The Descriptive Process

[slowp]

Maybe kinda like your avatar -- just a little bit bent?

That is an increment borer that got run over by a truck, enit?

Huh?

That blue "increment borer" is the infamous blue boundary flagging used in these parts. The rant of a deceased logger friend went something like this, be sure to read it aloud and loud, "Flagging and paint! Flagging and paint! The Forest Service can't do anything without lots of flagging and paint!"

That used to be true.

 

[slowp]

Another rough day checking out long clearcuts at 6000 feet. Temps were in the 40s. Retirement is hard to do.....NOT. My knees are a little sore, again. As you can see, the slopes were overcrowded today.

View attachment 273733View attachment 273734

 

[hammerlogging]

I'd "like" that but I really want to "super like" it so I can't

 

[slowp]

We're kinda planning to go up and do more clearcut snow checks tomorrow. It seems that we shall have this strange inversion weather thing for the next few days. In fact, it is supposed to be warmer tomorrow, I think, at the higher elevations.

 

[slowp]

My knees are screaming. Three afternoons of skiing up in the warm temps and sun was too much. Owie.
Temps were in the 50s at 6200 feet. Owie....

 

[mile9socounty]

How to describe this..... The work we are doing right now is pointless. As a few of you know I am not a logger or a faller. Job term is wildland fire fighter, or "other duties as required." Pretty much every fall - spring we do what it close to PCT thinning. Sometimes in really good stands of timber with pretty big specs. Other times really small tiny stuff. Right now we are working on a federal contract thinning on private land that butts up against FS property. Call it thinning and fuels reduction. We're on our 4th or 5th property right now, 14 acres. Nothing too big.

The land owner has a really nice stand of timber. A little steep, but gravy stuff. Well we cranked out about 6 acres today. Did it all wrong. To make it shorter, now all we are taking out is 3" or under dead pecker polls. Not actually thinning the stand to promote healthy growth.

The kicker. The fallers come in to start cutting the timber next Tuesday.

 

[slowp]

That's kind of like making the skidders stay on designated skid trails, and then the mining company comes in and terraces the hillside. Oh well.

 

[mile9socounty]

It's less stuff the fallers are going to have to worry about. Just hope they don't mind walking on 6ft link-n-logs.

 

[Samlock]

-20F, I declare this day an official personal day off. Or, a mechanics day at least. I suspect one or two of the crummy's glow plugs being cold. Yesterday I had an interesting job to kick off the wreck after hours. I'm not going to do that again today.

 

[Gologit]

Phone calls

Why is it that phone calls after 8 at night are never good news?

I'm trying to do a little cutting job, nothing big, nothing fancy, and so far I have one whole day in.

There has to be at least 18 inches of snow on the ground because the soil is sandy and there are worries about erosion from skidding. No problem, I've worked there before and we always just waited for enough snow pack and went for it. We'd just watch for break-through and quit if there was any dirt showing.

There are four different government agencies involved in the job. They've also added a hydrologist to the staff. The hydrologist checks snow depth and ,as far as I can see, spends most of the day in his pickup napping. See where this is going? Yesterday they decided that the "average snow depth" didn't meet their required standards. I didn't see any dirt yesterday but they aren't taking any chances and shut everything down.

I slept late this morning.

 

[Samlock]

Why is it that phone calls after 8 at night are never good news?

I'm trying to do a little cutting job, nothing big, nothing fancy, and so far I have one whole day in.

There has to be at least 18 inches of snow on the ground because the soil is sandy and there are worries about erosion from skidding. No problem, I've worked there before and we always just waited for enough snow pack and went for it. We'd just watch for break-through and quit if there was any dirt showing.

There are four different government agencies involved in the job. They've also added a hydrologist to the staff. The hydrologist checks snow depth and ,as far as I can see, spends most of the day in his pickup napping. See where this is going? Yesterday they decided that the "average snow depth" didn't meet their required standards. I didn't see any dirt yesterday but they aren't taking any chances and shut everything down.

I slept late this morning.

Sounds like a administrative hostage situation... Ah, send those clowns here and we'll explain, when it comes to soil protection, what's the difference between snow layer and frozen ground.

 

[Gologit]

Sounds like a administrative hostage situation... Ah, send those clowns here and we'll explain, when it comes to soil protection, what's the difference between snow layer and frozen ground.

Maybe so. I learned a long time ago not to apply logic and common sense to any situation involving more than two government agencies on the same job at the same time. If you argue with them beyond a certain point you might as well be talking to a tree. They take refuge in their data...they don't have to think too much that way and it eliminates the possibility that they might make a decision that will irritate their superiors.

They have rule books. :msp_rolleyes:

 

[Samlock]

Maybe so. I learned a long time ago not to apply logic and common sense to any situation involving more than two government agencies on the same job at the same time. If you argue with them beyond a certain point you might as well be talking to a tree. They take refuge in their data...they don't have to think too much that way and it eliminates the possibility that they might make a decision that will irritate their superiors.

They have rule books. :msp_rolleyes:

That's just plain ugly. I won't even try to imagine what would happen here if the agencies stumbled around the woods with their rule books. Here the environment protection things are strictly regulated by law. Compliance with the law, it's all up to you how you do it. If you screw up and break the law, you'll possibly spend some quality time behind the bars. But nobody will show up in the bush to tell you how to be good.

You need lazier clerks, if you don't mind me saying that. The ones who'll nap whole day in the pick up.

 

[Gologit]

Some of the government people I deal with are knowledgeable and practical people. They are gems and there are way too few of them. Some of them come from a logging background and, while still having to carry the government message, they're not adverse to applying common sense solutions to problems. There were some of them that I liked seeing come to our jobs. They contributed to the process and even if we didn't always agree on things they made their point in such a way that you could see the idea of it.

Most of them are older people and many of them are retiring or have retired already. Alas.
They're being replaced by bright, articulate, college educated people with no real experience in the woods. Hence the refuge of the rule book. If you ask them a question you generally get one of two answers..." I'll check on that and get back to you" which means that you may or may not ever hear from them again...or "NO, the contract doesn't cover that and if it's not in the contract we can't allow it". If you argue with them they get very nervous and tend to stammer a lot. They cite their education and the rule book as a legitimate excuse for their lack of real experience.

The focus is going away from timber harvest, and a preservationist mind set has taken over. There's nothing I can do to change that but living and working with it is hard sometimes.

 

[slowp]

I suggest you call the boss of the hydrologist. Nobody on the clock should be napping. Maybe the hydrologist could learn something by staying awake. Go get them up, tell them to go check something.
Keep them awake, please.

I was on a project that had Archeology Monitors on it. They were sleeping in their trucks. The log trucks would go by them and lay on the horn. The loggers were getting more angry. A complaint was lodged and the monitors didn't sleep as much....

I admit to being one of the horn honkers.....it made me mad too.

 

[madhatte]

If you ask them a question you generally get one of two answers..." I'll check on that and get back to you" which means that you may or may not ever hear from them again...or "NO, the contract doesn't cover that and if it's not in the contract we can't allow it". If you argue with them they get very nervous and tend to stammer a lot. They cite their education and the rule book as a legitimate excuse for their lack of real experience.

I am in the process now of getting certified as a COR. That means I am getting my Rule Book together. One thing I'm finding, to my frustration, is that, under huge pressure from WAY above to "cut spending", the rules are changing WAY too fast to keep up with. Some changes start below and propagate up. Some start from the top and propagate down. Some are agency-specific, some office-specific. Some are supposed to apply at all levels. Very seldom to they intersect. Near as I can tell, there is no one person or agency responsible for policing all regulations, so at each stop, you have to find the one person who knows what is supposed to happen. The nervous stammering you refer to is due to the genuine impossibility for one person to have all the answers, and to the near-impossibility of that person being empowered to make a decision NOW and deal with the fallout later. It's a mess, and as fast as it's changing, there's no real way to be an expert. Things need to slow down some so that we can all catch up.

 

[Gologit]

It was a tempting thought...tippy toe over there and then start whamming on the roof of his (new, of course) pickup with the flat of my hand and screaming. It would have made a good video watching him ricochet around like a pin ball until he realized what was going on.

But, no. I let him sleep. Everybody should do what he does best.

 

[Gologit]

I am in the process now of getting certified as a COR. That means I am getting my Rule Book together. One thing I'm finding, to my frustration, is that, under huge pressure from WAY above to "cut spending", the rules are changing WAY too fast to keep up with. Some changes start below and propagate up. Some start from the top and propagate down. Some are agency-specific, some office-specific. Some are supposed to apply at all levels. Very seldom to they intersect. Near as I can tell, there is no one person or agency responsible for policing all regulations, so at each stop, you have to find the one person who knows what is supposed to happen. The nervous stammering you refer to is due to the genuine impossibility for one person to have all the answers, and to the near-impossibility of that person being empowered to make a decision NOW and deal with the fallout later. It's a mess, and as fast as it's changing, there's no real way to be an expert. Things need to slow down some so that we can all catch up.

Hmmm...and you have how many more years to go before retirement? There...that ought to start your morning off on a cheerful and positive note.

 

[madhatte]

*shudder*

I can't stop washing...

 

[slowp]

There's nothing like going and driving or flying miles and miles to go to a training session where the panel of experts doesn't even know or have not thought of, how common situations should be handled. There was a lot of debate amongst themselves and then "We'll have to get back to you on that one." It made my head want to explode.