipper. We can jump up to a
nineteen inch log and so we make a lot of chips. Well,
one of the things that does not get utilized very
much is our pine logs. You know, if we have

(02:42):
a millable log, we try to get the wood to
its best end. That's the general rule. So if if
we've got something that can be oftentimes we're not coming
across pristine high value logs, but anything that is straight
enough to be a saw log of any type we
get to the sawmill. Uh, and then our pine logs.

(03:05):
You know, nobody wants. You know, dimensional lumber is so
easy just to go buy. We we had a bunch
of dimensional lumber milled up and I'm I'm working with
some of it today making some pallets for our our
outdoor boilers. But at any rate, pine makes the best

(03:26):
activated charcoal for you know, agricultural or plant growing purposes
because it's more porous. You know, the hard wood makes
good like lump charcoal for your grill because it's it's
more dense and so you get a longer burn on

(03:48):
your on your charcoal coals. But pine is best for
this type of egg product. And so in our chips,
we we we grind up. We just made a dry
bend for our pine chips for this purpose. For having
dry chips because your feedstock, as we call it. We're

(04:09):
putting these chips into a a oxygen starved container and
then subjecting that to high heat up over six hundred degrees,
and then a process begins called pyrolysis like pyro and
all of the things in the chips that are not

(04:32):
carbon are burned off. And because it's starved of oxygen,
it doesn't actually ignite, it turns it in. It squeezes
stuff out of there into a gas sin gas is
called syn and that exits through some holes within that container,

(04:55):
and so oxygen isn't coming into the container. The gas
is moving out of the container. It moves out of
the container into that seven hundred degree environment and it ignites,
and so everything that's not carbon in those chips is
burned off, and that heat that's generated by that burning

(05:18):
is it finishes the process. So we begin the process
with like propane heat, and once we get the temperature,
then the paralysis process takes over and maintains that heat
until everything's fully cooked. And what you have left are
the same chips. They're in the same shape as the chips.

(05:40):
You can put a little beetle in there and it'll
come out looking like the beetle and it'll be black
carbon and the only thing left in that beetle is
the carbon. So there's some kind of fun experiments you
can do for homeschoolers and stuff. But at any rate,
these little chips come out and they're they're just it

(06:01):
sounds like glass when you dump them out. It's very interesting.
But that carbon, then it can is sequestered. Right, that
would normally go into the atmosphere. Now it's captured in
this solid form, and if you look at it under
a microscope, it looked like honeycomb and it's all those

(06:25):
little compartments can house nutrients, they can house microorganisms, and
they increase the fertility and the nutrient holding capacity of
soil many times. And so by putting this down under trees,
under plants, you can increase the fertility of the area.

(06:46):
So we use it. We're charging some of it with
iron and manganese to create our own product for treating chlorosis.
And these products that were I'm going to approach various
garden centers to carry these in small amounts that people
can use on their on their own accord, within their

(07:07):
own gardens. And we've got some activated charcoal that's uncharged
that you can you know, charge with nutrients of your choice.
If you've got bone meal or other things that you
like to put on your garden, you can you can
mix it with with our one hundred percent activated charcoal
and and make your own tincture. And so, yeah, we

(07:32):
want to provide these. So I'll be approaching various garden
centers with that proposition.

Speaker 1 (07:38):
I know there's various garden centers that listen to the
program as well. Wink Wing and Kevin give them call
eight sixty six five nine six five three nine six.
That's eight six six five nine six five three nine six.
I'll put you in connection with some folks as well. Kevin.
It's it's such an amazing product, and you talk about
the different different ways that that it can be applied
and and of course creating those tinctures and other things

(08:01):
that can bring some so much great benefit to to
your soil and soil amendments and trees and and and
everything with that biochar with a fantastic product. And speaking
of great products, you mentioned there too that that you
are building some uh, some palettes with with some of
the wood. Uh of course, you've got the the new
wood stoves, you've got those that, you've got those available.

(08:22):
You've got a couple of them out on display as well. Yes,
are are and I'm guessing, uh, since you're making pallets
for them, they are moving, which means people are are
getting the getting the word about what a what an
awesome what an awesome heater they are.

Speaker 2 (08:37):
Yeah, they're They're very efficient stove. And one of the
things that makes them efficient is the bottom portion where
the fire is is lined with refractory cement. And if
you know anything about refractory cement, of course you know
fire brick, different things that are made out of factory
refractory cement. It can handle a lot of heat and

(08:58):
it stores heat, and so it also is non corrosive.
So ash tends to create acidity, which can help break
down the metal in typical boilers. And there's a lot
of boilers that have the water compartment all around the
fire box and then it's being compromised by the ash

(09:20):
and so you get ash corrosion and the firebox. Here,
the whole bottom half of the stove is refractory cement,
so it holds heat. You have a better heat triangle
if you know anything about that science, the heat, fuel
and oxygen. And then when the air comes back into

(09:41):
the unit, you know it's thermostatically controlled. You have that
heat stored in that refractory cement that just lights up
the fire faster. And it's got a you know, a
combustion fan that blows heat under the fire and around
and on top of the fire. And so you're getting
a really good oxygen distribution through your your fuel and

(10:05):
you're getting a really consistent burn. And then it's got
a heat chamber in the upper part where the water
is that can be h extracts, extracts most of the
heat out of the smoke, smoke before it exits the chimney. Uh.
And so a lot of great features.

Speaker 1 (10:24):
Made by a company out out of Canada, right the
Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. Yeah, they know something about keeping warm. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (10:33):
Yeah, you know, you stick with the people that know
about cold weather.

Speaker 1 (10:39):
And for people that don't know where where Prince Albert is,
it's not like near the US Canadian border. It's not
in that in that nice warm area of Canada that's warm,
but it's up there, I mean we're talking yeah, way
up in Saskatchewan. So they know heat. And of course
you can learn more onlinef you head on over to
to gameoftrees dot com. That's game offtrees dot com. Learn

(11:00):
more about those fantastic boilers and some of the great
options for you with those portage and main boilers that
Kevin has for you again on sale the website Game
offtrees dot com. That's gameoftrees dot com. Quick before we
wrap up this morning, I know, obviously arborist as much
as we's almost a little scient I almost feel like

(11:20):
we should be wearing a lab coat and some safety
goggles because there's a lot of a lot of sciences running. Obviously,
this is a great time of year for tree care people.
May I shouldn't say obviously, because I don't know that
everybody realizes this. We are entering into some really really
good months for taking care of trees, aren't we, Kevin.

Speaker 2 (11:37):
Absolutely. You know, we've got pretty firm ground and you know,
the last couple of days here it wasn't firm, and
we got the alterna mats out and we protected the
lawn and the guys were a couple of guys stayed
late the other night washing them. You know, there was
mud and residual on the mats while it was still
above freezing. But we've got you know, good, the leaves

(12:00):
are off the tree. We can see the structure for
our training prunes. We're beginning all of our training prunes
from our legacy tree planting. We kind of go out
and touch those trees every year. I mean, that's a huge,
huge aspect of our tree planting is we go out
and touch those trees for five years. And so we've
got that on our schedule, and of course a lot

(12:23):
of other trees that we have training prune. We do
proactive renewals on our training pruning. So it's very easy
to overlook your tree and you kind of turn your
back on it for a few years and all of
a sudden it's unruly and we remind you yes and say, hey,
time to prune that tree. And winter's a great time

(12:44):
to do that structural pruning where you can see the canopy.

Speaker 1 (12:48):
You mentioned over if sometimes we overlook those trees. Of
course Kevin can look over your tree as well. It's
a great time year to do that. Fick up pone
you have a call eight sixty six five nine six
five three nine six it's eight six six five nine
six five three nine six learn more online Hamsarburcare dot com.
That's h A M. M. Sarborcare dot com. Kevin. It's

(13:10):
great chatting with you. You have a very merry Christmas
and we'll do it all again in a couple of weeks.

Speaker 2 (13:15):
Yes, Merry Christmas, Sean, take care

Speaker 1 (13:16):
Kevin hamhams Arborcare here at thirteen ten wib i