Falling pics 11/25/09

[floyd]

I used to inventory & cruise alot. Only bad thing about electrical tape on the 1st foot of my tape was trying to measure seedling height & depth of the duff layer.


I just hate walking off the end of my tape. That high pitched squeal as the spring unloads is like fingernails on a chalkboard.

Not only that, one has to get off the log to get another tape.

I suppose everyone bends & flattens a horseshoe nail instead of what comes with the tapes?

 

[Curlycherry1]

Spliced tape could cut into their overrun you know.

Can someone edjamacate a flatlander here as to what the heck spliced tape is and what is it used for?

 

[Greystoke]

It does get a bit much. We lost 5 blocks totalling around 70 000 m3 because an engineer who was laying it out "thought" he saw a goshawk! Even though they have never been able to find it again we're not allowed in the area! Another lady put up a hell of fight against one of our blocks, held it up for quite awhile, until she realized she'd be able to see the ocean from her back deck once we were done! All of a sudden we were able to start right away!

Amazing how hypocritical some people can be!

 

[Greystoke]

For us it's freaking Grizzly Bears. . . We always had to leave "corridors" on our units for them fuzzy buggers. They always just used the roads we made. . . Go figure.

Humboldt County in Northern CA was the worst I had ever experienced for enviro bs. You would walk into a unit to start cutting and it looked like They had turned a group of drunks loose with a box full of ribbon! Usnea longissima, maple leaf checkerbloom, anything that would hold water in a torrential downpour was protected, owls, marbled murrelets....on and on. And you had to try to save out the timber too, while dodging all the other b.s.!

 

[Greystoke]

8 1/2 foot chunk of pulp in my strip a while ago, behind an old homestead.

Nice pic man!

 

[floyd]

The "0" end of the tape often breaks as it is being reeled back in. So there is a 12-18"plastic piece with a new end on it that one replaces the broken end with. Some are numerically challenged & make a 75' tape 75' 3" or something.

This adds up after a few loads of incorrectly bucked logs.

 

[Greystoke]

The spliced tape....ahh a horror story from the ancient times.

Back in da old days, when clearcuts were common and three load logs were common, dere was some nice Noble Fir, and a special order for that fir.

The purchaser (mill) got our blessing to take a cat down and to build a bed for said firs. It was a high lead unit. They did so, and the fallers used jacks. The trees landed where they were supposed to, and not much breakage.

Enter the bucking, and a spliced tape. Badly spliced. Well, I'll just say there was yelling, cussing, and hardhat throwing after the bucking and I think the faller was sent packing.

As for working in cold weather. I have switched to polyester fleece. Layers of thin stuff. Micro fleece tops. Turtle neck zippy tops. Regular fleece tops over that if I'm not going to be moving all the time. Fleece is light weight, washes nicely, and keeps you warmer when it is wet. Just watch it when standing around a landing fire. Polyester longjohns under jeans when it is dry like now, or tin pants most of the time.

I think everybody thinks I must be depressed or a goth. I find the black colors are usually on sale the most. The tops are a bit spendy when not on sale but really last and are worth it.

I screwed up using one one time! I still use them, cuz I hate how easy my tape ends break, BUT I DOUBLE AND TRIPLE CHECK THEM FOR PRECISION. I just happened to splice mine a foot too long once:jawdrop: (was a long day and we had to hike down and up a deep canyon cuz the helicopter could not fly us out, so I was tired when I got home and was not paying attention when I spliced it) Luckily, I was cutting some smaller timber( and it was a foot too long and not too short)...about 500 logs worth before I caught it! My heart sank, and I thought for sure I was getting tramped, and it was so hard to go to the Bullbuck's camper and tell him. He was cool about it, and let me off the hook...did not even tell me to STOP using spliced ends...just said in a cool voice "don't do it again". The landing guys hated me, and the shame was enough to be sure that I never did it again... Like I said though, I still use them...call me hard headed, but I feel like I learned never to make that mistake again, and I was willing to deal with the consequences IF I did (which I am sure IF it would have happened again I would have been tramped). Plastic ends have made me a lot of money when I am busheling as you can bet that I had the fastest tape on the job. By the way, for anyone that is interested, the other piece of my fast tape was my custom made brazed tape nails from John Day Riggin Here is their #:541-575-1156. Call them and order some, you will not know how you got along without them...just don't let em stick ya in the ribs! Now, in conclusion...am I advocating spliced ends? Nope, that is up to the individual to decide, but if you do decide...please take my story here and let it sink in deep before you do.

 

[coastalfaller]

Western Sliver Grey Squirrels are the big problem here. Everyone swears they are the new spotted Owl for WA state. Go across the river to OR and there is a hunting season on the little suckers. I tend to jump out and chop tails of road killed ones in the morning with my axe and black tape them to CB attenas of various loggers on crummies and loaders when I "owe" someone some love, LOL.

I like it! LOL

 

[coastalfaller]

Amazing how hypocritical some people can be!

Isn't it?! All of a sudden after all the fighting, she was practically rolling out the red carpet for us!

 

[Jacob J.]

am i seeing clearly this morning? in that pic there's no chain on your bar?

was it chain swapping time?

Maybe he dulled his chain on a racoon that was living in the middle.

 

[Burvol]

am i seeing clearly this morning? in that pic there's no chain on your bar?

was it chain swapping time?

Actually, you know what? Mr. Full comp and nothing else ran a full skip that had half life on that tree. You can't see it casuse it's worn and has half the cutters, (no wonder it's jumpy and doesn't cut worth crap LOL) Didn't want to pack it around anymore. It's in the brush behind that stump to this day. My dad gave me that chain from when he was my age or younger, and said it was the last skip chain he would ever own. Me too. I run semi-skip on really long bars.

 

[Burvol]

Hammers 12/04/09

Starting the back cut of a big juicy Red Fir

Sawing up the far corner, no it's not dutch. Just looks that way from the angle.

Pretty much same shot, don't tell Steve or my Dad, but they are picture challanged LOL

Super Steve cleaning the face of another nice stick.

 

[Jacob J.]

Man, that looks like fun. You guys are having a good time up there, and the ground looks decent.

 

[forestryworks]

nice pics. glad to see you're stayin busy.

 

[Burvol]

Man, that looks like fun. You guys are having a good time up there, and the ground looks decent.

It was a fun day. There is a #### hole below me in the picture and one below that Pine from yesterday's post. But it's all shovel logged in the drainages, and cat logged elsewhere. But yes, not bad ground at all. Sometimes it's hard to capture all of the ground on the shots focusing on just the trees. The other unit I'm going back to on Monday has a steep face that me and Pops are gonna side hill.

 

[Burvol]

nice pics. glad to see you're stayin busy.

Gotta pay off that night school from the last 3 years, LOL

 

[slowp]

It was a fun day. There is a #### hole below me in the picture and one below that Pine from yesterday's post. But it's all shovel logged in the drainages, and cat logged elsewhere. But yes, not bad ground at all. Sometimes it's hard to capture all of the ground on the shots focusing on just the trees. The other unit I'm going back to on Monday has a steep face that me and Pops are gonna side hill.

It sounds so simple....today I came across a lowboy with a shovel on the trailer, unable to negotiate a switchback. In the middle of the road, for some unknown reason, nice clear water was burbleing up. Meanwhile, the recently repaired road to part of a unit had washed out already. I managed to plow a little snow with the vortec pickup, but didn't get stuck. I think it was a normal day? The lowboy showed up after a while. The driver backed down and gave it a little more speed.

There's one corner where I've now heard 2 different lowboys and drivers say they had a tire hanging over...I'd never want to look back if I were driving.

 

[385xp9106]

nice hinge

 

[385xp9106]

not too hard

Here's a "its all flat ground east of the rockies" pic for 2dogs- thats our ground

and a typical bore cut hickory stump with a 12" wedge for scale.

nice hinge

 

[Burvol]

It sounds so simple....today I came across a lowboy with a shovel on the trailer, unable to negotiate a switchback. In the middle of the road, for some unknown reason, nice clear water was burbleing up. Meanwhile, the recently repaired road to part of a unit had washed out already. I managed to plow a little snow with the vortec pickup, but didn't get stuck. I think it was a normal day? The lowboy showed up after a while. The driver backed down and gave it a little more speed.

There's one corner where I've now heard 2 different lowboys and drivers say they had a tire hanging over...I'd never want to look back if I were driving.

Reminds me of when I heard a truck lose a load a few years back. It was a horrible, horrible sound. I could hear it over my saw. I ran so fast over there, I was sure I was gonna find a fatality or something bad. Turns out that there was no knifes in the tractor bunk and the super steep climb out made the load slide out. The driver only had one wrapper on, not too tight either. It broke the bunk pin and shoved the truck off the road into a bad hole. We spent the day helping him get out with a cat and some powersaws. No one hurt, thank God.