I like how you had been in the right places at the right times.
It sounds like you made out like a bandit and got some great deals. Well done! 
My Dad was once active with them, helping to build one home after another in his area. ... and it is important I think to change our mindset and reuse and fix rather than dispose of perfectly acceptable materials. We have become a "throw away" society and that needs to change or our children and grandchildren's grandchildren will be living in a landfill. 
I am hoping for much artistic success! 
After reading your first posts, It certainly sounds as if our 11:11 "friends" have been busy in your life in multiple ways as they reach out for your attention. Its all good. 
Isn't that sort of how it begins with the comic book super heros?I remember when I was about 4 years old, I crawled behind the couch (I was real small) and I had touched the electrical socket in my house. It buzzed my whole arm/body and it was such a weird sensation that I had to do it again. My grandparents were watching me while my parents were out and I could hear my grandmother say, "what was that?" I had made the lights dim in the house for a spit second. (I should probably be deceased.)
Maybe you are a super hero in the making, Flint. 
well at any rate, you're super, eh? 
That would be "super!"Maybe I should sell pieces wood from the tree on e-bay.
Then I would be super rich. (For a day or so.)
I have always loved the smell of Eucalyptus oil, though. 
Bless his little heart. We were all a mess, coated in pine needles and soaked to the skin...but thankful to be alive.
that Osage orange tree in your yard has been through a lot. I am so glad it has survived the harm those awful humans did to it last year! grrrrrr I'm still fuming about that! (yes, I need to learn to let go and lighten up ) I still chuckle when I think of this dear sweet elderly lady I worked for years ago...She loved trees and one day when recounting what she had seen workers do to a group of trees that she was particularly fond of she spat out, "There's a place reserved in hell for someone who does that to a tree!" 
) 
) that you do. I remember once pulling poison oak from my dad's tree. It was a lovely thick vine...been there for ages. I didn't ask him first and never suspected it was sinister in composition. I was a mess afterwards. 
With your knowledge of plants though, I am sure you wore appropriate protection from the poisonous leaves. 
(keeping in mind that anything that touched the leaves can spread the oil. ) ) To be honest, I actually like spiders and snakes. They are a gardener's friend. As long as you don't step on them.