Surfing food tree websites this morning. Paw paw, hazelnut and chestnut. Don't have a space cleared for chestnuts yet but I know where I want them. Need to get my neighbor up here with his dozer this year. Either that or see if my other neighbor will sell me his high lift that he's been wanting me to work on forever. (high lift is a heavy loader on tracks aka track loader)
I have a spot for paw paws and hazelnuts already. Raritan, Somerset, Monmouth, Grand Traverse and The Beast are the hazelnuts I'll be getting. Paw paw, I need to research a little more to decide varieties. PKQ hybrids from MO University Dept of Agroforestry will be the chestnuts someday.
Fun morning putting new tires on the truck. Bought a little Chinese designed and made tire machine. I have the little Harbor Freight manual tire changer but it's getting to be a bit too physical for my little old self. The new one is pneumatic. Took about an hour per tire taking my time. That includes removal from the truck to putting back on the truck and I put new valve stems in. Tire shop charges $20/ea and then there's driving time, wait time, fuel cost etc. Machine was $360 and I just saved $80+ with it. Most strenuous thing was lifting the tire/rim up onto the machine. Truck takes 15" tires as do all my trailers around here so the tires I just took off will be going on trailers that need them.
Only went down to 52 overnight and already hit the high of 70 today. Sunny with a breeze so things ought to dry out a little.
Gonna take a little test drive on the new tires -- with the windows open. Pulled all the wheel weight off and will see if I'll be buying a bubble balancer next. Then who knows what when I get back. Will be outdoors and involve a chair and beer I'm sure. Might work on scooping up goat manure in the shop. I scraped it back so I could jack the truck up on the dry ground in there. Kinda nice to have a little shop area back. Will be nice to have it all back.
Here is a video on redbud and how to grow. They grow over the place in the Ozarks, certainly on Hwy 5 from US 40 and Mansfield down to Ava and on to Mountain Home. I am sure you could find them around Rolla.
Collecting Redbud tree seeds and Breaking Dormancy
Well, you're not near a big town or the county seat so it does not hurt to have machinery to fix your cars. You could help your neighbors out as well.
Good luck with your hazelnuts. Remember, you will need to protect them from the deer. (Discussion at link!)
Habitat Talk hazelnut-protection
The same applies to your chestnuts. IIRC, BenLurkin was involved in a group that was working on developing hybridized Chestnuts. He indicated that they had a lot of problems because the deer would browse them down unless protected in a wire cage until they grew larger.