Scrounging Firewood (and other stuff)

[H-Ranch]

Little scrounge from trail clearing at the FIL property. Could have gotten more on the trailer - LOTS more down from winds last year, at least partially caused by land clearing adjacent to his which left them more exposed. Had a limited time window and all of the diesel powered help was nearly out of fuel anyway, so I headed home with what I had.

 

[sean donato]

As far as rope breaking, I have seen advice:
1. Do not stand in line with the rope under tension, so that you will be less likely to get hit if it snaps back;

and,

2. Place a heavy jacket, rug, tarp, etc, over the rope close to where the operator is standing, to dampen the 'jumping' effect of the rapidly retracting rope.

Philbert

Sage advice.

 

[sean donato]

Sorry guys kinda hard to tell but the wife and I kicked some but today. Wood pile shrank by a lot.

Wood shed is looking good as well..

She had to work tonight, so we went with and grabbed some Chipotle on the way home. Just have to clear out a few things from the truck yet, and I'll be all set for my morning trip. When I get home just need to finish off the bigger splits and the garden area will be ready to till. Tuesday is my last day off for a wile, and naturally I'll be up in the woods at the neighbors place. It was a great day!

 

[Ambull01]

So, did it start lol.
I was thinking about you today. Running my ported 359 it was stalling at an idle after a big cut, grabbed a small screwdriver after I finished what I was working on and started to adjust it. Dang thing was all over the place, then I checked the fuel, yep I did it, empty . Filled it and got it to where it was ok, but I'll need to remember to check it next time I run it, which may be tomorrow.
Hope you get the wiring all squared away, my 2000 ford excursion was plug and play, can't believe yours wasn't at one point too.
@MechanicMatt should know.

Yeah I watched A LOT of YT videos on my truck. So the wires still there are for a trailer brake controller so I’m set man lol. Only took me about 6 freaking hours to get it all out. BTW, you need to do a saw party or something, you have a ton of logs. Not sure I mentioned this already, truck is kicking my ass. Tried to start the truck and only heard “click.” Panicked for a bit, wife would be pissed. Was just the battery terminal not seated properly lol

99 to 07(Classic) Silverados and Sierras had a junction block in the driver's kick panel area where a trailer brake harness was plugged in. The factory trailer harness was blunt cut and had to be connected with heat shrink butt connectors. You could get aftermarket harnesses that had a connector for the the brake controller as well.

07 to 13 Silverado/Sierra had a blunt cut harness breakout taped on the driver's side lower I/P harness that went from driver's to passenger side if they didn't have the factory brake controller. All the wiring is there, you just need to make the connection with solder/heat shrink(best) or quality heat shrink butt connectors(good).
You may need to hook up the trailer battery voltage wire under the hood if it hasn't been done already. It's taped onto one of the harnesses that make their way into the underhood fuse panel. Red with a black stripe with a ring terminal on it. It also should have a paper tag on it. There's two studs on the fuse block. The one with the arrow should have battery power. I'm pretty sure the other one is ignition key on power. Check to be sure and hook it up. If I still had my 12 Sierra I'd go look to make sure. I hooked mine to 12 v constant.
Google image
View attachment 901885
This is all off the top of my head. I've only put 5 or 6 brake controllers in the 07-13's and it's been about a year since the last one.
Hope this helps,
Lee

Thanks buddy. Was trying to remove the trailer wiring stuff but that helped a lot. Cheers

My wife had an Uncle in Arizona and he always laughed at the people on the coast. It would hit 115 and they would say, “ Yeah, but that’s not bad, it’s a dry heat.” He’d say, “ F’n Idiots, stick your head in the oven at 115, it’s HOT.”

Here in the Mid Atlantic area, when Dad was alive and it busted 100*, usually with 85-90 percent humidity, he sent the guys home with a full days pay. Said he would rather have happy crews than dead ones.

True, hot is hot lol. I was in Ft Bliss for a while though and it wasn’t that bad honestly. Humidity sucks though. Want to move back to HI man, it was never that bad there. Everything is super expensive though

 

[Ambull01]

 

[chipper1]

Here's today's project. i spread top soil next to the drive where people kept missing the parking pad with snow on the ground. Got that finished and planted my wife's boulder, hope it doesn't grow any bigger.

Looks good Joe.
What did you use the shingles for?
I've found if you don't want them to grow; don't water, and don't use fertilizer on them lol.

 

[chipper1]

Pulled out a fence post with a strap once. Luckily for my truck, I gave it a yank and kept going. Post went flying beside the truck. I was like "Hey there goes a post just like the one I was pulling out!"

Sent from my CLT-L04 using Tapatalk

Scary.
I passed my drivers side front tire one time coming out of a tight turn, it wasn't long before it passed me back .

 

[chipper1]

Yeah I watched A LOT of YT videos on my truck. So the wires still there are for a trailer brake controller so I’m set man lol. Only took me about 6 freaking hours to get it all out. BTW, you need to do a saw party or something, you have a ton of logs. Not sure I mentioned this already, truck is kicking my ass. Tried to start the truck and only heard “click.” Panicked for a bit, wife would be pissed. Was just the battery terminal not seated properly lol

Wow, 6hrs working on the truck, or watching videos .
Swing by, I like running saws .
I didn't do any cutting or splitting today, I did however get a couple gallons of bar oil, I'll need to get more e-free gas soon.
Hopefully I can get a lot done tomorrow between working on other things and running around.
Looks like you're making a lot of progress. Glad it was something simple, and that you found it right away, intermittent electric issues can stink.

 

[rarefish383]

Looks good Joe.
What did you use the shingles for?
I've found if you don't want them to grow; don't water, and don't use fertilizer on them lol.

The “Boulder” was pretty close to flat on both sides and parallel, and the yard on a slope. I put a layer of shingles down, then built a stone wall the shape of the boulder to level it, on top of them. Then I mixed up a few gallons of mortar and flooded it into the back of the wall fusing it solid, but from the front it looked dry stacked. I didn’t think I could set the Boulder down on the wall without knocking it over. Filled the wall with top soil and set the rock down. My son had a boat hook on it to line it up. First try was perfect. But, I didn’t like the height off the front, and I had a bit of swale between the Locust and roots bulging up, so I backfilled to the top of the wall. I still need a few more yards of top soil to reduce the taper around the rock. Now I have 4 more smaller flat rocks to place in the front flowerbed bed. It’s so steep it’s hard to stand in to plant or weed.

 

[rarefish383]

Oh man I hope so. If they are then I was successful lol. I think it took me about 6 hours to get all that wiring out. I was afraid I cut OEM/stock truck wiring since it was all wrapped up with what looks to be factory wiring. Hopefully the truck came from the factory set up for trailer bake controller additions or else I'm kind of screwed. My wife saw all the wires on the ground and was sure the truck wouldn't start lol.

What was the original reason for ripping out all of that wiring, getting rid of after market junk?

 

[chipper1]

The “Boulder” was pretty close to flat on both sides and parallel, and the yard on a slope. I put a layer of shingles down, then built a stone wall the shape of the boulder to level it, on top of them. Then I mixed up a few gallons of mortar and flooded it into the back of the wall fusing it solid, but from the front it looked dry stacked. I didn’t think I could set the Boulder down on the wall without knocking it over. Filled the wall with top soil and set the rock down. My son had a boat hook on it to line it up. First try was perfect. But, I didn’t like the height off the front, and I had a bit of swale between the Locust and roots bulging up, so I backfilled to the top of the wall. I still need a few more yards of top soil to reduce the taper around the rock. Now I have 4 more smaller flat rocks to place in the front flowerbed bed. It’s so steep it’s hard to stand in to plant or weed.

Many times when I get done with a job my wife will ask what I've been doing, I tell here making it look like I didn't do anything or like nothing happened lol. When everything is done right like that things just blend in and look natural, nice work .
Will you mulch the dirt you put down, or topsoil and seed it, or do you seed that.
I saw in the one pic your neighbor just did some work on his drive, looks like he widened it when they asphalted it, sure he could use some topsoil .

 

[rarefish383]

I switched to synthetic ripe in my winches years ago. Watched a cable snap, pulling my mates j20 out of a mud hole, after he snapped an axle. Good thing everyone was standing clear. Cable snapped and went smacked the side of my truck taking the back window with it. If someone would have been standing there would have been a real bad day. If the rope breaks it just falls to the ground. Doesn't store energy like cable does.

I don’t know anything about the rope used in winches, but the rope we use in rigging in tree removal stores a lot of energy. Our bull lines have very little stretch in them. You can’t be lowering a several thousand pound chunk of wood over the slate roof on a multi million dollar house and have the rope stretch. But, I have seen them stretch to the point of breaking and you don’t want to be anywhere near them. They DO NOT drop straight down. I always heard chain drops straight down and that’s been my experience. But, a friend was on an air craft carrier during Vietnam. He said they hung up an anchor and broke an anchor chain and it beat the forecastle to death. But, he was known for tall tails. If they had enough pull on the chain to pull one side of the ship down, it could have whipped the chain around bobbing back to level. We thought it was great entertainment to see how far stumps could fly. But, we had giant snatch blocks so we could redirect the direction of the pull, and never aimed at the trucks. Any way, no matter what I’m pulling with, I use the Boy Scout carving rule. Nobody within your blood circle. Hold the knife out, handle first and turn in a circle, nobody inside that circle. If I have fifty feet of line out, no one inside fifty feet.

Many times when I get done with a job my wife will ask what I've been doing, I tell here making it look like I didn't do anything or like nothing happened lol. When everything is done right like that things just blend in and look natural, nice work .
Will you mulch the dirt you put down, or topsoil and seed it, or do you seed that.
I saw in the one pic your neighbor just did some work on his drive, looks like he widened it when they asphalted it, sure he could use some topsoil .

I had to go back and look at the neighbors house. That was the previous owner. They had the whole front yard covered in mulch. They had a dozen fruit trees and an all organic garden. They had weeds the bugs like planted all around the garden as sacrificial host plants. Very, very nice couple and kids. The wife sung at my daughters wedding. Every one loved them, and hated their yard.

When they built my house they graded six feet of soil off the top of my yard and pushed it over the hill to make level pads to build the neighbors houses on. I’ve put 15 tandem loads of top soil on that side of my yard to get grass to grow. I’m on all shale, as soon as we get a week of no rain the grass turns yellow. There is a line from where the top soil ended and the new rock. I think another 15-20 yards will get rid of the line and give the yard the grade I want. The rock just gives me the excuse to get more top soil.

 

[chipper1]

I don’t know anything about the rope used in winches, but the rope we use in rigging in tree removal stores a lot of energy. Our bull lines have very little stretch in them. You can’t be lowering a several thousand pound chunk of wood over the slate roof on a multi million dollar house and have the rope stretch. But, I have seen them stretch to the point of breaking and you don’t want to be anywhere near them. They DO NOT drop straight down. I always heard chain drops straight down and that’s been my experience. But, a friend was on an air craft carrier during Vietnam. He said they hung up an anchor and broke an anchor chain and it beat the forecastle to death. But, he was known for tall tails. If they had enough pull on the chain to pull one side of the ship down, it could have whipped the chain around bobbing back to level. We thought it was great entertainment to see how far stumps could fly. But, we had giant snatch blocks so we could redirect the direction of the pull, and never aimed at the trucks. Any way, no matter what I’m pulling with, I use the Boy Scout carving rule. Nobody within your blood circle. Hold the knife out, handle first and turn in a circle, nobody inside that circle. If I have fifty feet of line out, no one inside fifty feet.

I had to go back and look at the neighbors house. That was the previous owner. They had the whole front yard covered in mulch. They had a dozen fruit trees and an all organic garden. They had weeds the bugs like planted all around the garden as sacrificial host plants. Very, very nice couple and kids. The wife sung at my daughters wedding. Every one loved them, and hated their yard.

When they built my house they graded six feet of soil off the top of my yard and pushed it over the hill to make level pads to build the neighbors houses on. I’ve put 15 tandem loads of top soil on that side of my yard to get grass to grow. I’m on all shale, as soon as we get a week of no rain the grass turns yellow. There is a line from where the top soil ended and the new rock. I think another 15-20 yards will get rid of the line and give the yard the grade I want. The rock just gives me the excuse to get more top soil.

Funny talking about a slate roof/million dollar house. When I delivered drywall(I was crew leader and ran the boom), the boss went out to a "real important" job with us, it was a multi-million $ house with a slate roof imported from Italy iirc. They had all the crew leaders(except me) there and wanted to discuss how we could deliver the drywall safely/without damaging the roof. While they were having their safety talk I set the knuckle boom up and sent the carts to the guys on the balcony and proceeded to bring a lift of 12' board, the boss just gave me a look(to which I grinned), while the others looked on in astonishment . Only one way to get it in there, swing it in, it has to go over the precious roof no two ways about it, with it being 100% complete you can't put plywood or anything else over it to protect it, get-r-dun. Later the boss thanked me because I basically shut down the safety meeting, he was a great boss, too bad the guy who pushed him out of his position there was such a low person. He literally took the company down to very few customers and then went back to his families business selling drywall, so much for a no competition clause in his employee agreement, he was a snake!

That's a lot of dirt, it doesn't go as far as many would think.
I spread 15yrds last week for a temporary shelter pad after removing 15 yards of topsoil.

 

[Ambull01]

What was the original reason for ripping out all of that wiring, getting rid of after market junk?

Yep. There were wires everywhere. Trailer related wiring and LED/aftermarket lights too. Here's a pic of what it used to look like but it was actually much worse lol. Found that out when I started to take it out under the dash. Previous owner had a lot of the excess wiring zip tied under there.

 

[chipper1]

68° on Saturday, 21° today. I knew I shouldn't have put away my skis
View attachment 902172

Beautiful.
Now you can get the Honda back out , may have to be a bit more selective about the trails you hit though.

Manged to get everything I wanted to buck up done this morning before the rain, and two little buckets split, the rain is here now, so I'm gonna run some errands in town and it should be gone by the time I'm back. Only have a little time then though as we have a bunch of friends over every Monday.
I made the kids help clean up a bit and load the tractor bucket while I bucked up the other stick. Not sure where they learned to fill a bucket like that lol. I wasn't sure it was gonna make it to the splitter, but it did .

I also got a fire going as I knew the rain was on the way and its been real dry here and I have a lot more to put in there once it gets burned down a bit.

 

[farmer steve]

Since you guys are talking rocks.

 

[farmer steve]

 

[chipper1]

View attachment 902197

"Rock" on Steve .
That's some funny stuff.

I'm back in business for splitting, but I need to pull a wheel off a trailer and get the tire replaced so a buddy can borrow it to pick up a small fork lift. So I only plan on finishing up what I have in the bucket right now, then I can use the tractor to move the trailer to pull the wheel. Good thing I have all this equipment, what would my friends do .

 

[mountainguyed67]

Good thing everyone was standing clear.

There’s Youtube video of winch cable snapping and killing a bystander.

 

[Ambull01]

Been busy