Firewood adventure, sort of

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unclemoustache

My 'stache is bigger than yours.
. AS Supporting Member.
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S. Il. near St. Louis
I'm out of 'junk wood' to make bundles. That is to say, the junk wood I have is still green, and I don't want to sell green wood. So I decided to buy 1/2 cord from some local dealer. One dealer (2 college kids) sells mixed wood, $90/face cord, so I decided to do it. It's a bit expensive for around here, but I can still make a bit of money on the bundles and I don't want to lose my 2 bundle customers to someone else.

So I grab a son and hop in the dump truck. Gas guage is on empty. Strange, just filled it up. Stop for gas and the gas cap is missing. OK, now I know where my gas went. Dang theives. Hopefully the cap is back where I was parked. But this truck has two tanks, and I don't use the other, so I filled up and switched caps. No problem. Starts to rain very lightly.

Get to the dealer and a kid comes out and shows me the wood. We talk and I decide to take 2 face cords for $150. Much better deal. We start to load when his dad comes up on a tractor, yelling at the kid. They yell at each other for a while, and the dad is swearing. I don't like for my own kids to hear that kind of thing, but we can't really escape it. They yell at each other for a while and we just stand there, looking at each other, waiting for it to end.

Finally the kid says we have to go back behind the barn to get the wood. So we unload what we had loaded, and we hop in the truck. Rather than go back to the barn I just head home. Sent the kid a text, telling him I was sorry.

Pull up at a red light and the truck dies - completely. I get out, wave the cars around me and open the hood. Battery cable not attached, bolt nowhere to be found. So I try mashing in a brass bullet casing (empty, had a small bucket of them from our last shooting trip), but that doesn't work very well. Somebody stops and just happens to have a battery bolt! It's a bit short and can't hold both cables, so we attach one and tape the other one. That gets me to the auto parts store and I get a new bolt.

The kid even happened to stop by and he apologized for his dad. I felt like going back and getting some wood after all, but it wasn't all that seasoned, and if the other stuff was still piled up, then it would be even greener. Besides, it was raining harder and I was already wet from working on the truck.

Kid texted back just a bit ago, asking if I got back all right and how bad he felt about my truck breaking down.
Seems like a good kid.

Gas cap is nowhere to be seen in my parking area.

So that was my afternoon. How's yours?
 
I had similar luck the other day. Went to plow after the 14" snowstorm on Thursday. Snow didn't end until 8pm. I was plowing a path on the lawn for the dogs and "Crash"!!! Forgot to put away the extension ladder to clean the chimney, which was laying down buried in snow. I pushed the ladder into a cellar window and broke the glass. Luckily the ladder was fine. Stuffed the hole with fiberglass insulation. About 10 minutes later I misjudged where the last stair step was for the side deck and hit it breaking all three stringers at the very ends. Finished plowing awhile later and went to bed. One dog was wanting to go out at 3am. Let her out, waited a few minutes, let her back in, went back to bed. Got up at 6am and when I went downstairs wondering "why so chilly". Looked over, the door I let her out of was half way open. Not so good when -6F outside. Luckily the inside was still 64 degrees with the stove cranking.

Wife chuckled and said everyone makes mistakes. Could have forgot to let the dog in and had a frozen dog-sicle instead! Love that woman! :)
 
Wow, I was aggravated yesterday about a customer not answering the phone at 9:30am for wood delivery. I wanted to deliver it THEN. Had to wait till noon. I wanted to be eating my bowl of chili in front of the fireplace at noon...couldn't do that until closer to 1 and that was when football came on. I WAS aggravated until I realized it didn't matter much and read this.
 
That sucks! Glad you made it home at least. I hate them lazy suckers that screw around with stuff that is not theirs. It's always a shame when you don't catch them at it.

A buddy and I cut and split about 4 cord. 4 way broke with about 1/2 cord left and I caught the bucking table with the grapple bucket and had to bang some screws into it. Other than that it was an easy day. For me it was nice to see the thermometer over 30 and the snow melting off the shed roof.
 
That sucks! Glad you made it home at least. I hate them lazy suckers that screw around with stuff that is not theirs. It's always a shame when you don't catch them at it.

A buddy and I cut and split about 4 cord. 4 way broke with about 1/2 cord left and I caught the bucking table with the grapple bucket and had to bang some screws into it. Other than that it was an easy day. For me it was nice to see the thermometer over 30 and the snow melting off the shed roof.

What kind of splitter?
 
I wasn't really bugged by all of that. Laughed my way through most of it.

Gas stolen - no big deal. The loss of the gas cap bugged me more, but that's easily replaced.

Truck break down in the road in the rain - that's just downright funny! It wasn't too bad and a cheap/simple fix.

Get caught up in the middle of a family fight and made to get wood that is not seasoned - no big deal, just drive away and save my money.

As it turned out I found some wood in the back of one of my piles that worked. Mix of elm and maple, all dry.

Yes, I have a good attitude about things. "Adventures" I call them. I like to tease my wife about running out of gas for some great adventures - "I wonder how we're going to get out of THIS one??"
She's not as adventuresome as me about vehicles breaking down.
 
When I first got the flatbed I parked it in the street. Rear tank is 20 gallon. Somebody tried to siphon the diesel out, the night I filled it for the first time.(2 days after I bought it) They must have gotten spooked and ran but they left the hose in the tank and it emptied the whole tank into the street. One of my neighbors called the police because of the smell, she thought it was a natural gas or propane leak. So I got woken up by a cop banging on the door at 5 AM
 
Unc, sounds like some adventures I've had in the past.
As to the chair fiasco, I went to recline my last chair one evening and a spring shot out from under it almost taking out the tv.
I had to toss the chair after that one :(
 
I wasn't really bugged by all of that. Laughed my way through most of it.

Gas stolen - no big deal. The loss of the gas cap bugged me more, but that's easily replaced.

Truck break down in the road in the rain - that's just downright funny! It wasn't too bad and a cheap/simple fix.

Get caught up in the middle of a family fight and made to get wood that is not seasoned - no big deal, just drive away and save my money.

As it turned out I found some wood in the back of one of my piles that worked. Mix of elm and maple, all dry.

Yes, I have a good attitude about things. "Adventures" I call them. I like to tease my wife about running out of gas for some great adventures - "I wonder how we're going to get out of THIS one??"
She's not as adventuresome as me about vehicles breaking down.

Women are never amused when the car quits. Mine goes into panic mode.[emoji37]
 
My furniture suffers from MKS - Multiple Kid Syndrome.

Fabric gets stained from all the food they are not allowed to have on it, crayons they are not allowed to have on it, pens and markers they are not allowed to have on it, and the occasional blotch of vomit. There's no rule about that one, for some reason.
 
My wife likes to comment about if I gain more weight I will go over the weight limit for the bucket on my bucket truck.

Was working on a lumber shed this summer, 2 of us on the step ladder (safety first right!).

My buddies kid was helping.... "you know that ladder is only rated for 200 lbs right?"

Sure enough, thats what the label on the side said.
I had never noticied. Was a mid grade Werner I bought about 10 years ago.
 
My furniture suffers from MKS - Multiple Kid Syndrome.

Fabric gets stained from all the food they are not allowed to have on it, crayons they are not allowed to have on it, pens and markers they are not allowed to have on it, and the occasional blotch of vomit. There's no rule about that one, for some reason.

My dog is doing his best to eat the sofa. He made a good start on the skirt try ing to dig a mouse out of it.
 

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