First tree of season

[turnkey4099]

Layed down a nice willow on Wed. Taped at 37" on the butt and 81' to the first useable size piece of firewood. It had been firekilled 5 years ago and finally dropped its bark this spring. That stuff came off in slabs 2 ft wide x 6' long - big enough to kill a guy. I was worried that the butt would be half rotten. I was worried about the wrong thing.

First problem was falling a stick that size with a 24" bar. My undercut showed solid wood by the chips so I went to it. Too bad the top, sloping cut didn't meet the bottom cut on the off side of the tree - once again I had allowed the bar to drop and had cut with a downward slope (going awayi from me) so when I switched sides the problem was obvious. Much whittling at it to get the 'wedge' out and clean out the dutchmen.

At least it did fall where I aimed, right alongside the fire pile which saved me a bunch of work.

Inspection showed that while the butt was solid, only a couple feet up was a burned out hollow. That hollow burn ruined the bottom 22' of log. All there was was a shell. Had I been able to see that before falling I probably would have walked away.

Log is still out there waiting for both clean up and working up (what is good). Went out the next dayi to do that but on the way my F150 decided that out in the boonies was a good time to drop the link between the slave cylinder and the clutch. Great...I got to practice driving it home using clutchless shifting.

Harry K

 

[DeanBrown3D]

Lol my friend had to drive 25 miles in 2nd gear (engine revs 5-6000) when his tranny died. Bet thats great for the engine!

 

[turnkey4099]

Lol my friend had to drive 25 miles in 2nd gear (engine revs 5-6000) when his tranny died. Bet thats great for the engine!

That brought up a memory of my old man's 34 chev 1 1/2 ton. I learned to drive in that thing in mid 40s. The pin holding the shift lever in the top of the box was missing/broken and unless one was very careful it would come right out. When you stuck it back in you stuck in whatever gear it selected. For some reason, that always seemed to be the granny gear. Last time it was a 7 mile crawl home.

Harry K

 

[turnkey4099]

Lol my friend had to drive 25 miles in 2nd gear (engine revs 5-6000) when his tranny died. Bet thats great for the engine!

That brought up a memory of my old man's 34 chev 1 1/2 ton. I learned to drive in that thing in mid 40s. The pin holding the shift lever in the top of the box was missing/broken and unless one was very careful it would come right out. When you stuck it back in, it was stuck in whatever gear it selected. For some reason, that always seemed to be the granny gear. Last time it was a 7 mile crawl home.

Harry K

 

[DeanBrown3D]

So I'm driving through a BUSY intersection in the UK in my old series 3 land rover, and waiting to turn. The gear pops into neutral and the lever pulls out and I'm holding it in my hand, no idea how to get it back in in 5 seconds before people start honking.

Which they did

 

[turnkey4099]

Ain't equipment wonderful!?

There was the time I was out 'wooding' in the mountains of Idaho. At least 20 miles up logging roads with most of a load on, went to move the PU and no battery. Started it by coasting in reverse. Oddly, my brother, who was a proffessional Ford mechanic at the time, insisted that many vehicles won't start in reverse.

Of course I didn't make friendly with my wife when it happened. She was with me. After starting it, I told her to sit in it and be sure it didn't die while I finished loading. Forgot that we had been using the heater on the way up. When I crawled in the temperature in the cab both from the heater and HER was sauna.

Harry K

 

[rb_in_va]

There was the time I was out 'wooding' in the mountains of Idaho.

Where in ID?

 

[turnkey4099]

Where in ID?

Up behind Laird Park in the Potlatch area. First year I was there (1977), the buckskin Tamarack was standing like pocupine quills. Two years later you couldn't find a stick left. That was back in the first oil crisis days when everyone suddenly switched to wood (or at least gave it a try).

Harry K

 

[turnkey4099]

Got the PU back from the auto hospital. $225 for an entire new slave cylinder. Worse than I hoped, better than I expected.

At least I got my wood yard ready for the next load and learned an unpleasant lesson.

Had a small load of big chunks from my last tree last year to be split and stacked so I layed into it with my maul/sledge/wedge. Tough splitting as it was some poor quality and drying had toughened it up. Wasn't getting much progess between breaks so I woke up the hydraulic. Even then I couldn't seem to keep going all that long between breaks.

Just have to admit that age (71) is getting to me. Sitting on my fundament all winter probably didn't do me any good either. I hope I get a bit of stamina back as the seasons work goes on.

Off to the wood patch tomorrow to work on that tree. Hope to get at least the brush cleaned up and on the burn pile before I poop out.

Harry K

 

[turnkey4099]

Surprise! I forgot my watch yesterday so was running on sun time guessing at about 2 pm. Landowner stopped by to BS and told me it was 3:05. I pitched on what I had ready and headed home. Got there just in time as wife was getting ready to send out a search party. I never stay out that long.

That made around 6 solid hours of pitching brush, sawing/splitting down to moveable size and loading. I guess I can still hack it.

Harry K