How'd it go today?

Screw the bowl to the porch. I've had to do it to stop the coons stealing my husky's dish. I guess they liked it cause it's shiny.

Man, I miss that dog! Rosenthorn, "Thorn" was one of the best. She gave me 14 years of the best dog a man could ask for. From the moment I got her, she was trained to mush, or pull a dog sled as most would know it. Because of that, she never needed a leash, you could steer, speed up, or slow the dog down verbally. Her response was always perfect, instant and dependable. She was the best dog on a jobsite I'd ever seen, literally never underfoot, nor the cause of trouble. She pulled brush for me for years, a full on four legged groundie! She'd clear the drop zone as soon as she heard the saw, and wouldn't come back in til I shouted "clear". She'd grab branches by the cut end, turn them and drag them towards the truck, even making piles! I would bundle brush and sling it together, then clip the sling onto a short lead on a Swiash harness I'd made, and Thorn would pull like a mule.

She was half Queensland Heeler of all things, and in certian ways took after her aussie dad. She was built like a barrel on four legs. Not fast enough and with too short a stride for mushing, but her training served us both well anyways. She started pulling brush of her own accord, I reckon she'd seen it done enough to get the idea, and just started doing it one day. Twas the damnedest thing at the time, but soon became the norm. She wouldn't work with other people on the ground at all, she'd just go lay in the shade, panting and watching. But for the longest time, solo work wasn't exactly solo.

She had about 8 years on the job, both as groundie and as "tractive effort" before I forced her retirement. Her hips gave out a few years later, and then came the cancer, and the vet, and the crying, and the pick and shovel. She really was a Good Dog, the very best, and I wish I still had a picture to post of her in all her furry glory.

Sorry, guess I just got to remembering is all, was a nice moment for me, even if i did cry a bit, all this time later. Thorn was worth every tear, and more.
 
Haven't done much of anything the last few days. Haven't been feeling tops. Probably heat poisoning :^D

Tuned my new saw today; mostly... I don't have a great ear for tuning, and it seems to go deaf when I'm specifically trying to tune a saw. I have to listen while I'm working with it, and make small adjustments from there. It started easily and ran strong though. Should be ready for work.

edit:
Forgot. I acquired a new to me double dish plastic food bowl. The asshole fox left it in my yard. Piece of junk. I want the stainless bowl he stole back. I wonder where the plastic bowl came from?
He stole the stainless and replaced it with a plastic :)

Is the new saw a T2511?
 
Yea, exact same saw. I need to drain the tanks on the old one, get the crap out of the cylinder, and see about getting the clutch off.
 
Over the past two days we’ve helped our older neighbor and her kids sort and pack the remainder of her house, and load a second 20 ft. UHaul and off to VA they went. She is moving to be closer to kids after her husband died.

After they drove off we scraped together some dinner after which I said to Karen that I really needed to go shopping as we had little in the house after being in California.

Saw a fellow at the store with a Middletown High School Football shirt (a local school) - so I asked if he had played there. He chuckled and said no, he had hurt his knee in the last game of this past season and was coaching at Middletown High just while he went through rehab. I told him my father had played at Michigan and then coached at U of DE for 37 years.
He said he had gone to A.I. DuPont high school (another local school) and then played at Pitt.

I said, “ Oh you know Pittsburgh!” And I proceeded to tell him about when in 1975 my friend Jonathan and I were throwing a frisbee and some dude yelled for us to come over and he had us ‘coach’ one team of a pick-up football game in East Park on the North Side between two groups of neighborhood kids. He ‘coached’ the other team, and they romped our team.

After the game he had us all walk down the street to a Giant Eagle supermarket and in the frozen food section he handed each of those kids a frozen pizza. On the box was a photo of him in his Steelers jersey with a group of those neighborhood kids around him. It was then that I found out it was Franco Harris.

So this fellow and I were walking toward our cars having paid for our groceries and he says, “ I got something for you”, unlocked his high-priced car, reaches in and hands me one of his cards. Turns out he is Quadree Henderson, Wide Receiver for the NY Jets.

I didn’t think to ask for a selfie with him…
 

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“ Hey Dave, I don’t know if you heard but dad has been in the hospital since last week. Long story of a bunch of stuff that happened, but they told us this morning his kidneys are shutting down. They have him heavily sedated and are trying to stop that, but if they don’t I just wanted to reach out.. I know how much he loves you”


Buddy of mine’s daughter. We lost another mutual friend (actually who introduced us) a couple years ago. :-/
 
Sorry to hear this. It’s difficult when those close to us are in crisis or declining. It’s also important to remember that these same special people in our lives count us as special in return. Good on you Dave for being on this person’s special list.
 
Staked pile on the trail job. Everything was acceptable. Not ungodly hot, humid, buggy, stinky...

Boss' daughter wants me to remove some trees by the spare house. All pines. Two are nice and tall, and the rest are junk. I confirmed she wanted the good trees down also, and she said "yes". I'm gonna drag my feet on this a bit, and see if her mind doesn't change. Boss said she wants to setup a farm stand there. Dunno how the trees factor in, but I don't see them as being an impediment to doing anything, and the nice trees are nice. They'll also be a bit of a hassle. Looks like they're leaning towards the house. Nothing terrible, but I'll want to rope them for insurance.

edit:
This is a pic of the trees the boss' daughter sent me...

1519.jpg

There's more there that it appears. It's 6-8 trees with two of them being good. The crappy trees are lower than the good ones, and growing cattywampus.
 
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I heard this Sunday morning, but didn't know what it was til I heard a blurb on the radio today...


It was loud enough that it sounded like something happened to my house. It got the cat's attention both inside and out, and I took a walk around the house to check for damage. That was a few miles from me.

As for today... I went on a death march around a property looking for property corners. Asshole boss didn't tell me it was an excursion, so I didn't take water with me. I thought we were looking for control to set corners in a field, and we just kept going.

Found a pawpaw patch, and I'll go back for some of those this fall. Used my phone to find points. I have a program that converts to/from state plane coordinates, then you can use it to navigate to points. It'll get you within a 10' search radius with a good satellite constellation. A bit farther with obstructions. Curiously, it consistently positions you too far south. It's been doing that since I found the program. Almost seems like there's a math error in the programming, but I don't care enough to try tracking it down.

I was gonna shorten grass today, but I'm beat from walking up/down hills through brush and boulder fields. Maybe tomorrow...
 
“ Hey Dave, I don’t know if you heard but dad has been in the hospital since last week. Long story of a bunch of stuff that happened, but they told us this morning his kidneys are shutting down. They have him heavily sedated and are trying to stop that, but if they don’t I just wanted to reach out.. I know how much he loves you”


Buddy of mine’s daughter. We lost another mutual friend (actually who introduced us) a couple years ago. :-/
I’m really sorry to hear about your friend.
 
Staked pile on the trail job. Everything was acceptable. Not ungodly hot, humid, buggy, stinky...

Boss' daughter wants me to remove some trees by the spare house. All pines. Two are nice and tall, and the rest are junk. I confirmed she wanted the good trees down also, and she said "yes". I'm gonna drag my feet on this a bit, and see if her mind doesn't change. Boss said she wants to setup a farm stand there. Dunno how the trees factor in, but I don't see them as being an impediment to doing anything, and the nice trees are nice. They'll also be a bit of a hassle. Looks like they're leaning towards the house. Nothing terrible, but I'll want to rope them for insurance.

edit:
This is a pic of the trees the boss' daughter sent me...

View attachment 140578

There's more there that it appears. It's 6-8 trees with two of them being good. The crappy trees are lower than the good ones, and growing cattywampus.
I’m available to help if you so wish!
 
I didn’t hear the house explode (regarding the article John linked and the experience he had with the boom) but quickly heard about it on a Facebook plumber group. Several of us are local and our blood ran cold thinking we could have done work in that house. After seeing pictures I was relieved that I never did gas work there. However, I’m saddened that this happened.
 
Is there extra money that can be made renting a crane, or are you getting the same money per hour worked, and the crane means you got the job? Getting less money per hour worked??
 
Forgot. I saw this today(no involvement by me)...

IMG_20240814_120825376.jpg

Lotta work! I had seen log trucks driving on my road a few weeks ago, but didn't know where they were coming from. I think I figured it out today. Logging sure is an ugly operation. I'd like to be on site and see how it's done from beginning to end, and maybe shadow the faller. I've see clearing operations on my jobs, but that's a little different than commercial logging. I'd like to see how it progresses, and how they maintain access through the process.
 
“ Hey Dave, I don’t know if you heard but dad has been in the hospital since last week. Long story of a bunch of stuff that happened, but they told us this morning his kidneys are shutting down. They have him heavily sedated and are trying to stop that, but if they don’t I just wanted to reach out.. I know how much he loves you”


Buddy of mine’s daughter. We lost another mutual friend (actually who introduced us) a couple years ago. :-/
Went to visit today. Could hardly recognize him. His upper arm felt like my wrist. Reckon it won’t be long. He seems in pretty good spirits, wife not so much, daughter is holding everything together with help from her husband.
 
Forgot. I saw this today...

Logging sure is an ugly operation.
Ha, when I was logging in CT, my pard and I worked hard to do the least damage possible, in all ways (primarily felling and skidding). We got done with one job where we'd done our level best and agreed, after looking over the finished product, the place looked like a bomb went off... :rockhard: ;)
 
I don't think there's any way around it. I guess it technically could done so it hardly looked like anyone was there, but it would cost several times what the wood removed is worth.

edit:
Oh, and I staked some property corners on that job today. Nothing exciting. Got home and shortened grass like a moron. Scared up a black snake which was cool. It was a little one. 2'-3'.
 
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