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dumbest thing in the woods

Started by boboak, December 26, 2005, 10:20:00 AM

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boboak

  Whats the dumbest thing you've ever done in the woods?  What happened, how did you fix it and what did you learn from it.  If you don't want to 'fess up tell us about the dumbest thing you saw somebody else do. ;) ;)
Sometimes you get things done faster if you do them slower

Mr Mom

     I got saw pinched in a tree  :o :o. Had to walk about 1700ft to get the other saw. When i got back with the other saw went to pull the cord and it broke. Had to walk another 1700ft then go to the store and get new cord.




     Mr Mom

Jeff

I fell out of the front of a bobcat with a feller buncher on the front.   :o

The feller buncher was small so there were many trees that had to be cut with the chainsaw. Our cutter cut a big aspen on a large hill that the wind caught and pushed into an oak hanging it up with the butt still on the stump.  Well, I went up the hill with the bobcat thinking I would lift the tree off the stump as I backed up, pulling the tree down.  Well, backing up and lifting a weight on a hill was not the thing to do.  Just about the time the tree was going to come down, the bobcat tipped forward and I didnt have on my seat belt or the door latched. I fell out the front, and luckily the bobcat just stayed there, with its back wheels past straight over top of the backweels and the buncher head stuck in the ground.  I reached up and shut the engine off as there was no pushing myself back over.   I walked back to the landing and we got a skidder.  Hooked a cable to the bobcat and started to winch it. it looked like it was going to tip slowly back on its wheels, but kept going and flipped on down the hill backwards this time.

We got the bobcat turned back on its wheels, checked and refilled the fluids, and I went back to work. With my seatbelt on and the door latched.
Just call me the midget doctor.
Forestry Forum Founder and Chief Cook and Bottle Washer.

Commercial circle sawmill sawyer in a past life for 25yrs.
Ezekiel 22:30

Flyboy

 8) The first was gettin caught with Judy W. out back of her house, by her husband, my nephew. :o :o

The 2nd was gettin a D8-H stuck on it's belly pan on top a 4' oak stump with the tracks 6" off the ground. :-[ :-[ :-[

The 3rd was knockin down a dead pine with the same D8, cleanin out the power wires at 4pm on Friday afternoon when my buddy down the road was fixin to milk 200 head of holstiens. :'( :'( :'(
Flyboy


A "Good Old Jack" -  DT 7500 Kubota 4X4 Farmi Winch - Norwood LM 2000 Band Mill - A Good Son, A Good Dog,

Flyboy

 ;D Oh Yeah, DON'T DO ANY OF THEM AGAIN - and GET CAUGHT. 8)
Flyboy


A "Good Old Jack" -  DT 7500 Kubota 4X4 Farmi Winch - Norwood LM 2000 Band Mill - A Good Son, A Good Dog,

whitepine

January in northern Minnesota I was cutting black ash for firewood in a swamp with a farmall C and breaking thru the ice constantly getting stuck so figured I know what to do spread hay in the swamp the cows would come in to eat and  knock the snow down so the swamp would freeze. Sounds good don't it? I came back a few hours latter and my whole herd was standing in water half way up their back eating hay ( These were Highland cattle with about 8 inches of hair so they were soaked). The only way  I was able to get them out of there was to set the hay on fire and spread more hay outside the swamp. Never lost a cow and the swamp did freeze so I suppose it worked.

getoverit

One of my best friends is a youth pastor for high school kids. He had just taken this new church and the kids all got together In the fall of the year and decided to give him a "welcome to our church" gift.  The kids had deemed it proper one night to toilet paper a large tree in his front yard.  His "yard" was several acres out in the boonies. There had been about a 10 week drought in his area....remember this....

He came home and started thinking of ways to get the toilet paper out of the tree. There had been a 10 week drought...

all of a sudden, it came to him how to do it: There had been a 10 week drought...

He decided that if he lit one of the pieces of toilet paper on fire, it would just follow it's self up the tree, burn out the Toilet paper, and there wouldnt be anything left except for some ashes.  There had been a 10 week drought....

All was well, until a small gust of wind came along, and the burning toilet paper which was VERY high in the tree began to blow out into the yard, and the surrounding woods. There had been a 10 week drought....

It ws still OK, as all he had to do was stomp out the burning embers. UNTIL he ran out of stomp. the surrounding woods were on fire, his yard was on fire, and even the top of the tree was on fire, continuing to spread even more burning embers.

The fire department was called, the forrestry service, and every neighbor within hearing distance, spraying, stomping, plowing, etc.

I dont think he made a very good first impression in the neighorhood  ;D
I'm a lumberjack and I'm ok, I work all night and sleep all day

getoverit

This one of about me  :o

Everyone knows that if you are on a mountain, and spot a tree leaning down hill, that if you notch the downhill side of the tree and then cut the lever from the uphill side, the tree will fall downhill..... right?

Well I happen to know where there is a Johnsred 2050 chainsaw bar, complete with the chain stuck in the lever of a tree that fell uphill. It is on the edge of a cliff, no way to get any power equipment to it, and not far out of Clayton Georgia (My former residence).
I'm a lumberjack and I'm ok, I work all night and sleep all day

jon12345

My friend  ::) used to cut firewood for the campfire with some real professional gear on - sandals and shorts   smiley_hardhat2


getoverit - in 20 or 30 yrs when the tree has rotted enough ya can go back and just grab the saw and post it here on the forum for everyone to fight over the 'antique saw' stuck in a tree for 20 yrs  ;D
A.A.S. in Forest Technology.....Ironworker

Bill

Well this is anonymous right -

Many years ago when even I was a young'un I saw mechanic friends start engines that had been idle for a long time by priming them with gas.

So when my friends tractor ( gas engine ) wouldn't start I helped. I stood on the track, had a small paint can with gas and was dribbling it into the carb. You know it backfired - lighting up me, the paint can, my parka ( dead of winter in Vermont did I say ) . I don't swim well nor dive at all - but I made a perfect swan dive into the snow while flipping the paint can the other way. I'm very glad my friend also dived into the snow to cover me with his jacket.

Epilogue - I've kept that parka, with the singed real coyote fur trimmed hood, for decades as a reminder to behave myself with gas.

Otherwise  -  Happy New Year to all

jon12345

Here's another one involving gas...my cousin was warmin up the garage cause the deer he shot had froze, so first time he tries lighting the fire with deisel, that's not cutting it so he grabs some gas.  He lights it and flames shoot out of the stove, burning all the hair off his hands. 

About 15 minutes pass and the wood isn't warming it up fast enough. Here he goes dumping gas in a bucket and walking toward the stove... BOOOM   a huge fireball shoots out of the stove, catching a ladder on fire, the bucket, the floor.  I open the garage door quick and the bucket is kicked out, grab a towel and start beatin the fire out on the floor.  He burned some of his eyelashes, eyebrows, and his hair was singed all the way to the back of his head,  next time I think he'll avoid using gas to 'light' a lit stove. 
A.A.S. in Forest Technology.....Ironworker

Modat22

Don't know how far back you wanna go but I always remember this one.

When I was 11 years old, I got an idea from watching a james bond film. He slid down a cable from a building with his belt. WOW I said.. I can do that.

I go out in the woods string a piece of outside telephone wire from one tree to another, take an old washer pulley and attach a rope handle by threading the rope thru the pulley hub, and DOWN ! I go.

1st time worked like a charm but my cable stretched.

2nd time cable broke, pulley made a 3inch gash in my scalp and I fell about 12 feet.

Ohh the memories of the look on my dads face. And the many other looks I got from other projects.

BTW can you imagine the look I got when I mentioned that I was building a bandsaw mill?
remember man that thy are dust.

slowzuki

Got my saw stuck in a tree overhead while trying to clear a dead fall.  The saw was at about 8 ft and the tree was hung between to bunches.

I ended up taking the bar off while balancing on some brush I drug over then chopped the bar free with a little hachet I had back in the car.  The tree was about 10" diameter and overhead so you can imagine how fast that was.

james

when walking a jd550 on the gravel road at your barn make shure the new extention cord you just bought isn't streched out in one lane of the road
any body have a use for 200 extention cords each 6 inches long :-[ :-[ :-[ :-[
james

Burlkraft

Flyboy......

Pants around the ankles ??? ??? ??? ??? ???
Why not just 1 pain free day?

Cedarman

When we were kids (alright, when I was younger :D) my brother and I got the idea of jumping off the house roof with an umbrella to slow us down. About a 10 foot fall to a soft yard.  We didn't think it slowed us down much. So we busted that myth. :D :D :D
I am in the pink when sawing cedar.

3584ELK

Well, after 25 years, I suppose I should confess to something that would have killed me.  I was 18 working my first timber falling job.  The saw boss pointed in the general direction of the deck landing.  I was busy sawing this tree, when the saw boss comes over and gives me the shut off signal.  He pulls me off to the side, and showed me where the logs would go once I cut that tree...right over me!

I am still embarrassed about the stupidity of this stunt.  I am thankful to a little divine influence on a saw boss who never saw the inside of a church.

sawguy21

More than one has pulled a similar stunt and not lived to tell about it. I'm sure glad that saw boss was paying attention..
old age and treachery will always overcome youth and enthusiasm

Glenn


Driving on a winter road ( holes filled with snow and frozen) in a marshy area in the spring. Truck sank with all wheels off the ground.  Brand new truck the day before - no 4 wheeler, radio, or winch.  Had to walk 27 km's to the main road.  Thought i'd pull it out the next day.  The next day the truck was sitting right up to the bottom of the doors and the other 4 wheel drive couldn't budge it. It took 2 tow trucks to pull it out.

Thowing used aerosol paint cans from tree marking into the fire at lunch.  They go like a rocket.


Timburr

When we were teenagers, we had the foolish notion of doing, what we called 'tree-bending'. The objective was to climb 25' plantation conifers and get a swing going. We then grabbed it's neighbour and transfered across.....and so on.
What an adrenaline rush, but so incredibly fatigueing.

We tree-bent for days, until I missed to get a good hold of the next tree. Unable to counter the forces of gravity, my trip to terra firma was extremely quick, breaking every branch on the way there. Thankfully no broken bones, just severly winded and bruised, and one sobering lesson learnt  :-[

How any of us ever got killed, I don't know. I SEEM to have a bit more sense now!!

To forestry forum youngsters: Don't try this. It's foolish.

Stay safe Tim

Sense is not common

Luckyfarmer

Tim

  I didn't swing tree to tree but did climb hickory and bend them and hang in the air until the tree bent enough to let us down.  A few times we picked a big tree that wouldn't bend and had to drop..rough landing.  We though at the time is was fun and safe :D :D

isassi

I can admit to be a novice when downing trees...especially since I did this twice! I was dropping 2 elms, next to a house. I cut the not, probably way too big, and then doing the back cut (MS440 / 36inch bar), totally missed where I wanted to stop (both trees) and at the presice moment the tree should fall, the wind picked from the wrong direction, and I cut through the hinge, leaving the tree sitting straight up, on top of the bar. Dumb and stupid, doing it twice shows how dumb I are  :D Anyway, since I was next to the house, I had a cable on the backhoe, so i was able to tip them where they needed to go. Luckily, no kick, no damage, and this shows how dumb some of us can be.... :o

timberjack240

the dumbest thing iever did?? where to start  ;D id hafta say when i i pu thte 240 out over a bridge . it was about 6 ft to the water and the old jack was jsut hangin there. i was tryin to get sumthin untalngled and wasnt watchin were i was goin. i fixed the problem by watchin where i was goin  ;D

dancan

pellet gun wars with friends , boy were we stupid or what ?
we did the tree swinging in some pines but after the second time i hit the ground i called it quits.

bedway

i was about 11 years old when i pulled this stunt! my dad had an old home made tractor. it had a 6 cylinder chevy engine in it with a worm gear rearend out of some old military truck. this thing was geared so low in first gear you could go in the house for coffee and come back and it hadnt moved three feet. it was notorious for the battery going dead and haveing to push start it. one day me an my buddy decide were going to ride it around in the field, pulling each other around on the hood of a car. low and behold the battery was dead. it was parked in my dads garage which was slightly below ground level so we couldnt push it out. i get the great idea to jack the back end up off the ground. the rear tires have chains on them. i have my buddy get on the seat. i wrap a logging chain around the diameter of the left wheel. my buddy has the ignition  on and the clutch depressed. i pull the chain, which starts the axel spinning. my buddy pops the clutch and she fires! about this time the logging chain hooks itself to the tire chain and oh my god the racket! the logging chain was spinning as the tire turned, missing my buddys head by inches as it flew by. the chain was beating the concrete floor and ceiling with each revolution. luckly i had the presence of mind to hit the kill switch. when we quit shakeing we both checked our drawers for skid marks and started thinking of things i could tell dad about the damage to the floor, ceiling etc. needless to say,,the man above was watching over us that day! smiley_swinging_board

scsmith42

Hmm, dumbest thing I've done in the woods?  That's going to be a hard choice...  :D :D

Well, there's the time that I got the 044 Stihl stuck while toping a tree.  I was about 40' in the air and I didn't have any wedges.  So, I tied a long rope to the top of the tree and hooked it up to the tractor.  I also tied a short rope around the handle of the Stihl and tied it to the tree, so that it wouldn't fall more than a few feet (in theory that is...).  Unfortunately, rather than take 10 minutes to walk over to the barn and get a NEW piece of rope, I grabbed a spare piece that had been lying near the paddock (old manila - probably had been laying there for a year...).

The tractor pulled the top of the tree over, the Stihl fell out of the gap, yanked up short on the rope, and promptly broke it. 

Took me 10 minutes to find all of the pieces to the saw...  The 26" bar had this nice "banana" shape to it

Probably the absolutely dumbest thing that I ever did was  the time that I got a trencher stuck in March (think spring thaw - very saturated ground) cutting some drainage ditches out in the woods near one of the pastures.  No problem, I get the 4WD little Kioti Tractor to pull the trencher out.  Oops, Kioti gets stuck.  So, I get my 4WD Jimmy and brought it down to pull it out.  Oops, Jimmy got stuck too.  So, then I went to get the JD550 Dozer to pull the Jimmy, the Kioti and the trencher out.  Oops, little dozer gets stuck in a different place.

By now, having lost all objectivity, I go and get the Cat D8 to pull everything out.  Wife's been watching all of this and is offering "advice", such as "you're gonna get stuck"...  No I'm not, I reply, I'm  not getting within 100' of this mud hole but instead going up and around it.

Up and around it turned out to be a bad idea.  Took me three weekends, about 100 railroad ties (humping them by hand 500'), and two helpers to get the D8 out (80 of those railroad ties are forever embedded about 20' deep in my pasture).  Not to mention the "elephant" memory that my wife has concering the event...

The list goes on and on, but these two stand out.
Peterson 10" WPF with 65' of track
Smith - Gallagher dedicated slabber
Tom's 3638D Baker band mill
and a mix of log handling heavy equipment.

Modat22

Scsmith that one made me go "wow". The wife ain't ever gonna let you live that one down
remember man that thy are dust.

submarinesailor

You got a D8 stuck!!!!!! Nows that's doing something.  BTW, if it was me, my wife would be letting me know about it for the next 42 years.

Bruce

gary

I know what is like getting a d8 unstuck. We had one that got stuck the first day you stepped up about 6 inches to get in it. The next morning you stepped down 2 feet to get in it.It took us a week to get it out.

scsmith42

Nah, getting a D8 stuck is easy.  It's getting one UNSTUCK that is the challenge   :D  :D  :D

I'm not sure whether I'm proud to admit, or embarrassed to admit... that this is not the ONLY time that I've stuck the D8...  This was sure the WORST time that I stuck it though...

It does have a large, single shank ripper on the back, and 22" tracks, so there is a lot of weight on the pads (45 tons).  Also, I'm a person that tends to "push the edge of the envelope" at times.  Albeit that this is one envelope edge that I do not get as close to as I used to...

I will brag on one thing - I can get a D8 UNSTUCK pretty darn fast (lotsa practice)!  All it takes is a small dozer and several large logs.

Regrettably (ahem), there is no photographic evidence of the instances of a stuck D8 (wife's memory is bad enough).

Fortunately, in my wife's presence some other equipment operators have discussed their history of sticking equipment, so she's started cutting me a little slack!

A friend of mine that used to work at the local Cat Dealer tells of the time that he was dispatched to the field to work on a brand new (and large) excavator.  When he got to the job site, he noticed an excavator bucket laying face down on the ground, but no excavator.  He asked the owner where the excavator was, and was told "under the bucket"   :o  :o  :o

It had encountered a sink hole and went down before the operator could work it out.  He was only successful in reaching out and hooking the bucket on solid ground and climbing up the stick to safety.

Heck of a way to lose 350 grand!
Peterson 10" WPF with 65' of track
Smith - Gallagher dedicated slabber
Tom's 3638D Baker band mill
and a mix of log handling heavy equipment.

Stephen1

I needed to cut a tree beside the house, try to pull it the wrong way, the boys hanging on the rope let go when they heard the saw stop, cause it was jambed, tree hit the corner of the roof, bent  it, then took out the power lines, then landed on the road and blocking it.  At least the guy from hydro didn't charge any on the bill. It was a nice sunday afternoon and we had to replendish his bodidly fluids after he hooked up the hydro.   ;D
IDRY Vacum Kiln, LT40HDWide, BMS250 sharpener/setter 742b Bobcat, TCM forklift, Sthil 026,038, 461. 1952 TEA Fergusan Tractor

timberjack240

yea we had a guy get a 953 cat stuck at our house one time not easy to get out  ;D

burlman

I was clearing a new roadway for a development, i was trying to keep all the trees falling into the roadway to keep the future lots looking proper. Had a 20in maple notched where I wanted it to go, a slight breeze picked up and pinched my saw but good. I waited a few minutes and nothing changed. Oh well I'll walk down to the skidder and  winch the tree over. What I was thinking, or not thinking Is the key operative word. I walk right along my intended path of fall. I heard aloud crack, and all I thought was " [I have typed a profane word that is automatically changed by the forum censored words program I should know better] there goes my saw , crushed " Then I heard my helper yell the tree is turning the tree is turning! I look over my shoulder and saw miss maple charging me with revenge on her mind, I scrambled and dove on my belly, one limb landed right on the back of my heal of my right foot, the tree bounced and I pulled my self clear as she came to rest. The chain saw boot absorbed most of the impact, crumpled it like an acordian, I only recieved a dislocated big toe and a streched achilles heal, was back on the job a day later, Since that day I always keep eye contact with any partially severed tree. and still the sound of a crashing tree sends shivers down my spine. hope we all learn from each others expieriances

E.B.

Well the dumbest thing I ever did ??? ??? ???. There too many to name but one that sticks out was a 32in pine uprooted and hung in another pine about 40ft off the ground so I thought I'd be smart and walk up the leaning pine and step onto the other pine. Sounded good at the time. Well about the time I got to the other pine the limb broke and down came me and the leaner. Some how I stayed on top until it hit the ground and I jumped and rolled. I think it scarred the owner worse than me. the dumb part was I had a trachoe and a bobcat setting there with plenty of ropes and chains. I guess I like to do things the hard way sometimes 8)

                                                                                            EB
A day without a Smile is a wasted day

olyman

scsmith42---acually--i think you should hire yourself out as a "professional" crawler tractor remover!!!!!!!!!--have seen pictures of them stuck--sheesh--and ya--my brother owns one--and we own a 385 shield bantam backhoe---weighing 48,000 lbs--im *DanG careful with that thing--cant even try to visualize getting it stuck-uh uh----









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