Making it thrugh another year, '24-'25

[SawyerTed]

If we can indiscriminately spend other people's money, can't we loan the tools of someone we are just acquainted with?  

[Old Greenhorn]

Well guys, I know this might be confusing, but this is actually Bill's job and client. His carpenter, Billy, is doing the work as he works for Bill, so there is no borrowing needed. Also this location is precisely one mile of private road from Bill's yard. So they can, and do, drive any dang piece of gear down there they might need. There is a teeny mini-ex on site but it doesn't have a lot of reach. At any rate, they got the headers up yesterday afternoon.  Austin, you might get a kick out of this. It's been 30 years since I was up on this property and I had forgotten about the pool that feeds that waterfall you saw. This pool is what is called 'dry laid stone' meaning there is no mortar used in it's construction. It's an old and dying art, but when done correctly will last many hundreds of years. Done wrong it will collapse in a couple of decades. I had forgotten how elaborate this pool is, or maybe I never saw it dry, we haven't had any real rain in a while now.


The pool is fed from runoff coming under the driveway I took the photo from. It enters into a deeper pool and when that fills it over spills into a wider rectangular pool, the when it all fills, it spills over the rectangular cut you can see at the far end, which is the waterfall seen from the road. If the inflow is really high and fast, it spills off the side into another stone trench on the left (barely visible in this photo) to handle more runoff. Further, there is a 1-1/2" drain pipe in that main pool so that if there is no inflow to that pool, it will drain out over a couple of days. It's an amazing little piece of engineering.
----------------------------------------------------
Well today was a much longer day than I planned on working for sure. As I said, Billy was tailing for me so I knew I had to get him back to his actual work rather than help me. I kept things moving and we had some bad logs to get out of the way but we filled his truck with the stuff he really needed and he left at noon with a smile and enough lumber to get him into next week. I continued his order with one more log after he left, did a better cleaning than usual, swapped out a full slab rack for an empty (my last) and checked in with Billy on my way home. I told him I expect to finish all his lumber tomorrow. I texted Bill I need one more 14' log. Had lunch and was back in my shop by 2:30 and started working on a epoxy pour when Bill texted and asked if I could come down to the mill and run the transit while he dug 'the' trench. Now this trench is the one we have been talking about for 3 years to drain the water from around the mill deck and allow us to finally grade the area for more efficient working with no ice ponds in the winter and no frog breeding pond in the summer. I finished my pour and got there in 20 minutes.  He was just doing a quick run through with the transit to see where and how much he had to cut. So he dug and I followed checking his work and keeping the pitch on track. Then we ran up the hill and grabbed 60' of 6" pipe from his stock and set that, then Bill started bring in some shale and finally starting just peeling the bedrock shale from the high side and grading down to the pipe. He had an appointment at 5:30 and I thought I would only be there half an hour, but in just two hours we had the pipe in and 2/3's of it back filled. There is a bunch of grading to do and for now I can't drive my truck through there, but the mill operation is unimpeded and in fact greatly improved. So much easier to drive and drop a log on the deck now even before the grading is done. We finished off by loading that last 14' log on the deck and then beat it out of there. Less than 2 hours work and likely he will finish the grading with Inga over the weekend because that is fun Daddy/Daughter work for them. Maybe Inga will get some loader time.  That area where the skid steer sits is all going to be filled up the level of where Bill is standing.


Yeah, a longer day than I thought and I am too tired to eat. It never broke 62° today, I started with a jacket for a while, then a shirt for most of the day until we started on the trench and I put on a hooded sweatshirt. My fingers were getting cold with the breeze.
 One more day of pushing hard tomorrow and hopefully I can get out the lumber Billy needs so I can get that off my mind and enjoy the weekend. Next week I need to get back on the woodshed order I put on the side to do the bird house. I also need to get those mushroom logs done and delivered by the end of the week.
 One day at a time. I need a beer or three.

[Old Greenhorn]

You know that house has been on my mind. I think the wife and I looked at it when is was for sale back in the 90's and my parents were in the market. I had no idea when it was built, so tonight I did a little research and found the house was built in the 30's explaining the fine stone work because you can't find good dry masons anymore. We had 2 in our county a while back, but now I don't know.
 Zillo estimates the value of this place at 1.1 million bucks. When we looked at that house in the 90's it was ten years after we bought our cookie cutter raised ranch for $170k. This place sold in 1994 for $121k. Holy cow, I missed that one. You can see it HERE if you are curious like me.

[SwampDonkey]

There's a lot of fly by the seat of the pants types in real estate. The guy that bought dad's place was an engineer for NASA (supposedly) and was retiring here in NB (again  supposedly). Well he did some work to the house and finished the basement, probably spent $50 grand. At the same time, up the hill he was building a new home. Over the course of a couple years he and his wife were back in the US as he was called upon by NASA to come work again (supposedly). The guy didn't lack money, but his idea to come here was to be near the border, which is 15 minutes away through the Woodstock/Houlton crossing. I think the guy was like so many southerners, some money to spend, not used to the climate up here and don't stick around long.  Funny for me, I've always felt October to April was the best time of the year up here. Shovel a little snow now and again and keep warm by the fire.

[Old Greenhorn]

My memory about those things is pretty foggy. We were busy trying to get by, raise the kids, pay for food, working 60 hours a week and trying to find a place for my folks to buy around us. I think, anyway. The folks that bought that house then cleared some out back and erected long green houses and high tunnels and raised flowers for the commercial (wholesale) market. The place has 15 acres most of which appears useable but largely untouched. It's a very nice setup and the current owners I think have been there 5 years or so. He works in the city in some finance job or other. Anyway, it's a lovely well kept place. They just put on an addition last year that Bill did all the dirt work for and it fits with the house perfect.
 I can't believe that house sold for $120k is all, but if I recall that was back in a time when no houses were moving and many were on the market for 2 or 3 years. That was a steal. It didn't get a second look for my folks because all the bedrooms were on the second floor and they needed a single floor house with minimal stairs. But I do recall that house was really nice inside with a lot of raised panel work. If you look at the photos you can see some of it.
 It's just funny how things work out over time.

[aigheadish]

Whoa Tom! I don't know if I saw the house from the road but I certainly did not expect that pool at the top of the waterfall. That's really cool! That house and stone work is neat!

Wait 120k for that joint and 15 acres? Jimoney!

[Old Greenhorn]

Tonight I am bone tired and having a hard time keeping my eyes open. I got to the mill before 9 because I had to finish that order today. The first two logs went fairly easy and made good wood, even the 14 footers. The third log was junk and I barely got a minimal amount of wood out of it, but JUST enough to finished the order, or so I thought. I checked everything on my cut list twice. So I cleaned up and left by 1pm and headed to town to run a half dozen errands before we leave, food store, drug store, beer store, gas, etc.
 Got he, had a quick lunch, unloaded the truck of tools and oddball wood, etc., then gave it a quick wash. Between the mud and the sawdust it was kind of messy.  I went in the shop and was really dragging but I did some sanding on the next ERC stool I am working on and put a coat of poly on the one I did the other day. I was loosing steam fast. So I came in around 4:30 and took a shower, then threw some stuff in a bag selected my wardrobe for the weekend.
 We had dinner then I came down to update my milling log. That's when I realized the printed copy I was working from had more material on the second page, which I had not printed, so I missed a mess of 1x4 purlins that I still owe on the order. So I let Bill know I was short and will finish those off Tuesday morning and deliver them if everything else is already moved to the site. My bad, stuff happens.
 Anyway, I will be in bed early tonight again. We'll hit the road in the morning for some R&R with the cousins. Looks like the high for the weekend will be about 55° up there with rain on Sunday. We hit the flea market on Saturday morning and maybe again on Monday on the way out of town. We have no other plans, but they have some nice rockers on their front porch I like to test out.

[Machinebuilder]

Remember in the early 90's the real estate market was severely depressed due to a certain computer company cutting over 10000 jobs in the hudson valley.

The house I had in Wappingers falls had lost about 1/2 its market value and I was lucky to sell it after over a year on the market.

I had bought it in 1983? for $49500 sold it in 1994? for $60000. 2 years earlier a similar house sold for $100000

I just looked on Zillow, it last sold 9/2022 for $270000 with today's value $326000.

[Old Greenhorn]

Yeah, I was recalling that whole period too. Run of the mill homes were a tough sell. 2 houses down was on the market for 3 years, it had a flat roof which is weird for around here and nobody would buy it. The owners finally put a 'normal' roof on it and it sold about 8 months later, for a song. But stone houses with beautiful woodwork inside in good shape should always catch the eye, I would think. It a unique house with nice property. Those folks that bought it for 120k started their nursery there but I think only lasted about 5 years before moving on. As you say, the market was flat dead back then and yeah, the IBM exodus hit everyone. I know my employer took it on the chin as we did 80% of our work for them in Poughkeepsie, Kingston, Fishkill, and Hopewell Junction. Glad I never took the job offer I got from them back in the 70's

[Old Greenhorn]

I saw these at a flea market today. Think I'm gonna make one .

[Old Greenhorn]

Been a while since I updated here. We had a nice time in VT, Saturday was fine fall weather and we enjoyed the flea market. I had seriously (yet briefly) considered getting a booth at this one for this weekend, but it's a 2.5 hour haul with the trailer and I am not quite ready for that. Turned out to be a good choice. I would have only gotten one good selling day out of the 3. It rained Sunday and Monday and when we drove by Monday, there were only 3 vendors open, out of maybe 60 that were there Saturday. I only bought a draw knife, which was in good shape and will take little effort to bring back to life. The one I got last year from the same guy had 'issues' and will need a ton more filing before it is 'right' but I have it working ok for now.

So the rest of the weekend we just relaxed with family. My cousin Bob's dementia is getting progressively worse but still it was nice to spend time with him. I don't know how many more 'times' we will have, so I make the best of what I get. He is the oldest of the first cousins in my generation and I am the youngest. He is 94.

It's the first time in a long time I have gone for the weekend and not had a saw or two in the truck, didn't think I needed them. Turns out they had a large Maple on their field edge that got broke in a windstorm 3 days after or July visit (the same storm that destroyed my canopy at Grey Fox 150 miles west). The tree is broke off halfway up, but really not a bad fall although it is about 40" on the stump. It's making a mess out of the field edge. Last year on this weekend I cut up one of the leaders off that tree that just broke off and I took about 20 mushroom logs out of it. I could have gotten at least that out of this one, perhaps enough for the order I cut on Tuesday. Oh well. Next time back I will take it down for them. Probably bring the 372 if I get it running again.

Tuesday Bill had a tree job he was holding for me and the wind finally died down, so I got a full order of logs out of it and he got a bunch of trees done. He still has some more, but I don't need logs until after leaf out. He has to get these done to finish off his scope of work on a large project he started in May. Anyway, I delivered those logs on Thursday.


I also have been working on finishing that first ERC stool and making another, but I am on a mission to find a better, more clear finish. There is another thread on that, so I won't repeat. Today we had to bring a cat in for more blood tests to see how the meds are working. She is doing well, but they want us to increase the dose for a month the get her 'number down'. She tolerated this trip much better than the last one for sure, which is also a good sign.

Anyway, we got her home and I headed up o an old supply store up in Woodstock that carries higher end stuff than the box stores, they at least carry the brand of finish I was looking for, but not the specific mix. Now I hate going to Woodstock on the weekends, the tourist traffic is beyond stupid and there is no place to park, but it was noon on Friday and I though I might miss that traffic. As I got into town I realized traffic flow was a bit heavy and then I remembered it is the 'film festival' weekend. Town was filled with BMW's, Mercedes, fancy sports cars, and such from people all over. There was zero parking to be found. I circled the hardware store block 3 times and finally found a spot. I went in and the hardware store was pretty much empty. I mumbled to the clerk about the difficulty getting into the place and he muttered back to complain about having no business on these weekends because none of the locals can get in and give up trying.

Anyway, I got home and gave the new stuff a try and now have two coats on. One more hand sanding and another coat to go tomorrow. I had to do a nearly full fire in the shop today to get it up to temp. The days are cooling, sunshine or not.

I came in around 5 and Bill called to find out how I did getting the rest of the lumber need for the bird house done (overrun order). I told him I can't mill it if I don't have a list and I never got it. So he is going to dig into that and get me a list and I'll try to get that done over the weekend. I still have yet to do the log invoice I was going to do yesterday.

Last night we had one of those 'household disasters' that really throws me off. After dinner, one of my jobs is to clean the coffee pot and reset it for the next morning (we have it on a timer for 4:45am). So I did that and when I plugged the cord in, it felt 'wrong'. I looked and one of the pins in the pot had gotten pushed inside. No good, dead coffee pot. OK, for me, this is a total show stopper. We use farberware pots and have a few, but only one working 12 cup pot, now dead. So I grabbed an 8 cup and set that up figuring we'd have to make a second pot this morning. But it ruined my evening and this is a problem I HAD to fix for life to return to normal. Now we have another 12 cup pot that does not work, so I opened it up and figured out that the safety fuseable link had blown. I opened up our newly dead pot and took the link out of that one and put it in the other pot, then reassembled it and brought it upstairs to test. It ran fine but did not shut off. Turns out the thermistor is shot and would not shut the pot off when the coffee was done, it would just keep boiling and this is what blew the link out. So back downstairs and I took the link out of the pot with the bad switch along with the fried terminal and pins and transferred them to the pot that just blew. Tested it again and all worked fine. So I left the 8 cup in place, and when we emptied that this morning I just ran the 12 cup to finish out the morning. Life is back to normal, but it consumed my whole evening and put me in a foul mood. Mess with my coffee and you are messing with my life and that just trickles out into bad stuff and me in an ugly mood.

I don't know how much I will get done tomorrow. My SIL is finally play8ng a gig with his new band, in fact he has 2 gigs tomorrow with 2 different bands, one at a farm and one at a club. Not sure if we will make the farm gig or not, but I would like to make the evening gig at a club I know and we can be comfortable at as well as stand a good chance of running into folks we know, although that dang festival is in town and might bollox things up a bit with tourists. Next weekend was always the Invitational Luthiers Showcase, but that ended last year and I will miss a major opportunity to reconnect with a lot of the touring pros I know who are always traveling, but make the show when they can and I get catch up time. Thinking about it, since COVID shut everything down and I retired I have never gotten back in the groove. I used to catch gigs between 1 and 5 times a week to see local pros and friends play. I really miss that. Nothing special, I wasn't out partying all night. I'd hit a gig for an hour or two, have 2 beers and be at work on time the next morning with a full night's sleep. OK, once in a while something special would happen or somebody special would show up, and I'd get home at 1am and be in rough shape the next day, but it was always something epic I couldn't walk away from and those memories are still with me. But I have to say, I really miss that and it will never happen again, which is very sad for me as well as my friends. Some clubs have closed, others have changed hands, management, and business plans which go with pop music,  younger folks, fancy decor, and pricier food & drink ($8.00 beers?!). Ah well, time to face the fact that I am an old fart.
Tomorrow is another day.

(Howard, were the paragraphs easy enough to figure out? Did I type slow enough?)

[Old Greenhorn]

As it turned out I didn't make any of those gigs yesterday and I wasn't happy about it. But I was really tired after yesterday's mill session and even after an involuntary 2 hour nap in the afternoon I was pretty tired and groggy. I could not see myself driving up to the night gig in the dark and getting home late. I hated to miss it, but I made my apologies and stayed in. I did, however, get all the extra lumber needed for the bird house build.

Funny thing, as I was pulling into the mill yard Bill was there shaking his fist at me. I asked 'what is up with that?" and he said "I heard you drive through that puddle below the house, so I bounced down the hill to cut off a trespasser." I told him I was sorry I disappointed him.
 
 The weather this weekend is so nice and today I decided to resort to my "Sunday is Funday" plan that has kind of evaporated in the last couple of years.  Believe it or not I headed back to the mill, but this time I sent Bill a text first "I'm headed to the mill, please don't shoot me." So I got there,
 unscathed, and spent a couple of hours raking out under the mill and clearing the mill deck of all the rotten tailings, bark, sawdust, and chainsaw chips. I clean the deck once in a while, but the stuff under the mill was beginning to build up and get on my nerves. I hate a messy workspace, and this one I needed to fix and is mine, so it was time to fix it. The roof rake made it pretty easy to pull out the junk from under the mill. I know these aren't common in the grits belt, but up here we have lots of them ( I think I have 5 I have found at garage sales form new city folks who don't know what they are) and I keep one down at the mill for sawdust management. Very handy. If I had brought a leaf blower, the place would be downright sterile.






 While I was working on that, a short parade of a truck and a toolcat came by, but nobody stopped, they just waved. (No I didn't shoot them, they waved.) I heard all kinds of work noises across the road, plumes of diesel smoke, tractors starting up and things going on but I could see anything over the log piles. I thought 'maybe he's finally cleaning out the steel shed and getting ready to frame up the slab pour?!' The mill deck has not looked this good since before I started running the mill. I am pleased, time well spent.

 When I ran out of sweat and finished up my work, I walked across the road. I should have known, Bill made another addition to his rolling stock and he was storing it in the steel building. I was not happy.


Yeah, he got about 5 of those go-karts from a track for a song. They all have Honda engines and are in fair shape. But it ticks me off a bit he won't let me cut slabs and dry the in the building but he buys a bunch of this junk and puts it in there. He assures me they will only sit there until they have a 'Friday night builders party' and move them up to the shop and get them all running. He wants to make a track to run them on. I just see it as delaying getting a slab in that building with insulation and wiring. He is making me crazy, but he is good at it. If you look to the left in the above photo, you will see a slabmizer peeking out of that trailer door. He wants me to run that in the trailer. Ain't happening. I want to see that sitting on the concrete pad inside that building, ready to go. I also have several other machines to set in there.

So that was the morning. After that I headed out to visit the vendors market I have done 3 times this summer. I thought I missed the boat with the perfect fall weather and opting to not do it this month. So I drove out to see how it was actually going. Same story, great day, traffic not bad, but nobody really buying anything. I also noted there were much less vendors, some of the regulars had the same thought I did. I made more at the sawmill today doing cleanup than I would have at the show, and it was a lot less work.

 In the late afternoon I messed in the shop a little on some leg glue-ups, figuring it out. I found one wrong way to go.  At the end of the day I realized I don't have enough beer for a normal evening, so I texted Bill "coming down to steal some beer, please don't shoot me". He still has a keg is wants to empty form his August party and shut the cooler down. I kicked the Stella keg last month and am now down to Yueng Ling and I filled a couple of growlers. While I was there he needed help unloading his truck from another 'find'. Lots of nails and screws in cases, some finishes, a house jack, a 572 carcass that seems fixable, and many other odds and ends. I came home with a like new Dremel multi-tool and a fresh gallon of wood preservative/deck seal.

 Tomorrow is another day.

[Old Greenhorn]

Well I haven't left the road for 2 days now. Didn't even leave the house until this afternoon. 2 full shop days. Yesterday I fiddle-farted around trying to figure out how to use the shelves I got from my wife's show stuff at this upcoming indoor show. I would up making a top piece I could hang my cookie mirrors on and some coat racks. Spent a good part of the day on that stupid little thing, but it will look good. I also worked off and on doing some leg glue-ups for another stool. A full shop day, none the less.
 
Last night I got contacted through my FB page by a repeat client who wanted info, cost, and some photos on those cookie mirrors. So this morning we hooked up again and she picked one out to buy. I had just made these two mirrors since my last show when I sold the two I had left. I've been carrying those a while. I sold one back in July then no bite all summer on the others until my last show. I thought two more would last me through next year, but I already sold one today, so I started in making two more this morning. I flattened them on the drum sander, routed out the mirror pockets in the back and did the fine sanding as well as the hanging holes. Then I got the first rough coat of epoxy on the back sides and edges. It took until about 3:30 for that much. I did get a nice pic of the end grain in those cookies showing the pores and the medullary rays.


 I was (again) out of beer and rather than to the 40 minute loop to town, I just rinsed out my growlers and headed to Bill's. Probably a mistake in hindsight.  I met him on the way in and he said Billy needs more lumber because the client finally decided that the outside should be sheathed as we all were saying from the beginning. 'Only 30 more 1x10x9's'. Shoot. This bird house is getting on my nerves, this is the third 'extra lumber order'.
 For those who want to see how it's coming along:


SO before I stole my beer I went down to the mill hunted up 4 logs that should do the job and marked them with orange paint. I got my beer, played with the pup, and met him on the way out. He will pull and set the logs on the deck tonight. I guess I will be down there tomorrow.

 Anyway, I got back to the shop and worked some more on those glued up legs and did all the rough sanding on the seat slab.
 A full day and my legs are tired, as well as the rest of me.
 Tomorrow is....

[WV Sawmiller]

Tom,

   I am glad to see the repeat customer comment. I like working with people again as they understand better and are already happy with your workmanship.

    I trust and hope you start getting calls and orders from your shows. I consider mine advertising as I get more work after the fact that at the show so don't think the time spent talking to people was a waste of you time. It may just pay delayed dividend.

[Old Greenhorn]

Of course I agree and concur with everything you say Howard. I spend a lot of time chatting with folks, it's part of what I paid for to do a show. But this client was one of my first custom clients and her husband (a former co-worker) was my fist milling client. I have seen him at one of my shows last year, but I have never seen her at a show. She has, however, followed me on FB and sends me links for shows she thinks I might fit into. They live about 30 miles west of me and I passed by their house to make that log delivery last week. I suspect she is buying this for a gift.
 It's a lot like jug fishing, you put out a lot of lines, put the best bait on them you know, and then wait and see.
 I got lots to do to reconfigure for this indoor and downsized show, plus I gotta make more mirrors.  My winter goal is to make enough stock of stuff that does sell so that I don't HAVE to make more during the summer season next year. So more stools, rustic benches, mirrors, bottle balancers, and other stuff I have yet to think of, small and relatively cheaper things.
 

[aigheadish]

Nice pictures above Tom, thanks for the birdhouse update.

Do the cookies go nicely through the drum sander? I would've thought the difference in grain direction would throw everything off. 

[Old Greenhorn]

These cookies are dried nearly 5 years now and they go through fine, but they are pretty hard (RO) and I had originally cut them with a chainsaw, so they are not as parallel as I would like. The drum sander is not intended, nor does it work well for material removal. But these two that I ran through yesterday I had already done a lot of rough sanding and flattening work on as well as some crack fills. The drum sander does leave very fine lines and for these I really have to work with the ROS to get those out, lest they show, or ruin the effect you see in that grain photo. I probably have 6 or more of these left, but at this point I need to make a jig and take them to the mill for splitting in half. The thin ones (1 to 1-1/2) sell easier than the thick (2-3") ones, plus I get more pieces out, when these are all gone, I got nothing left.
________________
That dang bird house is getting annoying as this is the 3rd 're-order' for more material. First they asked for rafters that were too short, so I re-made those (2x6x12'), then they were short on 1x10's in 8 and 10 feet, so I rushed to cut them 28 more Saturday, now they want siding for the outside, so 30 more 1x10's at 9'. That's an awful lot of lumber to have not made the BOM on the first run. So I am up early today to try and get some stuff going in the shop, then head to the mill where 4 logs sit waiting for me. I sure hope they aren't punky inside. I feel another long day coming on.

[doc henderson]

cookies cut on a mill will be more uniform unless they split as the split often results in a bit of corkscrew.  Right Howard?     A planer will pull chips out of the backside.  a drum sander is better and also how I do it.  

[beenthere]

......................
________________
That dang bird house is getting annoying as this is the 3rd 're-order' for more material. First they asked for rafters that were too short, so I re-made those (2x6x12'), then they were short on 1x10's in 8 and 10 feet, so I rushed to cut them 28 more Saturday, now they want siding for the outside, so 30 more 1x10's at 9'. That's an awful lot of lumber to have not made the BOM on the first run. So I am up early today to try and get some stuff going in the shop, then head to the mill where 4 logs sit waiting for me. I sure hope they aren't punky inside. I feel another long day coming on.

Tom
You are the boss of your time.  

[Old Greenhorn]

Well I am mostly the boss of my time but there are two things I hate more than anything else and will do what I have to in order for them to go away. One is being in debt to someone personally, and the other is having people wait on me so they can do their work. Today was one of those days I should have either stayed in bed or put some focused effort into my day drinking skills.

 Not 2 minutes after I made that last post, I got a text from Billy the carpenter, now he wants 50 1x10x9's and 6 more 2x4x9's. He's padding the BOM and I got annoyed because he told me 30 yesterday and I ran to the mill and marked logs to do what he needed plus some and we had them queued up to mill this morning. I had planned an hour in the shop before milling so I could get some epoxy poured. Since I was annoyed, I gave up on the epoxy and just headed to the mill around 8 to see if I could pull this off today and have that out of my hair. But the day wasn't starting out very well and the trend continued to worsen.
 So I am a half mile into Bill's private road and there is a full sized tractor/trailer stopped in the middle of the road. I'm ticked, I have work to do. The driver doesn't know why he is here, he isn't clear on the address he was looking for and says it is either SR 28 or SR 28A. Two different roads. When I finally get him to look at his manifest, it turns out he drove right past the place before he even got on our road. I explain he can't get through, best pull up into this driveway right here and back your trailer around and drive out. You passed the place 3 miles back. He wants to drive up that driveway hoping there is a big swing around for him. I told him I don't know what's up there, never been there but it's a private home and I am certain he is not welcome. Just pull up and back around, been done here a thousand times. So he pulls in and I drive on by, I got work to do.
 I get to the mill, get a quick start but I am out of room for slabs. Bill suggested I just haul them off to the side and he will grapple them later. Fine, but I am doing 30"+ logs and the slabs ain't light. I popped my back out on the second one. Great, now I am a cripple. SO getting madder as the trend continues, I hacked the slabs up so I could lift them and flung them in a pile. I get through the first log and get a nice whack of 1x10's and 3 of the 2x4's. I shut the mill off but left the blower running to load another log, have some water and take a wind break. The trend continues as out of nowhere the blower winds down and stops. Great, must have popped a breaker or something. So I humped up the cliff and check the sub-panel, all good, then trace the line back to the main panel in the original shop and that's all good. Then I go check the meter and it is dead. So it's a power outage. Just then one of Bill's guys shows up to help me tail and stack. Well I could run the mill with dust collection and just let it dump, but that makes a lot more work for me to clean up later. Bill shows up doing a load of rock to the screener. It's 10am and he calls the power company. They don't know what's up but say we should get power back by 1pm. Great. So Bill 'offers' to have us do a load of firewood, just a couple of cords for a restaurant. So now I am swinging a saw bucking 20" logs and humping them onto the splitter with my (wanna be) tailgunner. We filled the one ton dump in about 40 minutes. Now Bill's 2 other guys show up. They start running the processor across the road doing a 2 cord load.
 I go over to the mill to see if the power came on, it didn't, but one of the guys dripped off a generator to run the blower, so we hooked that up. Battery was dead and the pull starter nearly finished off my back. We got it going and resumed milling. Blew through the next log and lost about 5 boards to rot and poor quality, right into the boiler wood pile. But since I had help and it went a lot faster with a helper who knows the drill, I rarely touched a board and rarely stopped milling. But my back was screaming. When I finally had to quit, we had 47 1x10's and just the 3 2x4's. All that remains id a few more 2x4's to finish this current request. It's the only job order I have now finished 4 different times. Oh and the power came on when we were done. only 400BF or so, but geez.
 When I climbed in the truck, my console said I had about 27 miles of range left in my gas tank. it's 12 miles to town. Did I feel lucky? So I went to town and gassed up, then got some store bought beer, came home, took 4 advil and I am not sure, but I think I am done for the day although I really want to get that epoxy poured.
 Yep, I shoulda stayed in bed.
 Oh, and that tractor trailer driver? Bill said he saw a TT being escorted out of our road by a sheriff's deputy about an hour after my encounter. Guess he must have gone up that driveway and found out what I warned him about.

[Resonator]

Oh there's all kinds of drivers out there...  
A truck being escorted by the Sherriff isn't necessarily a bad thing. When I drove I found law enforcement was usually helpful getting a truck turned around and back on it's way. They'd much rather do that than have a tow truck situation, or deal with an accident.

[Old Greenhorn]

Of course that's true and I've seen it more than a few times here also. However, I know a lot of LEOs around here and they don't make a habit of cruising private roads without an assignment or call. I suspect this fella may have driven up Bill's neighbor's driveway anyway and met the wife. She was probably a lot less tolerant than me and made a phone call. We are all weary of these drivers who follow their GPS without any common sense added. AND if this guy was following his GPS, how did he miss turning into the big commercial driveway with the Business's sign on it when he drove past it? Then his GPS tried to take him 'around the block' which is a 10 mile loop including private roads.
 For me (and more so for the landowners) I never mind helping the rare errant driver, but this happens way too often and it consumes a lot of time, not to mention all these guys are not as pleasant as they could be and many don't know how to handle their rigs or back the trailers into a 90° dock. It's amazing.

[aigheadish]

I thought you were gonna say the truck knocked over a power pole when he was trying to back out. 

On the topic of truckers, I was cruising down I-75, in downtown Dayton, Sunday, after a run to Harbor Freight, and one thing that is a pet peeve of mine is if you are in an exit lane that you aren't supposed to be in and there is traffic that you should just take the exit rather than try to merge back into the highway traffic, barely missing the wall, and slowing down to about 35 mph to do it. This truck, somehow didn't hit the water barrels but he certainly slowed me and the few cars in front of me down considerably. Granted, downtown Dayton sucks with it's very compressed many exits in about a mile, but he could've caused a huge wreck behind him.

Take care of your back Tom! After it's hurting is no time to pull-start an engine!

[Nebraska]

That sounds like a terrible day. Hope this one is much better. 

[Old Greenhorn]

Well it wasn't a great day, but it was still a LOT better than sitting in a conference room arguing about which colors to use on a spreadsheet.  Also, the weather was perfect, even hot.

Austin, what you say could be possible. The 3 hour outage at the mill was only abut 10 seconds at my house, just 2 miles upstream. So it looks likely. 

 Pretty sore still this morning, I may coast through today doing shop work, but I have to keep moving.