Scrounging Firewood (and other stuff)

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I'm guessing you have a relationship with your dealer? This was my first time going to this dealer, since we just moved up here last Summer, so I didn't expect any real discounts or anything like that. But I also wasn't expecting to pay what I did. And I hadn't heard of the buy one, get 50% off of the second one before. Was that a Stihl promotion, or just a dealer thing? I DO have to establish a relationship with one or two of my local dealers though, so that in the future, hopefully purchases won't be as painful LOL.
You shouldn't have to be a daily or weekly customer to get the good deals at a dealership. I've been through a few and wont/don't take their crap. If they don't want to be competitive with price, service, and parts then im more then happy to move on.
 
We were in WI riding UTVs with some friends for the last couple of days. Went out for a couple of cold ones to rinse the dust out of our mouths after being on the trails all day. Ran into a large group of bikers at a hotel in Land O' Lakes. They were all from in/around GR. Most of them were riding sport-touring bikes, but there were some Harleys and other makes thrown in for good measure. Needless to say, as a life-time rider, I ended up staying way too late, telling war stories etc!!
Must have been a good group of guys :happy: .
I have a couple bike war stories; there's on two types of riders, those who have been down, and those who are going down :surprised3:.
 
Got the 2x4's and the mud flaps removed from the bottom, I hope to use them to make some 7' ramps.
Hopefully I can get the front bottom cleaned up and then I'm ready to set it on top of the frame to moch it up on some boards so I can see where to cut the side 2x8's(and a couple of the cross members) and build little fenders.
Honestly I was very pleased to get all I got done on it today with the heat :baba:.
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Saw these guys out messing with the frame today lol.
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Lots of ways to make charcoal, and we already have the wood :happy: .
Haven't started production yet, but honestly, I was already thinking of it. Why not when I have a great place to make it and it's such a "hot" commodity lol.
I've often wanted to pull the larger coals out of my wood stove on the very cold days when I have an issue with overcoaling, but then I learned other ways to deal with it. maybe I should buy an airtight stove to use outside to make charcoal, that would be relatively small batches though, there's many tutorials on YouTube of how to make larger batches in a 55 gallon container or in a pit dug into the ground. Maybe it's time :p. Now, I need to order some bags, Chippers charcoal, it does have a ring to it :laugh:.
A couple years ago I picked up a load of Kingsford charcoal at their plant in West Virginia. I remember Google Maps saying turn left from The Middle Of Nowhere and take the dirt two track up the side of the mountain and follow the truck tracks until you think you're in deep doo-doo, then go another ten miles.

Honestly, if you guys don't know the history of Kingsford Charcoal, look it up, as it's an interesting read.
 
Holy cow is that a lot of mess. Do you volunteer to help out with the cleanup? I try to if I don't have any of my own cleanup to do first. I'm guessing that if a guy wanted, he could charge quite a hefty price doing cleanup for those resorts and then they could be reimbursed by their insurance company?
I didn’t. The resorts had a lot of help plus I was working and cleaning up my own yard and getting ready for vacation. If someone needed it I’d be there in a second.

I also possibly own the most badass saw in the county (Zog’s finger ported 394) so I’d love to work the big wood if anyone had it. We don’t have big wood so not many big cube saws up here.
 
This spring I went to Dollar General and they had a bunch of random bags of charcoal on clearance. Reason was they were on display in the window and the cardboard bags were faded. I bought them all. Down to about one bag left.

I can get a burn and a half out of my charcoal. Meaning if I shut down the grill as soon as I’m done cooking, the fire will die and I’ll only need half a load of new charcoal the next time plus the leftovers.
 
Must have been a good group of guys :happy: .
I have a couple bike war stories; there's on two types of riders, those who have been down, and those who are going down :surprised3:.
I don't rack up a ton of street miles and have been pretty lucky on the street.

That being said, I've got 1000's of hours riding dirt and have had my share of bad wrecks. I'm fairly quick in the dirt and don't make too many mistakes, but the rare times I do make mistakes, they hurt really bad.

The last "bad" dirt crash was back in early 2020, split my helmet open and tweaked my back pretty good, but I was able to 'ride' away from it. I think a lesser helmet would've equaled a head injury...despite my damaged helmet, I didn't feel any of the force in my head...my neck and back sure felt it though. That one messed with me mentally, as I've got a former racing buddy who is now in a chair after a racing incident...that's been my closest call.
 
I don't rack up a ton of street miles and have been pretty lucky on the street.

That being said, I've got 1000's of hours riding dirt and have had my share of bad wrecks. I'm fairly quick in the dirt and don't make too many mistakes, but the rare times I do make mistakes, they hurt really bad.

The last "bad" dirt crash was back in early 2020, split my helmet open and tweaked my back pretty good, but I was able to 'ride' away from it. I think a lesser helmet would've equaled a head injury...despite my damaged helmet, I didn't feel any of the force in my head...my neck and back sure felt it though. That one messed with me mentally, as I've got a former racing buddy who is now in a chair after a racing incident...that's been my closest call.
I've had some bad ones on the dirt, and some long painful ones on the street. It sucks when all you can do is just surf it out until it eventually catches and sends you tumbling, then you get to look at your bike still sliding/tumbling when you finally stop :cry: .
The last one on the road I called my wife to pick me up, being the awesome woman she is she asked me if I wanted her to bring the trailer 😍, I said no, just hurry. When she got there and asked why I didn't want the trailer, I explained that I only had so much time before the adrenaline ran out and I needed to scrub out my wounds lol. She asked me not to ride not long after that one, it was the third time going down that summer and our son was 1, not sure why me doing wheelies past the van at 70+ was a problem, maybe it was when they didn't go so well :laugh:.
A friend from school and his father are both paralyzed waist down from dirt bike accidents :oops:.
He's a real go getter though, you should see his off-road wheelchair, looks like this one except better quality/ more H/D.
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Looks fun to me, but it was pretty hot here :baba:.
I actually came home and took a nap, that pretty rare for me.
I was sweating bad enough to be drenched. I used forks to move all the brush to an out of the way place on the farm where it can rot away. The trees were all bucked up and put on my woodpile. It was a long day.
 
I've had some bad ones on the dirt, and some long painful ones on the street. It sucks when all you can do is just surf it out until it eventually catches and sends you tumbling, then you get to look at your bike still sliding/tumbling when you finally stop :cry: .
The last one on the road I called my wife to pick me up, being the awesome woman she is she asked me if I wanted her to bring the trailer 😍, I said no, just hurry. When she got there and asked why I didn't want the trailer, I explained that I only had so much time before the adrenaline ran out and I needed to scrub out my wounds lol. She asked me not to ride not long after that one, it was the third time going down that summer and our son was 1, not sure why me doing wheelies past the van at 70+ was a problem, maybe it was when they didn't go so well :laugh:.
A friend from school and his father are both paralyzed waist down from dirt bike accidents :oops:.
He's a real go getter though, you should see his off-road wheelchair, looks like this one except better quality/ more H/D.
View attachment 998347
I'm a little more mellow on the street...I mean the average motorist probably things I'm riding like a hooligan, but I leave a safety margin with my street riding. That also doesn't mean that I ride recklessly in the dirt, it's just that I'm usually closer to the "edge" when dirt riding.

It's probably a good thing I don't have quite the same confidence on the street like I do in the dirt. I can still rip around pretty well on a street bike, but I'm constantly thinking about all my rider inputs when I'm riding hard. On the dirt, it's all second nature and I just feel in the "zone."

My big wreck a couple years ago was when I was leading a couple of the local fast high school kids on a "trail ride" out in the desert. Like trail rides often do, it evolved into more of an unofficial race. My own stupid pride wouldn't allow some kids to be faster than me, so I really started dialing the pace up...it was working until I stuffed the front in some deep sand whoops and lawn-darted myself into one of the whoop faces.

One of the kid's dads thanked me later on lol...said his kid slowed it down after watching my incident. It didn't last long, as he still rips on a dirt bike and is now trying to turn pro, racing mountain bikes. 🤷‍♂️
 
Our long, cool and wet spring is finally over, 78 tomorrow 90 Sunday, cools down to about average (hi 70s) by Tuesday.

Had to take day off wooding to do some shopping. Took 3 empty 5gal cans to Moscow, id (60 mile roundtrip) to fill with cheap(er) gas there. Saved 18 cents/gal, big WHOOP until if ran the math. right at 20 gal so saved $3.60 - enought to get a bit ove 1/2 gal gas.

Plans were to drop off my top-handle Husky for a thorough tune-up but somehow forgot to load it up. That saw has two flaws, one is an idiotic tiny gas tank. The other is a refusal to start warm with under 1/2 tank gas.

I made a start on teh huge Horse chestnut scrounge. Lots of back and forth with truck smashing down waist high grass to make a 'road'. Grass will be turning dry soon and I don't want a hot truck starting fires. 2 days (4 hr/day) and cleared one fire killed cotton wood - not a fan of cottonwood for firewood but I did come home yesterday with a pretty fair load. Go back tomorrow to finish cleaning up teh top brush. There were 2 stems a bit over 60' long, most went on burn pile.
 
For grins, I've been looking into the X-Cut chains (20 inch 0.063 gauge 72DL 0,375 pitch) mentioned here for my Stihl 038. I've noticed ( and I think I've brought this up before, sorry) that 0.063 B/C are less common than 0.050. the 0.050 setup is a lot cheaper too. What's the advantage of one over the other.
 
For grins, I've been looking into the X-Cut chains (20 inch 0.063 gauge 72DL 0,375 pitch) mentioned here for my Stihl 038. I've noticed ( and I think I've brought this up before, sorry) that 0.063 B/C are less common than 0.050. the 0.050 setup is a lot cheaper too. What's the advantage of one over the other.
For firewood I see no benefit with either, except what you mentioned, it's easier to source .050. I usually find better deals on the other sizes as they are more the odd ball, but with the x-cut chain being so new I think they are keeping the price up as it's "specialty" chain for husky.
The .063 is supposed to carry more oil for milling and long bar setups, I've never noticed a difference in my cutting. I sell everything .058/.063 and keep the .050 stuff for myself, but even so I still have a lot that isn't .050.
I will say that the x-cut chain is some of the best I've used, I believe that if the stihl RS fan boys gave it a chance they would switch, it's much smoother, holds and edge great (probably as hard as RS) and cuts just as fast as RS in hardwood.
 

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