How'd it go today?

Good it turned out right, Mick.

Good to maintain your cool.




Some annual fruit tree pruning this morning. Stuck the brush to the side. Going to prune a couple other jobs and stack the brush, then make a chip run. Its a pita to take a big rig into town to chip one cubic yard here and there. I really like people that want the mulch.

Going to touch up my pruning on a row of 30 bradford pears. I did all the ground work for canopy raising for mowing and driveway clearance a few days ago (my friday). Need to get after some suckers and a bit more over the driveway. Zero drag chipping isn't so bad.


HO had a bajillion tons of rock brought in for hardscaping. Trucks veered away from the overgrown trees, caving the edge of his narrow, long asphalt driveway. -------> Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance... or in this case, results. I bet the edge repairs were not cheap. Though, that's from my small money perspective. The driveway repair was probably very small compared to the hardscaping job. He's built a realty company over the last 20 years that is big money.

Every job I bid begins with checking for truck access. We have a lot of tight, overgrown driveways. Homeowners often say that we can drive in, no problem. No problem so long as I don't mind wrecking the signage and clearance lights with branches.
 
Well, here I am in Helena Montana. Sitting in a hotel room, which is where I will sleep for the next three nights. 4 hours from home about.

State of Montana DNRC training. Its a course to become a certified instructor. That way when I teach fire classes, I will have a piece of paper...... says I iz a teeechur.

County lent me a vehicle to come down, State is paying for meals, and Fire Wardens are buying the gas and hotel. Living on the govt teat is great!

As expected, the plane crashed into the mountain after I left home.

Wife had a cow that could not deliver, so she called the hired man to help pull it. It was backwards and they could not get it.
So hired man takes cow to town and the damn thing dies before they could do a c section.
Earlier the sunofabitching horse stepped on a calf and killed it. 50 dollar horse kills a 1000 dollar calf.

Oh well, gonna miss the kids, but it should be a good class and I get to hang with my fire bros.
 
We wins some, we loses some. Was it a goat Stephen? Or do youse guys have cows too?

I have pulled backwards calves, even the ones with the legs down. Really hard work when the cow is pushing.

Turns out the calf had been dead for several days or longer. Cow was septic, so it would not have mattered much. We have used anti bacterial drugs in the past to save cows, but that shit is 500 bucks a bottle. Sometimes worth it though.

She had showed no signs of labor earlier.
 
More truck related. But we almost lost a new baby. Mom just was not letting her milk flow. Poor thing had to be bottle fed and she hated the nipples. Few days, all was good, mom let go and that little thing is jumping all over.
I was referring to just having one of those days.
 
I had to dump chips from that ivy removal and walnut prune at the dump this am. Job is an hour away both today and yesterday. 2 tons.
I don't want ivy growing on my property. so 55.00 per ton it is. We have had a lot of rain. Dump is 6" of muck. They did not show me the exact place to dump. The whole rig came to a sudden halt when it sank... So had them pull me out. Guy stops part way and I am losing traction again. Ask him to pull me to the dry part of the road. Who wants to crawl in a puddle of dump mud anyway. I am up on my tetnous and all, but sheesh.
So he argues, tells me if I can't pull myself out of where I am now, I should not be here in the first place, should not dump here at the dump. Told him I am stuck doing so as I have no place to dump this load. He reluctantly pulls me to a drier flat spot and we un-chain. Then he reluctantly removes two cones on a dry spot between his two high track D friggen large dozers and lets me dump. God forbid he might have to push some friggen chips. Hell. If he would spread them around a bit, might help some people NOT get stuck. So late I am meeting the crew. I text them and send them on their merry way while I pick up the other sundries (diesel, pruning sealer etc. for the job) and head out.
I get to the job site, job changes because the road is washed out where we were supposed to go next. So we pruned at his main house instead, no biggie. Unfortunately, we have to haul brush out by hand over and through a creek running through his yard to the chipper.
Now, I notice a slight problem.. Flat tire front. Must have picked up a nail, sinking in mud at the dump. Pull spare, spare has a chunk out of it's tread. :?
OK... SO send one crew member (mind you it was a lean crew that was there to do a different task than what we ended up doing. Now one man leaner. 4 hours a fixed tire comes back. had to go 1.5 hours out to get it done.
That was sort of my day before I got home.... Pulled another two ton of olive home... that is staying here thank the gods.
Picked up alfalfa on the way home. Some groceries (good meat sale), did not make the bank in time to make a deposit.... Picked up some hardware to fix a dog run since the little bastard loves to chew through cable and then chew on goats (Seth's dog). Good way to recycle a 18' cable core flip line.. Lets see the bastard chew through that!:evil:
Cooked chicken, oven roasted potatoes, corn and gravy for dinner. Did dishes. Called customers. Did payroll. Kissed the kids goodnight.
You know the drill......
Just frustrating. We kicked ass though.
 
Epic story telling Stephen. Life is a twisty poem, guy was unwittingly begrudgingly giving you a flat. Can't believe you still called the customers. I wouldn't have.
 
What a day Stephen, I could write a book on dumps and their employees. No mud now or guys like that in transfer stations but you sure pay for it.

Had a pretty good week, finished off yesterdays job in the rain. Came home and dried off then did the marathon chip dump, first time I've had to go there since Christmas but nobody wanted this lot. Sun came out again.
 
Madness, Stephen...amazing how much can really happen in just one day.

Toyota...good work...love your organized gear.

Jim...get that payper, boy..makes you O-fficial. Enjoy your bros there.

I spent all yesterday morning in a very busy law enforcement morgue...working on x-ray eqpt. We keep some of their eqpt. working so they can x-ray bodies as part of an autopsy. They must have worked on 12-15 bodies in the 4 hours I was there. It's kind of sobering and surreal to step out of the x-ray room to get a tool or wash up and see some of the ways things are done at a big city morgue. The bone saw was running lots...I really like the sound of a chainsaw a lot better.
 
cory said:
??
Click to expand...


The "okanagan" is the general term for the slightly inland area that I live. I'm in the north okanagan and it's only split into North and south. This is just inland and north from the coast. The climate is very dry, we're in the coastal rain shadow. The okanagan is known for beautiful lakes(lots of them from big to small), orchards, and wineries. Our multiple ski hills are known for champagne powder. It's referred to as gods country and basically it's true. Everything here is really nice, very wealthy area, huge retirement area for Canadians. Give Google a whirl if you don't believe me.
 
After losing half our logging season to bad weather, we were in somewhat dire straits.
We just finished planting 16000 Sitka spruce and had absolutely nothing booked in apart from a couple of small tree jobs.
Then today, I landed a 1000 kubic meter logging contract for mature beech trees with the State forest.
Yippie!

Now that spring has started a bit and the ground is drying out, they are trying to recoup what they couldn't log during winter.

To celebrate, the mail order bride and I went and bought a new big bed ( The one she brought into the marriage is a lovely old handcrafted farm house bed, she found way up in the Alps years ago, but woefully small).

We managed to assemble the damned thing without getting cross with each other ( Putting a poiece of IKEA furniture together is the litmus test of marriages IMO).

So tonight I can stretch out and flop around for the first time in a year:)
 
Good info, Squish n Sean, thanks.

Glad to hear you're in the wood again, Stig.
 
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