The Greenhorn's initial sawing season 2019-20

[doc henderson]

    have fun!

[Old Greenhorn]

 have fun!

It's the center of my year Doc. Working as 1/40th of the medical crew, mostly doing 14 hour days because I enjoy it, 5 days of great music, what's not to like? I have about 3 days left to prep and pack, I think I can do this. it's my 9th year.

[HP]

Could you tell me the name of the festival, and location.  It sounds like one that I would like to attend.  Never make it this year.  Maybe another time.

Thanks
Harry

[Old Greenhorn]

Could you tell me the name of the festival, and location.  It sounds like one that I would like to attend.  Never make it this year.  Maybe another time.

Thanks
Harry

Sure HP, it's the Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival, more than 5 stages, no waiting  They have a great website that is easy to find, also a couple of FB pages that are useful. Always a good lineup with a nice eclectic mix. If you don't enjoy anything but straight traditional Bluegrass and cannot tolerate those who do, you might not have a great time, but if you have an open mind and can handle the mix of traditional and slightly more progressive, and a little of the downright "what is THAT!?" stuff, you will have a blast. Great crowd, family oriented, in a pretty spot. It's in Oak Hill, NY. Don't let the big numbers scare you, it's very friendly. If you are a picker, well, then it just gets better and better, the jamming goes all night (in some areas).
 Not sure where you are, but c'mon up, over, down, or whatever applies. Look me up when you do. I'll be wearing a ball cap. ;D ;D :D :D

[HP]

Thanks alot.  My son has been there a couple of times and has assured me that I wouldn't fit.  I am traditional all the way.  However I do like Dry branch. 

Thanks much,
Harry

[Old Greenhorn]

Thanks alot.  My son has been there a couple of times and has assured me that I wouldn't fit.  I am traditional all the way.  However I do like Dry branch.  

Thanks much,
Harry

Did you ever consider maybe your son is trying to keep this party to himself? ;D :D They have a pretty good bill for the traditional folks, Del McCoury, Steep Canyon rangers, Gibson Brothers, Jim Gaudet, The Earls of Leicster (always a favorite of mine, Jerry is a funny guy and a sweet man, I enjoy every time we meet) nd of course Dry Branch, Ron and I share the same humor and I always enjoy talking with him. But if you can't take the other stuff I can see why it wouldn't be for you. I like it all and walk away from the stuff that is too much, and it's easy to find something else I like in just a few minutes, given the options. Besides, I am 'working' most of the time, I average about 12 hours a day because I like the job. You will find me cruising around to various campsite jams at 2 or 3am most days. Then back up at 7 and do it all again.
 I spent my evening getting the Mule changed over from mini-logger mode to festival mode. Peeling off the decals from the last fest so I can put the ones on for this fest tomorrow in good light. I dumped all the logging and sawing gear in the mill shed and brought up the stove and some other stuff. Fixed a few things that needed it and cleaned out a years worth of collected junk in the glove boxes. I fixed the FM antenna that I only use at the fests, got the CD player secured, repacking my tool bags, etc. Tomorrow I switch to packing personal stuff and the campsite gear. It;s a good party with good people, and hard work and long days just make me comfortable (but I am done doing the overnight shifts, I see to be a 'shift magnet' never did I get more than 15 minutes sleep). 

[Old Greenhorn]

This should be under the 'Did something dumb today' thread, but the were so injuries so it doesn't quite qualify. However the number of mistakes I made make it very humorous and even embarrassing for me. But I can laugh at myself. I was doing pretty good on my packing  and prep for my weeks work and somehow got the thought "Hey wouldn't it be neat if I took one of those odd slabs down at the mill, finished it up quick and used the stove stands as legs. We would have a nice little slab bar. That should be easy.'
Well, the slab I grabbed was a split working it's way into two stems. There was bark to clean out between them in order to get to solid wood. I was going to do a 'quick pour' (hold that thought) to fill cracks, sand it in the morning, put on some danish pile, then a couple of coats of verathane and it should be good enough to go on Monday Morning.
 SO a lot of folks say you can use blue painters tape to seal a crack on the bottom side and pour epoxy over it/ "It works great!" they say. Yeah...  well, no, not really. But I am all about making the mistakes, once. So I tried it, I had a bunch to fill and only one shot. I mixed up all I had left, hoping it would cover. It started well, then it all started draining out. tried a few things with no luck and wound up with 20 bucks worth of epoxy in a puddle on the ground. From the top it didn't look too bad.


 

I laughed and got a beer and went to sit in the hot tub and laugh at myself. I was pretty disgusted with what I had done. After I changed and had dinner I went out to try and salvage it. Wow, I had a hard time just getting ti off the support wood and needed a pry bar. Then peeling off the rap I had under it was another issue, got that foo and found this big 3/8" thick blob on the bottom. I shouldn't have waited. Well, that is a lesson well learned now.


 

SO water pump pliers, knife, and chisel went to work to try and get the bulk off. What a neat-o' mess! I dang near undid all the fine effort my Chiropractor did yesterday.


 

I got a bunch and left some, it should sand OK when fully cured. There is enough cured solid in the bottom of the split that it should hold fine on a second pour, (I can't believe I am saying that, here we go again) but at this point I don't know if I can get it workable in a timely manner. Maybe if I start at 5am or earlier?
I am still wondering why I am doing this and 'just for fun' is the only answer I can come up with, but it doesn't feel like fun just yet. I am squeezing in something I don't have the time for and don't need to do. Maybe it's the challenge of throwing it together on short notice.
I'll let you know what happens, even if it's a bust, but I don't accept failure well. Tomorrow might be a long day.

[Ianab]

Don't skimp on the tape over the bottom  :D Any little side cracks or internal checks, and it WILL find them. I tend to put on a couple of layers, running at 90°. Then put down newspapers as well. Yes I've glued a newspaper to the bottom of the slab a couple of times. I also plane / sand roughly before I epoxy, any saw marks make it easy for the goo to sneak out past the tape. 

At least you got to it before it glued itself to the table completely. Anyway, nothing is ruined, and it can be fixed with some time and muttered bad words

[Old Greenhorn]

Funny, I did almost all that. I had pre-sanded to level it all, took and air hose and blew all the dust out, got good tape holds, put the tarp under it just in case. and yeah. it did adhere to the table. I actually could not get it off without a pry bar and it pulled some wood OF the table that stuck to the slab. One thing I will say, this epoxy is strong! Trying to decide if I have the time to pull it off tomorrow, It will be a "Table top in a day project" if I can fit it in between packing the truck and trailer.
 All in good fun right? :D

[Old Greenhorn]

OK, I have put off updating this thread for 2 weeks, not because I lost interest but because I have been way too busy. I have not even been able to keep up with my reading here. When we left off I had that mess of a table slab I was trying to whip out at the last minute. Well the next morning I was working on it at 5 am, got it sanded flat, cleaned up the mess I had made the day before which was extensive. I reset everything and re-masked it, did another pour with 30 year old epoxy and prayed as I went back to my other packing for the week. It cured slower than normal and I though all was lost as I checked it during the day. Oh well.
By around 8pm it was pretty well cured, but not fully hard. I worked on it for a few hours cleaning sanding and planing and sanding some more. I put some oil on it and by about 11pm I applied a heavy coat of verathane and prayed again. The next morning I loaded it on the trailer and it was just a tad tacky. BUT, it worked and made Here is the slab the night before I loaded it up.


 
So I did the festival, the Mule worked just fine (my spare parts showed up 1 day after I left). We become the largest town in the county when this is going on with about 6-8,000 in daily attendance (5,000 resident full weekend campers and pickers). I did 3 days of prefest setting up, then worked all evening shifts for 4 days (7pm to 1am) mostly easy work with a few challenging cases along the way. We used 6 ambulances over the 4 days. It is very good field experience, but as an OLD GUY it is pretty much routine for me.
My office for the week:


 


Most stuff is heat related, almost no drugs, a little bit of alcohol. I had one near death, seizures, snoring respiration, unconscious, unable to maintain airway. Pretty easy job but the patient refused to go to the hospital for elevated care and IV fluids he really needed. Tied up 15 people and took 2 ambulances out of service while he argued he was fine. He finally went.
It was very hot, heat index around 105 most days. I did not catch any music during the day just trying to hydrate and get ready for my shift. I left the site at 9pm Sunday and could barely keep my eyes open driving home. Unpacked Monday and could not hang and dry everything dues to some small showers moving through. I thought I could use my evenings during the week to get a little done each night and have it all good to go for next year. But things were about to change......
Enter Rushad:


 

[Old Greenhorn]

So I have this friend, Rushad Eggleston who is a touring musician, probably one of the 3 best cello players in the world now IMHO. I have not seen him in 2 years, but keep up with his music and travels through you tube and Facebook, he tours the world and he posts a lot. I know, you are wondering what this has to do with milling, but read on, I will get there eventually.
 SO Wednesday night, late, I see one of his typical posts with tour dates and he is playing in my part of the world (NE USA) and he has an OPEN NIGHT! More importantly it is a Saturday night which is very rare (Usually Fridays and Saturdays are the 'anchor gigs' with decent money from a ticketed crowd and you fill in with house concerts and such between those gigs for much less money, but it pays for travel and lodging, hopefully). Having a Saturday opening blew me away. I love this guy a LOT, he has incredible talent and have always dreamed of hosting him for a concert. I sent him a note asking if I could set it up. He didn't see it. I knew we had little time, this was Wednesday night (LATE) and his date was Saturday. AT best, I would have less than 3 days to pull it all together. I vented to another musician friend and he sent a note to Rushad, who then checked his messages. By the time I arranged an actual phone call it was mid day Thursday. 2 days to show time, no pressure. I had to clear some contractual restrictions on his upcoming local gig at the end of the month to make sure we were clear to put it on. Then it hit me..  I have nothing ready for this. This man needs a stage. Yes, it is a 'house concert' in my backyard, folks bring their chairs and coolers and relax and enjoy. It's small, about 25-35 people, but this man is athletic and dynamic. He said, oh just give me a table or a board to stand on. I knew better. This is a guy that has been known to hang upside down from stage rigging or tree branches while playing his cello. I have seen him jump on speaker stacks, jump across security pits, crowd surf, all while playing his cello. No way am I giving him a table to stand on. ALso, I need stage lighting, a sound system and a ton of other stuff. I started to get my head in the game Thursday night. 48 hours, I can do this, I thought, but I was nervous. I also have to fill the house to make sure this is worth his while at 15 bucks a head, give or take. Kids are either free or a few bucks and we scheduled it for 7pm so we could get a bunch of kids involved. 
 Thursday night I mowed the lawn to get started and also get some tractor seat time to think it through. The grass was really high so it looked OK, but I had a lot of cut grass laying on top. Not pleased with that. Friday I left work at noon and headed to the mill (see, I told you I would get there). I found a couple of suitable logs but man doggy it was hot!
A stage in the making:


 



About 800 pounds of green lumber, judging by the way the Mule handled it:


 


 It took me just under 3 hours to load and mill 4 2x8's and 3 2x6's but about 8-10 feet. I grabbed some filtches also and headed up the hill around 6pm soaked in sweat. I was just tuckered out from the heat and heavy work, I dumped the wood in the shop and jumped on the mower to go over the yard again and try to re-cut the top junk and spread it out. when that was done, I was really shot and I had not had lunch yet. I checked the fridge, no joy, grabbed some crackers. 24 hours to showtime. I went back to the shop and cut all the framing to length and arranged with my son to pick up and deliver 2 sheets of 1/2 plywood the next morning, saving me a 1 hour loop to town. by 9pm I was fully exhausted, I set up the coffee for the next morning and went to bed.
I was awake at 3am, beginning to stress, I got up at 4am. I vacuumed the main rooms in the house, cleaned the bathroom everyone would use and fixed the sticky toilet I have been putting off for years. Also drank 10 cups of that coffee to get me going. At 6am I started setting blocks for the stage after I picked a location based on the sun's position at show time and after.


 

 My son had dropped off the plywood the might before and my son in law came by to help me finish off the stage and hang the basic lights they provided. We screwed some 10' filtches on the corners to hold the lights up, a bit shaky, but they worked just fine only they were not 'structurally sound'. I just needed to make Rushad aware of that so he didn't use them in his act for support (he did however use them as a source of fiber, but you kind f had to be there for that). When it was 'done' it looked OK after I added some royal blue carpet.



 

 I was concerned that the lighting was all overhead and would not do the job in full darkness. I made a run to some other touring musicians down the road and caught them just before they headed out for their own weekend gigs to borrow their ' Duo road lighting kit' that they had offered the day before when I borrowed an amp. (Many thanks to Mike & Ruthie and The Mammals for this sage advice). Then I went to another neighbors to pick up the main amp.
 Still I had a concern that this cheap plywood had some weak spots and with 24" centers might not hold up to what Rushad could lay down, so my son made another run and got me another sheet to cover the weak section in front. I set up the sound, added the front lights and the other plywood, then started calling to find out where my 'performing artist' was. we were 4 hours from showtime and he had a 3 hour drive. I expected him late morning, it was now 3pm. He said 'no worries' which drove me a little crazy because I had questions and wanted to create solutions for these to make it as perfect as possible. I have been at many 'sound checks from hell' and know what can go wrong and how much time it can take to make it right. I set about working on stupid details to keep me busy, ice for coolers, soda and juice for the kids, oh and I had not eaten anything but crackers since breakfast on Friday, I was shot and felt poorly. I needed a shower, so I did that too.
 Rushad showed up 45 minutes before showtime and was very pleased with everything, he easily worked over my shortcomings, the show started 23 minutes late because we waited for the crowd to fill in and get settled, he was ready to go on time. My stress over getting enough folks to show up quickly went away. I had a few pleasant surprises in some folks i consider influential celebrity types that showed up, including Geoff Muldaur and a few others. I had invited John and Catherine Sebastian as well as Happy and Jane Traum and Jay Unger and Molly Mason who all sent their regrets due to touring obligations. Mike and Ruthy (The Mammals) were very regretful because they wanted to see this in the worst way, but they sent along a nice bottle of some special Jack Daniels for everyone to share. They have Rushad booked at their festival at the end of the month and as mentioned earlier provided technical advise and gear. SO, show time finally came:


 


 It may look like a small group, which it is, but we gathered around 35 folks, some of whom drove more than an hour to attend and collected a fair sum for my friend to continue his travels. Boston tonight, Colorado again next week, then back here (over the hill at a festival) at the end of the month. I had water supply problems at the house from having so many folks which I worked on a bit at 1am but fixed it finally this afternoon. It had no effect on the event, Just late night showers.
 This is the 'post gig jam' around 1am which was small this time but fun. My son in law swapped out in instruments with Rushad and he played the fiddle like a cello, we had good music. I live for these moments.


 
This morning I took Rushad for a tour down to the mill before he headed to Boston. He is still pretty blown away that I grabbed some logs and made him a stage in 2 days. 
 Now I have done little to get this cleaned up today beyond fixing my water issues, but I can get a better start on it in the morning. I am just so tired, it sucks to get old. I am covering the afternoon shift this week for a vacationing supervisor, so I get to sleep late, which helps. I think I have found a home for the stage and will have to take it apart to move it, then re-assemble it, but that can be next weekend. I still haven't dried out my gear from Grey fox last week, so I have to do to too. I figure another week and I might be back on track, then I get ready for the next festival. Boy I wish I could retire and focus on the important stuff.
 I believe we are caught up at this point. A few days of cleanup and extra sleep and I should get started on the bar project next weekend. Tight now I have all this left over beer from the concert that I need to get rid of.

[lxskllr]

Impressive effort OG!

[Resonator]

Good job pulling a gig together on short notice, with a stage built from your own lumber!

This is a guy that has been known to hang upside down from stage rigging or tree branches while playing his cello. I have seen him jump on speaker stacks, jump across security pits, crowd surf, all while playing his cello.

Never seen someone do that with a cello. Wow!

[Old Greenhorn]

Never seen someone do that with a cello. Wow!

Go check him out on youtube, there are over a thousand videos of him. Everyone says "my friends HAVE to see this."

[Old Greenhorn]

Just a quick update, I have been so busy with 'stuff' that I have barely had time to eat. The wife was away in Oregon for 2 weeks at her sisters and after that little house concert I spent time cleaning up, fixing my truck, shopping for a new truck, covering second shift for a supervisor on Vacation and trying to get my head back in the game. I have not run the mill since I made the stage. But I did drop a few hazard trees for a neighbor, trim the tops of 25 fence posts to his level line (my chainsaw accuracy is improving) and gotten roped into help with a cable suspension foot bridge restoration over at the Ashokan Center. This last one is something I am squeezing in because its worth it to help out. I can tell you more about the place and the project another time, but you can google the center, it's a neat place for outdoor education, music and more. I spent the evening there last night and tonight cutting mortises and fitting tenons. Not my strong suit, but I have it figured out now. They need some trees cut soon and I will be milling a few logs for them to use in this restoration and ongoing maintenance of the bridge. They  also have a big hazard tree, I think it's a hickory they would like down, it's already broke and scares me a little, it's about 28" DBH on a side hill, difficult fall with lots of interesting stresses. I have no idea how we would get the logs out. They proposed come-a-longs. I laughed, hard. Too hard, I think. ;D ;D
 Anyway, I pick up the new truck tomorrow after a LOT of running around for the loan, insurance, cash, etc. Then back to the Ashokan center to cut more mortises. I am also in the middle of installing, training, and setup of a million bucks worth of machinery which is not going well, so that stress is 'troublesome'.
 Suffice to say I am staying out of trouble. In about 2-3 weeks things should calm down, but I said that a month ago and things keep happening. No, I have not lost interest in the mill, I am dying to get back to it, I have that bar to build and they need it only 5 weeks from now. I wish I were a bit younger. I'll do a more proper update with some photos as soon as I can find time, and take a few photos.
Tom

[Old Greenhorn]

Another quick one. After work and dinner I am working over at The Ashokan center on a bridge restoration project just helping out. I spend my evenings cutting and fitting through mortises but they also have some trees to make into lumber that I am looking at and making plans on. Everybody there is either off work for the day, off to dinner, or working/playing at other things. There is a music camp in progress this week, so people are fond playing in any corner of the property at any given time and I can catch a show in the evening before I head home if I like, as I did last night. Last year I attended this camp, so I know a bunch of the 'campers'.
When I arrived last night I assessed some trees, the first is this chestnut which is a challenge and I mentioned a few days ago in the "what are you cutting thread".


 

I will have to fell this to the left in the photo below.


 

Its about 30' from the stump to the break with an uphill lay. I'll think on that for a while. They also found me some oak that is much easier to get out.


 


After looking at trees I headed to the maintenance shop, which I had to myself. I have been in there many times over the last few years, but never worked in there. I started to notice some of the decorations I had not seen before. Apparently other folks have a 'goat thing' too. There is a pasture directly across from the shop door with a couple of big ones in it.



 

No piges here currently, I gues that's why this is hanging in the shop.



 


I noticed this one tucked up on a beam and hidden by the blower. I have no idea who would get a sign like that made.

[EDIT: I have removed this photo, because even though I thought it weirdly amusing, it has been pointed out that others may not, so I have removed it.]

Anyway, between goofing off, I got back to mortises and finished all the work that was laid out for me last night. They are re-using the old wood and adding bracing. That wear line you see is from the 3/4" cable the bridge planks lay on. Each brace set comes out, gets re-worked with new braces and posts, and then fitted back in and on to the next. It's a slow process, but about half done. I didn't thin to take pictures of the bridge yet. It's about 50' long and a half mile from the shop. We should have it done by the end of next week.



 

We figure the bridge was first made in the 50's or 60's, then had major repairs in the 70's. Now we are doing it again.

[Old Greenhorn]

I went back over to the Center tonight for a few more hours and cut some more mortises, I am getting pretty fast, but my mind is on those trees. I am going to tell them to have a pro drop the broken leaner and save out the log. But the one that is down, plus the one laying on top of it is what I want to get out before they do another release from the reservoir and flood the area again. I am told October, but you can't trust New York City. I brought over my tape and measured it tonight. The butt log is 30" average diameter over 30' (34" at the stump) and I put the weight of that one section at 9,000#. After the first crotch, the main leader goes to 22" for another 16'. There is a lot of lumber in this stick and there are at least 2 more mill-able leaders, plus the little tree laying on top which is about 14" average by around 40'. I am anxious to start bucking and pulling logs up above the impending water line while I can still get my truck down there. We can load an move at my leisure after that. I am trying to figure out a) how long I can make these big logs and still handle them, and 2) how I am going to fit a 32" log into my mill with a 27" capacity. I think I can just slab the sides off by hand for the 1st and 3rd side, then fit it in and square it up. No idea what to mill it to or what it will be used for, so I'm thinking 12x12 cants to dry and worry about it later. What do y'all think? Keep in mind I am all manual, no equipment for lifting and moving.
This is the tree I am looking at:


 

[Nebraska]

A little while ago I was looking at one of my "free park logs" my tractor would pick it up and move it., the log was just short of 10 ft 33" base 28 " top.  I didn't have my  big heavy blade on the back for ballast  and it felt light on the rear end so I scooted it off to the side...
.  I thought  a second about  how much a broken front end would cost on that tractor if I could find parts, it's front wheel assist  made over seas. "Just because i could doent mean I should."..
   I loaded the 18 to 26 in stuff came back with my wedges  tried as best  I could to stay straight and split the log.. Tractor said thank you. I have decided to split anything over 2 ft or so  just works better on that little mill and my back and shoulders. I can saw up to about 18 feet. If I need longer I have a clamp on Haddon lumber maker for the chainsaw  or heaven forbid I could go order a gluelam from the lumber yard in town. (self defeating but probably true)
I don't envy you turning it on your manual mill even as an 8ft log, there is lots of goodie  in all three of those trees, my humble opinion is to break them down to 8 and 12 footers then halve more or less the big ones...

[WDH]

I think that 12" cants is a bad idea as they will split and check very badly.  Much too thick to dry slow enough to prevent deep cracks, at least down here. 

[Old Greenhorn]

I think that 12" cants is a bad idea as they will split and check very badly.  Much too thick to dry slow enough to prevent deep cracks, at least down here.

OK, so you've told me it's a bad idea, what would you think is a good idea? ;D

[doc henderson]

OG, it looks pretty straight although in a pic that might be deceiving.  In theory you can skim a 3 inch off the top and roll it 180° and take another 3 inch cut and now roll 90° and it is only 26 inches wide.  i am not sure how you will move it.  i assume the bottom is still alive?  if not hard to estimate the weight. or decide what do you think you will do with it, and then just cut it for the most likely dimension.  or 3 seal the ends and get it out of the sun and wait till you are ready for it.  a few defects on rustic stuff is ok, but not fine furniture. many wood workers like stuff 6 feet long and not over 8 feet.  so if it will be for wood working consider shorter lengths to make it easier to handle the whole log.

[Old Greenhorn]

What you suggest @doc henderson is pretty much exactly what I had in mind to try first. I may buck and drag the logs tomorrow, just to get it started. I'll move them to my place at a later date, as I need their tractor and operator to load.

[WDH]

You could cut a mix of 4/4, 6/4, and 8/4.  Make sure on the 8/4 that it is sawn from the top grade, i.e., saw the 8/4 from the clearest, best quality faces. 

[Old Greenhorn]

You could cut a mix of 4/4, 6/4, and 8/4.  Make sure on the 8/4 that it is sawn from the top grade, i.e., saw the 8/4 from the clearest, best quality faces.

I dunno, those are some small profiles. It doesn't leave me a lot of re-sawing opportunities. Perhaps 4x8, 4x12 and some 4/4 and 6/4 would be a happy medium? I want to have some that can be used for bottom support timbers for various sheds and outbuildings. This is an environmental education center of about 600 acres with lots of buildings and historic stuff to maintain. I am close to talking them into buying their own mill which I can help them setup and run, I am just doing some stuff to get them started.
I just got home from anther work session over there. They have a music camp in progress this week finishing up in the morning, so I could not work on those big trees lest I disturb the programs in progress, so I went to a pasture about 1/2 mile away from the main area and dropped the first of the big dead ashes that line the perimeter of about 4 or 5 pastures. It was about 18" DBH and about 50' tall, and the challenge was that I could only work from one side because the ground dropped off completely behind it. Standing dead (long time) with some top branches that I kept my eye on constantly. It also had a barbed wire strand running through it. It made a huge bang when it hit the ground.  I got 4 and a half saw logs out of it and bucked the rest into a firewood pile. It too a lot longer to clean it up, than it did to drop it and buck it. MC was 22% near the stump and higher as you went up. I need to get them to supply me with a helper. We hand rolled the logs off the mowed grass and I will fetch them in the coming weeks. They will be milled to specific sizes, dried and treated, then  stored as replacement planks for the bridge we are restoring now which is nearly done. The rain set us back a bit.
Everything is a plan in development and we are all learning as we go. I like volunteering my time there and getting interrupted by the little kids and city based adults who come by and ask questions about what we are doing and why. It's my way of teaching folks that cutting trees and making lumber or heat is all part of the cycle. In this place they can see the entire circle in front of them. Trees growing, trees being cut, lumber milled and being dried, buildings being built or repaired. I am surprised at how many folks have not really figured this out yet.
@doc henderson that log is darned straight, but it has a slight bow from the weight. I am not sure that will come out when I buck it. Still I am surely planning on just free-hand knocking a few inches off each side to get my first cuts in on the mill. Those butt logs will be no longer than 10' and I still may have to shorten them to be able to maneuver them around. One of the guys from the center really wants to come over and work with me to understand a little about milling so I will give him a crash course on these big logs.  ;D :D I think I need another (bigger) cant hook. A 32" log 10' long comes in at around 3500#. My skidding arch won't even swallow that, not sure how I am going to do this AT ALL. I love a challenge.

[Old Greenhorn]

 Well, i got back there today and put in a half day after helping my wife set up at the county fair. It felt good to put 4 hours or so of straight saw time without being disturbed. Man it was hot working in the sun with 90% humidity! I could barely peel my shirt off when I finally quit. i bucked up the small log shown above in reply 216 ( I think), cutting the top into firewood length either for campfires or to be split for heating some of the many buildings on the grounds. After my third tank and second sharpening I was finally out of breath and sweat. I grabbed a chain and rigged and pulled the small logs under the big stick, so when I buck it, there will be rails to roll and turn it on. (I love the front hooks on my new truck, makes things easier.) I quit around 6pm to get home for dinner after I looked over my tasks for the next week to set up for the festival. I can do more cutting tomorrow in the morning and afternoon, if I have breath left, but then I need to get home and start getting my gear ready for the festival next weekend. I have a buddy working the gig who is driving in from KY Sunday night and I need to get some time with him before we both hit 'work mode'.
It's going to be another long week of getting beat up at work 9 hours a day, then grabbing dinner and heading over to the center to do something satisfying.
Anyway, I spent the afternoon cutting, but besides cutting about a cord of wood and 5 small saw logs, it doesn't look like I did much. No photos, sorry, when I am cutting, that is not on my mind, and a bunch of firewood laying in tall grass doesn't mean much. Look at the photo above and picture most of the tops gone and the over laying log is no longer there.