How'd it go today?

[SouthSoundTree]

Man, trees are heavy. The two 100' Doug-firs we knocked down yesterday filled the truck with chips, so I'm a bit sore from sharing the dragging and chipping of the 3-4" and under branches. A solid truckload in a 12' Southco chip bed, so I'm guessing 10,000 +/- pounds. Then the trailer is bulging with the 4"+ limbwood going to a friend, probably 1500 pounds. All the trunk wood under 4" went onto my friend's knuckleboom dump truck, going on 1500-2000 board feet. All going to firewood close by. A better deal than hauling to the mill in the next town over, and very minimal risk of being stopped for an on the road weigh by the staters.

Used my friend's tractor for the final clean-up to load all the debris from the parking lot onto his dump bed.

About 8 hours start to finish.

Happy customers that will have more work next Friday.

Partnering up with someone with the complimentary machines sure makes life a lot easier, and its more profitable in the end. Good to be past the part of trying to save all the money from the job by doing it myself with human power.

I love labor saving machines.

 

[MasterBlaster]

They save you money, in the long run.

 

[SouthSoundTree]

and your body!

 

[SkwerI]

...
Partnering up with someone with the complimentary machines sure makes life a lot easier, and its more profitable in the end. Good to be past the part of trying to save all the money from the job by doing it myself with human power.

I love labor saving machines.

Quoted for truth.

 

[NeTree]

Amen to that, for sure.

 

[woodworkingboy]

Since we don't chip here, and after a number of years of stacking brush by hand, I have to shout the praises of the mini. Fun to operate too.

 

[Dave Shepard]

I used to team up all the time with my Kubota and Farmi winch. Good for stuffing chippers in weird spots as well.

 

[NeTree]

Many a residential job has been made lots easier by grabbing Mike's log trailer instead of making and chucking chunks. I remember one job Swerl did with me while he was up here that exemplifies that statement.

 

[Dave Shepard]

Yeah, nobody likes being a chunk hugger.

 

[NeTree]

Nope.

And since I have a bucket/climbing gear, and Mike's ass don't get off the ground... it's been a good relationship over the years.

 

[woodworkingboy]

Mike's ass doesn't get into the forum now either.

 

[NeTree]

Along with a few others' asses.

 

[Fiddler]

Took out a White Mulberry to make room for my outdoor woodburner this morning. Went up the Boxelder next to it and got started but my little voice inside was griping a bit loud...mushrooms, hollow spots, and when the wind blew it felt really weird so came down and will get a lift to do that one. No biggie, I'd rather keep things safe.

Hired a kid to help me out today and he was great help. Attentive, intelligent, caught on quick (show him a knot once and he has it), did a great job running ropes on some pieces, and he never stopped moving unless I asked him to. He had nearly everything done he could do when I came down to drop the stub. We had extra time, as I didn't finish the second tree so I took him out on the back of my property with a couple saddles and ropes and taught him how to tie in and hump up a tree. Chose a slight leaner to climb and I was amazed at how he caught on. He is maybe the most natural climber I ever started, and he thanked me much and said he loved it. Really nice kid; kinda wish I was a bit more serious about running my own tree business right now...I'd hire him in a second. He's out of a job right now, so I'm using him later this week to help me put siding on my place and maybe knock down a few Ash the borers have gotten to.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Teach him the ropes anyways... Kid will look back and never forget with a smile on his face

 

[Rborist1]

Winterized the garden........cause it's starting to get cold.

 

[Fiddler]

We have agreed to spend some time together as he really wants to learn and I enjoy teaching. Figure maybe I can get him so he can climb, and cut a bit and maybe help him get a job with one of my contacts I have up here.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Phone rang again today. Looks like more work.

Would really like to start seeing checks showing up from work done soon

 

[NeTree]

Ditto that; I've got about $17K out there.

My head hurts. I usually work with Siemens and Schneider PLC's; learning a new PLC (Idec) for a customers' application, and working the binary arithmetic is giving me a headache.

I need to take a counting input, divide it by a scale factor (out to five decimal places), then output an integer to a display. When the outputted integer reaches a preset value, it will stop the machine. Sounds easy, and I can do it all day long in Step 7; the WinLDR is a bit more tricky.

Everything else on the project is going well. Sometime at the end of the month I'll fly out, rip the machines guts out, and install an IDEC PLC and a small touch-screen.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

That would do it! I used to have days like that doing Cobol... Just the sheer volume of a program, one boo boo... Ohhhh boy!

 

[Bodean]

Car show with the family, Jimmy's picnic.

Then more family time at California Academy of Sciences.
It was our zipcode day so It was free for all of us.

 

[Rborist1]

Would really like to start seeing checks showing up from work done soon

Me too.

 

[NeTree]

Here's the goodies; I have 8 machines to do the same.

 

[woodworkingboy]

Erik, are you sure that you are in the right forum?

 

[SouthSoundTree]

Knocked down some topped sweetgums and got half of their stumps ground. Ready for a break after 6 days of working in a row. The seventh day is supposed to be a day of rest, but it will be yardwork, but I'll do it with Amy. In the evening we'll go see a documentary at the local independent theater about Aldo Leopold. Should be interesting.

 

[gf beranek]

What's going on with that? 8 machines?