MasterBlaster
Administrator Emeritus
I disturbed their nest... that one fella was out to kick my ass.
Franklin Treefarmer
- Thread starter Thor's Hammer
- Start date
- Replies 94
- Views 18K
woodworkingboy
TreeHouser
I've wondered if Bumblebees are solitary critters or live together in a nest with others? I only see them flying around alone.
MasterBlaster
Administrator Emeritus
Trust me... they nest!
I got it in the temple today from a white faced hornet, WOW. I had rustled its nest cutting adjacent limbs with the power pruner. Later I was thinking it would be cool to watch that thing thing up close as it became aware of the disturbance and then tracked down the dude causing it and then it doing it's assault. Me:
Him:
Him:
HolmenTree
Banned
Sorry fellas for my lack of participation in this thread, my wife was appointed a judge last Friday and we've been going nuts getting ready to move to another city. Yard sales, getting the house ready to sell, house hunting for our new home. Life is upside down.
I have some good stories to tell about the government owned forestry company I worked for when back in the early 1970s we tried to get mechanical harvesting with Drott knuckle boom feller bunchers, 3 of the world's only Forano 3 man roadside slashers, flail delimbers mounted on TJ skidders, 667 and 668 Clark grapple skidders.
In 1975 at the age of 17 I even put my chainsaw down for 6 months to run one of the feller bunchers.
Then last month a local logging contractor offered me a job to take care of his crews next winter. Even run some of his high tech equipment.
I have some good stories to tell about the government owned forestry company I worked for when back in the early 1970s we tried to get mechanical harvesting with Drott knuckle boom feller bunchers, 3 of the world's only Forano 3 man roadside slashers, flail delimbers mounted on TJ skidders, 667 and 668 Clark grapple skidders.
In 1975 at the age of 17 I even put my chainsaw down for 6 months to run one of the feller bunchers.
Then last month a local logging contractor offered me a job to take care of his crews next winter. Even run some of his high tech equipment.
woodworkingboy
TreeHouser
Congrats on the appointment and your own job opportunity..
HolmenTree
Banned
Thanks Jay.
The winter job opportunity should have happened years ago, I won't need it now. The city we're moving to is twice the population where we live now and a much higher income per capita...........and no local established tree service!
The winter job opportunity should have happened years ago, I won't need it now. The city we're moving to is twice the population where we live now and a much higher income per capita...........and no local established tree service!
MasterBlaster
Administrator Emeritus
Dang! That's unusual! You'll have a monopoly on the market!
HolmenTree
Banned
Yeah I did here too.
I guess it helps to live 400 miles from a major sized city.
I guess it helps to live 400 miles from a major sized city.
Dave Shepard
Square peg, round world.
I had a bumblebee fly through the truck can yesterday. Pretty amazing really. Driving along at 40 mph, it comes in the window, stabilizes in front of me, and turns to face me for a second to size me up, then repositions and zips out the other window. I wonder how much technology it would take to do that with a bee-sized drone? And the bee only has a flea-sized brain.
old irish
TreeHouser
I hope you like wrenching Holmen. My partner and I spend 50% of our time at it. If the guy has nice newer equipment it would be ok, but if it is all older junk it may turn out to be kind of frustrating.
HolmenTree
Banned
I only like wrenching on my own equipment Pat
It was a nice thought going back to the bush working for someone else, but I'll just stick to my seasonal tree service operation.
My wife and I found our new home in the new city we're moving to . I'm just going to stick close to home.
I saw some old faces I used to work with along the highway on the way up there working on their bunchers and other junk.....feel kind of sorry for them seeing times were alot better 23 years ago when we were stilling running saws and cable skidders.
Looks like their help are their sons all grown up now. I stopped at one area where I logged it out in 1986 and now it's logged out again with piles 20 feet high in rows 1000 ft long.
This was was all 28 year old timber they planted after I finished there way back then. Must be fast growing spruce they developed to grow to a nice 12-16" butt size.
So now I see forestry here has developed like farming.....harvest the mature timber before it burns , replant and start the cycle again.
It was a nice thought going back to the bush working for someone else, but I'll just stick to my seasonal tree service operation.
My wife and I found our new home in the new city we're moving to . I'm just going to stick close to home.
I saw some old faces I used to work with along the highway on the way up there working on their bunchers and other junk.....feel kind of sorry for them seeing times were alot better 23 years ago when we were stilling running saws and cable skidders.
Looks like their help are their sons all grown up now. I stopped at one area where I logged it out in 1986 and now it's logged out again with piles 20 feet high in rows 1000 ft long.
This was was all 28 year old timber they planted after I finished there way back then. Must be fast growing spruce they developed to grow to a nice 12-16" butt size.
So now I see forestry here has developed like farming.....harvest the mature timber before it burns , replant and start the cycle again.
HolmenTree
Banned
Thought I'd bump this thread.
I want to tell some stories of my mechanical harvesting experiences in 1975 running a Drott 40 feller buncher with a 50 tracked under carriage...... but I'll tell that later and bump up to 1979 when the government DNR had prior 3 years earlier shut down the mechanical harvesting operation due to timber waste.
Here's a few pics in 1979 of me as a faller cutting 80- 100 year old black spruce . These small diameter black spruce are as valuable as western red cedar. Our paper/pulp mill makes the strongest SPX / SPK Kraft paper in the world with this fiber. Cement bag quality and I heard legends of strong enough for bible pages.
My partner and I were producing on the average 30 cords a day of this small timber in tree length limbed , topped and piled at the landing. Roughly a thousand trees a day cut with a 87cc Jonsered 910 with 16" b/c. Skidded with a Clarke 666C outfitted with up to 20 chokers.
I was felling and hand bunching [before the tree hit the ground] 3 to 5 trees per bunch. As my partner back bladed the limbs off with the skidder I would follow behind with the saw and clip the stray limbs and cut the tops at approx. 3 1/2". Then help him pull out the mainline and proceed to help choke up half of the 20 chokers, then back to felling another swath.
I loved this work and we worked like clock work, only stopped for a 1/2 hr lunch break and 7-8 hrs went by quick. This valuable timber in 1979 paid me a daily salary of $350- 400 a day and my partners skidder made as much as a man so he was making up to $800 a day. By 1989 -1991 our union contract paid us much better ,but by then the company started to phase us out and only a few of the skidder owners were allowed to buy up pricey equipment and look after their own employees.
Many contractors went out of business and today the only the successful ones survived due to their aboriginal heritage fueled with government grants and next to zero taxes.............
Last pic is faller little Nick Laroche [my mentor] who every spring bought a brand new Pontiac Trans Am or big block Chevelle SS [in earlier times].....paid by cash. When mechanical harvesting phased in, Nick quit and then proceeded to make a fortune selling real estate.
I want to tell some stories of my mechanical harvesting experiences in 1975 running a Drott 40 feller buncher with a 50 tracked under carriage...... but I'll tell that later and bump up to 1979 when the government DNR had prior 3 years earlier shut down the mechanical harvesting operation due to timber waste.
Here's a few pics in 1979 of me as a faller cutting 80- 100 year old black spruce . These small diameter black spruce are as valuable as western red cedar. Our paper/pulp mill makes the strongest SPX / SPK Kraft paper in the world with this fiber. Cement bag quality and I heard legends of strong enough for bible pages.
My partner and I were producing on the average 30 cords a day of this small timber in tree length limbed , topped and piled at the landing. Roughly a thousand trees a day cut with a 87cc Jonsered 910 with 16" b/c. Skidded with a Clarke 666C outfitted with up to 20 chokers.
I was felling and hand bunching [before the tree hit the ground] 3 to 5 trees per bunch. As my partner back bladed the limbs off with the skidder I would follow behind with the saw and clip the stray limbs and cut the tops at approx. 3 1/2". Then help him pull out the mainline and proceed to help choke up half of the 20 chokers, then back to felling another swath.
I loved this work and we worked like clock work, only stopped for a 1/2 hr lunch break and 7-8 hrs went by quick. This valuable timber in 1979 paid me a daily salary of $350- 400 a day and my partners skidder made as much as a man so he was making up to $800 a day. By 1989 -1991 our union contract paid us much better ,but by then the company started to phase us out and only a few of the skidder owners were allowed to buy up pricey equipment and look after their own employees.
Many contractors went out of business and today the only the successful ones survived due to their aboriginal heritage fueled with government grants and next to zero taxes.............
Last pic is faller little Nick Laroche [my mentor] who every spring bought a brand new Pontiac Trans Am or big block Chevelle SS [in earlier times].....paid by cash. When mechanical harvesting phased in, Nick quit and then proceeded to make a fortune selling real estate.
Attachments
Mick!
TreeHouser
Great stories, love old pictures, and some serious money being earned in those days.
old irish
TreeHouser
Good stuff Holmen, thanks for a look back at a specialized operation and market. You were making as much $ cutting 12" inchers as I was cutting 12' footers.
chris_girard
Treehouser
Sorry guys if I'm missing something, but I just saw the title of this thread and though I haven't read it all, I wanted to comment on it.
Before becoming a tree climber and arborist years ago, I was a logger and one of the first skidders that I set chokers behind was a Franklin Treefarmer C6E. Great little cable skidder and it did a heck of a lot of work for us here in the hilly sections of N.H. where I live.
Nowadays, everything is grapple skidding and feller-buncher work, but I sure do miss those days of cable skidding. Hard, but satisfying work, if you know what I mean.
Before becoming a tree climber and arborist years ago, I was a logger and one of the first skidders that I set chokers behind was a Franklin Treefarmer C6E. Great little cable skidder and it did a heck of a lot of work for us here in the hilly sections of N.H. where I live.
Nowadays, everything is grapple skidding and feller-buncher work, but I sure do miss those days of cable skidding. Hard, but satisfying work, if you know what I mean.
Tucker943
Bamboo Plantation Owner
Where in NH are you?
chris_girard
Treehouser
Lakes Region, Ossipee Mountain range.