The Dead of Night, Old Growth spiders in my brain.

[hammerlogging]

Some of it is still there. I know guys who've cut for helicopter down there- nearly an annual affair. Nasty. I was down deep in the Mobile River delta last winter and saw more than a few cypress 6' diameter on the stump. My long time bud and I were taking a little canoe jaunt at flood stage, incredible just cruising the flooded swamp riding the current but you have to keep an eye out or you'll end up 6" deep every direction you look, where was that channel?

Timber is still out there, some of it is protected, good, some of it is there for the harvest, if you can get it. I've cut more than a few trees this last year older than..... well, older than whitey in this foreign land. All of these were in rather difficult places, and in most cases a real privledge to participate. That said, I'll take a 2nd growth poplar patch deep in a holler over some rocky ass knob covered in heavy leaning virgin oak any day! But thats just the faller talking, not the bottom line.

Nice pics Sam and Bob.

 

[drill.daddy]

You talk about wandering thru the woods , looking at monuments of trees gone by , I had the rare opportunity to do this a while back .

Me and this fellow walked along a creek bed for hours , we spoke of everything under the sun while walking this old trail thru the woods. As it turns out we reached the end of this trail and behold a thicket, I was like what the hell , why did this old timer bring me to a thicket , As we pushed thru i started to realize why we had came here, The stumps left at this time were monumental , The fellow started to explain why these stumps didnt quiet resemble the stumps that i was used to seeing. I.e. bout a foot sticking up , Some of these stumps where 6 and 8 feet tall , the old fella explained that the stumps where so big at the but swell that they would have to use spring boards just to get to the area where they could actually fell the tree, Its amazing to think that what is left of these stumps is but a part of what was originally there, They where cypress . if i can ever find my way back i will take pics and bring back . but i do have pics somewhere of old cypress bottoms. a trip i took to a place a couple weeks ago. but they also have to be resized to fit here . maybe i get to it tommorow

 

[RandyMac]

I would love to see your pics and hope to travel through the South someday, Texas and Louisiana for sure.

 

[hammerlogging]

I would love to see your pics and hope to travel through the South someday, Texas and Louisiana for sure.

Better read some Faulkner then. That'll teach you some southern.

 

[stihl sawing]

Better read some Faulkner then. That'll teach you some southern.

He can come by here and i'll teach him southern slang, Don't nobody sound more rednecked than me.lol

 

[RandyMac]

Bro Hammer, will do.

SS yeah and we can sneak over to Rope and nail his boots to the floor.

 

[stihl sawing]

Bro Hammer, will do.

SS yeah and we can sneak over to Rope and nail his boots to the floor.

He probably ain't pulled up the last pair i nailed down.

 

[TXcowboy]

I would love to see your pics and hope to travel through the South someday, Texas and Louisiana for sure.

If you ever make it to Texas, let me know. It'd be great to meet ya and shake your hand!


TXcowboy

 

[Rounder]

Better read some Faulkner then. That'll teach you some southern.

Lol, glad to see someone else still flips through paper (that stuff made out of trees), and yeah, Faulkner will get you straightened right out on Southern real quick. - Sam

 

[drill.daddy]

If you hit the louisiana line and get lost , i will role out the mat for you as well bro .

 

[drill.daddy]

If you pass thru new mexico , pick up that snow blowing desert rat and drag him along too . Drag humbolt along as well , seeing as i got saws on the shelf for humbolt and old ken , i could save some on shipping too , hell i even got an old pullon sd25 that could probably favor from living in a dryer atmosphere

 

[bitzer]

Better read some Faulkner then. That'll teach you some southern.

My wife was diggin through my books lookin for something to read. She found The Sound and the Fury and asked, whats this? I said, read it. Two or three pages in she says, I'm sorry i just can't read that. She opted for The Rum Diary and made it about halfway through. Oh well. I guess she won't be after Dostevesky anytime soon either. Maybe I can get my kids into all of that some day. I may have to re-read what I've got first though. Some pretty heavy stuff that I vaguely remember.


I can't imagine cuttin trees that old Joe. Pretty cool to be a part of that!

Can't wait for the next byte Randy!

 

[hammerlogging]

Go Down Moses is a good place to start to get a feel for Faulkner's style- it is a compilation of short stories. Tell her if she loses track to push on through, Faulkner catches you up after a bit to bring the out of sequence timeline together. An aquired taste I suppose. I finished crime and punishemnt a while back, that was pretty damn good.

As far as spiders go, and cutting legendary timber, here or there, (not than anything I cut would EVER compare to OG redwoods), I'd say that what makes me feel the worst lately is the little things. Yes, in forestry, we look at management over the big picture, and don't dwell on individuals, but, I've had a heck of a year with bee trees and unfortunately have dropped atleast three with active healthy wild bee hives in them, unbeknownst to me until I went to limb and top them. Wild bees are not doing well, and me cutting healthy hives down doesn't help. Tragic. If I'd known they were in there I'd left them, every time. Don't like hearing little birdies squalking after I fell a tree. Or like Red had last year, a couple baby hawks. Dreadful guilt there.

 

[RandyMac]

The collateral damage, some can't be helped, some weren't noticed until too late and the rest of it. I saw a big cottontail get pinched in D8 tracks during a quick turn, peeled it's hide off, like pulling a sock off your foot. It sat there pink naked, shivering, I grabbed a limb and ended it right there.

 

[Mr. Bow Saw]

Seems that most regions have their logging history, if there were forests, there were loggers and thier history. I studied up some on the Cypress logging in the South, incredible, the lengths they went to for the timber. I found a short vid, converted from old film, two men, standing in small boats, hacking away at a big swelled butt, while using the rocking of the boats to help swing the axes. Can you imagine crosscut bucking while in the water? Water? it looked like deep swamp, all full of critters.

Nice stories you been writing. I allways liked reading them.
I like the one you worte about some old motorcycle you tide your
Mac saw on the back,The dirt road,Some old man, You know witch
one.

Here some pics of Cypress,

 

[Rounder]

Go Down Moses is a good place to start to get a feel for Faulkner's style- it is a compilation of short stories. Tell her if she loses track to push on through, Faulkner catches you up after a bit to bring the out of sequence timeline together. An aquired taste I suppose. I finished crime and punishemnt a while back, that was pretty damn good.

As far as spiders go, and cutting legendary timber, here or there, (not than anything I cut would EVER compare to OG redwoods), I'd say that what makes me feel the worst lately is the little things. Yes, in forestry, we look at management over the big picture, and don't dwell on individuals, but, I've had a heck of a year with bee trees and unfortunately have dropped atleast three with active healthy wild bee hives in them, unbeknownst to me until I went to limb and top them. Wild bees are not doing well, and me cutting healthy hives down doesn't help. Tragic. If I'd known they were in there I'd left them, every time. Don't like hearing little birdies squalking after I fell a tree. Or like Red had last year, a couple baby hawks. Dreadful guilt there.

The ones that I hate are the trees with flying squirrel nests in them, definatly makes you feel like a jerk, neat little critters - Sam

 

[stihl sawing]

Bee trees are no fun either, Years ago i cut a 30 inch oak down and proceeded to buckin it up, All of a sudden honey bees were all over the place.

I dropped the saw and took off to the truck. Left saw running. I sat in the truck for half an hour before i had the courage to get the saw. The next day i went back to the tree, The bees were calm by then, The tree was hollow and they had a nest inside it. I could see them coming out one of the cuts i made.

Also knew a guy that dropped one that had a huge hornets nest in the top. They nailed him a bunch of times. He swoll up like a baloon. He wanted me to go cut it up for him. I declined.lol

 

[056kid]

Speaking of bees. I was throwing rocks at a bald faced hornets nest while boss man was pushing a new landing last summer. Maybe 25 yds away. So i hit the stick that the nest was hanging off a few times and got them all revved up, a few minutes later i chucked a rock and one of those bastards came right at me, following the trajectory of the rock i guess. I saw him coming @ about 15 yds but he was coming too fast. Got me right in my nose. I looked like some sort of baboon man for the next hour or so..

Learned a lesson, just cause you are not close to the bees dosent mean they cant still hone in on you!

 

[stihl sawing]

Speaking of bees. I was throwing rocks at a bald faced hornets nest while boss man was pushing a new landing last summer. Maybe 25 yds away. So i hit the stick that the nest was hanging off a few times and got them all revved up, a few minutes later i chucked a rock and one of those bastards came right at me, following the trajectory of the rock i guess. I saw him coming @ about 15 yds but he was coming too fast. Got me right in my nose. I looked like some sort of baboon man for the next hour or so..

Learned a lesson, just cause you are not close to the bees dosent mean they cant still hone in on you!

LOL, Hornets will chase your ass for quite a distance. When we was kids We used to hit em with rocks and run like hell, Sometimes we got away and sometimes we didn't.

 

[RandyMac]

Honey bees are the worst, they will not let you alone. The greater wasps like the Baldfaced ####ers hit like a .45, but the clear winner in the woods are the yellowjackets. Those little bastards.