couple pics... post what your currently cutting

[Old Greenhorn]

.....
that was honestly my best week ever since i live in CR, i was so happy, sat down drank a beer in the quarryshed and realized that i finally got to the point where all the hard work of the last 18years, since my adventure began, is producing fruits.

That has to be the best feeling there is, and it is so rare, you should do more than just have a beer, really.  Maybe two? :D Now it's going to get complicated with work loads, rather than growth projects. Be careful on that front or you will catch up to Barge. I ran into him on my way home this afternoon and he looks tired. Out in the skidder late at night 'after work' trying to keep all those balls in the air at the same time. I don't know how he does it. I do know he looked more tired than I felt, and I felt exhausted. Still do.

[Riwaka]

The Waratah 622B is up to a series 3 now. Older 622B when used at 15K-20K hours can be around half the cost of a new one to overhaul.

A bogie skidder Tigercat pulls around 1.5 X the volume what a similar 4 wheel skidder will pull. Or the 13 hours in the 4x4 skidder cab could be reduced to something less 9 hours in a 6x6 Tigercat skidder. Either that or wait to see how the John Deere 6x6 skidder goes long term.

Maybe DARPA will develop a robot to run a chainsaw one day?

[BargeMonkey]

Tom I got almost 8hrs in after I saw you... 🤷‍♂️😆... couple hitches im off the hill and move iron hopefully tomorrow before dark.


  

[thecfarm]

Darkness comes in at almost 9pm now.

[mike_belben]

Yup, dinners at 10 dont be late.

[Old Greenhorn]

Tom I got almost 8hrs in after I saw you... 🤷‍♂️😆... couple hitches im off the hill and move iron hopefully tomorrow before dark.

I was probably in bed before you got out of the cab. That heat sucked the life out of me yesterday and that dry shirt I put on for the drive home was soaked though while I was unloading. 
 I'll see you Wednesday again, I expect.

[treemuncher]

 I cant get any decent help, I got out of the cab at 9pm tonight after 13hrs, its nuts.

Been there, done that. They will make you or break you if you have the patience to weed through until you find the right people to help you. Putting in the long hours WILL allow you to get over the hump and after that, life will become so much better without the burden of payments wiping out every income check.
I just lost patience for finding help and dealing with the associated government paperwork. I don't make as much money without help but I do have a lot more freedom and every job is completed to my standards. Like you, I've burned a lot of midnight oil and long hours. You will never be successful if you are not truly committed to your business. Looks to me like you are doing great in both respects!

[Resonator]

The snazziest logger in our town.  Quite a lot of nice iron but no CTL gear.  First lift axle log trailer ive seen.

Looks like the setup on some of the 2 axle dump trailers I pulled. The lead axle air suspension valve is automatically load activated, as soon as you unload the trailer, hiss, up goes the axle. We also ran 7 axle, (4 on the tractor, 3 on the trailer), with switches in the cab to raise and lower axles. 

[mike_belben]

I was getting all the low man on totem pole jobs where you need a canopener to get jackknifed out of some of the ridiculous sites or residential drops.

Eventially i plumbed dump valves into both axles on the spread.  Turn the tractor 90° to the trailer.  Only need a few feet in front and back of you.  Inflate one axle dump the other and pullup. Switch axles and back up.  Switch axles and pull up etc.  Crabwalk all the way to birmingham  ;D  or atleast sidestep out around that pole, fence or pallet that the rub rail wants to climb over.


I cant 90 alleydock around stupid cones in a sahara sized parking lot to save my life but i will thread that trailer down wisteria lane between luxury cars in reverse no problem.

[barbender]

Yes lift axles are handy for maneuvering, too. 

[Resonator]

Most of my trucking miles were pulling 48' spread axle flat, with no lift axles. You learned early on to make a sweeping turn backing in loaded on blacktop, try to turn it 90 and their could be damage to the trailer axle, or rip the tires off. 
Lift axles are handy for maneuvering, especially if you make sure to lift the steerable tag axle backing up. ;D

[mike_belben]

Mine too, always a spread flat for stone.  I did stepdeck a few weeks and a run or two with a closed tandem flat that was all tore up when the flat was worse tore up!

No lift axles.. Just dump the air in one and itll scrub easy across the tread diagonal. No worse than a sharp turn with both axles aired up.  Id dump water in the skid patches if i had to do it loaded.


I did try deadheading with a ratchet strap lifting the rear axle just to pass the boredom while calculating what it was worth in mileage.  I did the rear because one of my deck boards was missing at the very back at the time and there was an easy xmember right over the axle.  There was no easy way to strap up the forward axle so i never tried.   It was worth about .3 to .5 mpg empty and manuevered super easy, coasted better etc. But youd need the brakes caged to do it and not shred tires.  With the rear lifted its like a wheelie bar.  Coming down a hill that hits a flat, if you had to use service brakes the floating tires would be locked up and then skidding if they hit the bottom of the hill at all.   Soo.. I figured out why the forward axles are pretty much always the lifts.

[Skeans1]

 

 Have to see how this does it's tempting to throw the dawgs and put on the 60" bar on to see how it does.

[Tacotodd]

That poor little echo.

[BargeMonkey]

I told the landowner, call me when you see lightning 😆. Can see about 30 miles off his porch. 


 
 I cant go FAST enough... the girl from Dunhamel and Renae Bernard called me today wanting to know when I can load trailers 🤷‍♂️. Pulling the slasher and 648 tomorrow, go hammer that oak, 


 


 
 Ive got a brush pile thats.... 200x600 ? And stacked 16'ish high with the stroker... 😆.... going to throw a party when we light this off. 

[mike_belben]

Got one in training for ya barge.  





Hes not bad for 7.

[Southside]

Send him here Mike.  There is no help to hire, and nobody wants to work.  Have one employee who came to me last year - needed a job, put him on full time, two weeks ago he tells me he can only work 4 hours a day, three days a week, can't handle any more.  New hire that I had for a week sends me a text at 3:00 yesterday afternoon - "Sorry, not ready to go back to work yet"  - only been unemployed for a year, bought a house right before the stuff started.  How do you survive that way?  Just what govt program keeps you going to where you can just walk away from work?  

Spent the past three days running two machines by myself that usually have three people running them as a team.  All the while customers call up wanting to know "where is my stuff?"  One guy tried to pull the "I am normally an easy going guy" thing - stopped him in his tracks, told him he could have his deposit back, come to work for me, or sit and wait.  He chose option three.  

[mike_belben]

I have no idea how theyre doin it. When i couldnt pay i lost my house and so did my wife.  No one gave a spit what hardships caused it.  Youre a month late, we want the full balance now.  

Once bitten twice shy.  09 was just a dry run.  This bubble is the real deal coming up.  Im trying to set the kids up so that a lack of paper money doesnt slow them down.  Paper isnt diggin this swimmin pool hole right now kiddo.  Old junk iron and diesel fuel is. 

[Hogdaddy]

 


Been trying to post pics off of an Apple computer, thought I would try a windows machine... just a bunch that I've been cutting on a while now, more red oak and hickory than anything else really. 

[trimguy]

Mike you could send him this way, I can't even find a warm body , little lone someone who knows or can do something. I will pay in diesel.😂

[Resonator]

Diesel? I thought he ran it on French fry fryer fuel. ;D

[mike_belben]

Im saving it for when red diesel breaks $3 and the motor oil drums have been consumed.  

[Plankton]

Barge Annie is a much better dispatcher then whoever is up to Hancock they can't there stuff together straight chaos hahah.

We just finished job we're on 380k ft and at least 25 loads firewood with 4700 ft of slash wall built in 17 days. Straight up hammering didn't want to drive that far that long.

[BargeMonkey]

Every morning when I get up I make sure to stretch, I grab my ankles and wonder what the day has planned for me.... 🤷‍♂️😆. 


 
 She identifies as a danglehead now 😆. About a week, couple bushing and a pin. Change the chain and 4 rollers on the Propac next week, want to play expect to pay. 

[barbender]

That's more like it😊