Making it through another year, '23-'24

[WV Sawmiller]

Doc,

   Okay - now you are busy turning the next generation against a tried and proven process for making benches. I am crushed that a 5 y/o would specifically turn against me.  :( :( :(

    Tell her I am wounded but that it will heal (but there will be a permanent scar.). I hope she gets her wings back.

     BTW - I hope her bench rocks back and forth.

[doc henderson]

very funny.  she would have felt bad at the time, but she is almost a teenager now.  good luck.  I had not got to pick on you for a while.  I know you must be missing our banter.    :D :D :D

[Old Greenhorn]

You guys have to learn how to play nice. Howard if you need another hug I am here for ya buddy. ;D You haven't misjudged any of my colors in a while so I am sympathetic.
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Austin, I don't think I put pictures on here of the blankets because it really was/is a half-ashed job. I took no efforts to seal the edges in anyway because I need to open these doors sometimes to move pieces in and out. The 14' door needs several blankets and they barely make it to the floor.


 

The 7' door on the right was easier but I was well short of the floor on that one.


 

This year was jut a test. My doors are pretty well sealed all around and on top, but when we get high winds it can just force it's way through the cracks. In any event, when it's cold I have noticed a lot of thermal transfer through the door because it has no insulation. Most of the shop will be at a comfortable working temp, but the front 15' or so by the doors would be almost 10° cooler. I can say now that this is no longer the case. It may just be 3 or 4° cooler. I affixed the blankets on the top edge of the door by stapling through 3/8x 2" pine strips about 8-10 inches long. This will make removal easier. I may be more elaborate with it next year, but I am calling the test 'successful'.

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Today I just bounced from thing to thing with nothing special getting done. I was up at 5am because 'stuff' was banging around in my had and wouldn't let me sleep, so I might as well get to work, right? I flocked around for part of the morning prepping and flocking 3 or 4 boxes, and I flocked the inside of the cover for that first box I showed the other day. I'll post a full photo when I get them both cleaned up. I made a few more tops with that new design but I have to do some touching up before I start sanding and finishing. I am getting better with the flocking stuff and it goes pretty fast. The results, to my eye, are quite appealing. I wish I could find a nice little brass ball with a woodscrew thread to use as a button pull in the center of those tops. Everything I find is too big, too cheap, too gaudy, or too [something else]. I'll keep looking and eventually find something.
I also glues up some more boxes and worked on other stages of box building. This is gonna take a while because there are a lot of steps and I want each one to look good. Since I am not a real woorkworker, this takes me time. I just do a little work each day on them and eventually each day a box or two will hit the inventory rack. I still have to set up to drill the screw holes, tap them and order the screws.
I decided it was a pretty nice day and I need wood so headed across the road to hack up some blow downs and came back up the hill just as the wind was hitting 40 and the snow began to pelt down, we had a 20 minute whiteout, then it cleared. I could not get the splitter started, still working with that bad battery, but it's on the charger overnight and tomorrow should be good to go. Of course tomorrow will be 10-15° colder than today, but I am hoping for sun. The next day is snow, of course. Gonna be cold all week. I'll see what I can get split up and maybe grab another load. Seems like there are more than a few trees down that I'll have to check out. Each Mule load produces a couple of days wood, assuming it's burnable. ;D I've been keeping the shop in the low 60's, but that isn't great for drying finishes. Maybe I should start brining stuff in the house where it's 75 in the den. Hadn't considered that before now.

Tomorrow is what it will be I guess.

[aigheadish]

Thanks Tom, your blanket comments make me feel better about mine. Yesterday, when we were getting the wind, these blankets were breathing quite a bit.





I had electric heater, kerosene, and propane running at the same time, last night. Today, I've started with electric and torpedo heater. Propane is hot, 900+ degrees, but it's straight up into the ceiling fan and insulated but not great roofline. Kerosene is lovely but you have to be close. Electric is slow but OK, torpedo is heating the room up nicely but also slow. Concrete floor is a huge cold sink, even with a couple rugs.

Fuel is expensive, whether it's the work it takes to get wood or various junk you can pump out at the station. I paid around 240 bucks for a couple weeks worth of fuel. I'd probably rather a fireplace, if I had space.

I turned off the torpedo heater and it's cold almost instantly. Electric is still on. It's supposedly around 10 degrees right now.

[beenthere]

Time to put a ceiling in that garage/shop and add insulation above the ceiling. Will make it more worthwhile spending the $$$ on trying to heat with electric, propane, and kerosene which is a bit like peeing against the wind. Your garage door blankets will then have a more positive effect, I'm thinking.

[Hilltop366]

We put 3" of foam board insulation (two 1½ layers) on the vaulted ceiling of our uninsulated camp a few years ago and went from warm by the stove to warm anywhere and so much faster to heat up. Maybe someday we will put some insulation in the walls too but glad we did the ceiling first.

Thinking about it I remember that it snowed while we were putting the insulation on so over night there were parts that had no insulation and parts that had 1 layer and parts that had 2 layers. By morning it was pretty obvious were the insulation was as it had completely melted the snow were there was no insulation, half melted were there was 1 layer and no obvious snow melt compared to the overhang were there was 2 layers.

[Old Greenhorn]

Yeah, insulation sure helps. I have about 6" in my attic in the shop. but the walls are concrete block and pretty sure they have no filling. But I know the blankets help and they have also helped me realize that I have other areas I could do better. SO it might be a 'project' next early fall. I could make frame panels to in the the windows to cut down on air ingress, and also work on the main man door which I note is leaking a bit. All these things would help and will add up. But choosing my battles is always a battle. ;D
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Well tonight I am tired, but for a change I think I earned it. :D I got some shop work done this morning and when it warmed up to about 21° or so I went out and finally got the splitter started. So I split up all the wood I brought up yesterday. I brought a couple of wood hand trucks in the shop and filled the hoop then refilled the carts, so I have a bunch air drying by the stove and some still piled by the splitter. I took the Mule back down the hill and there was another top that has been laying for about a year, another maple. Glad the snow is pretty much gone, getting up that little hill through the trees was tough enough. I filled the Mule and it's all really good wood.

 

 

 I brought that up and split all that too. Most of it went on the pile by the splitter, but I did fill the Mule back up and parked it by the back door of the shop.

 

 

 I still have some to get in from the splitter area but I am pout of small storage and moving gizmos.

 

 

 There is still a little bit of ash down where I was cutting and some branches I could take also to clean it up some more, but it's steep and my legs were getting wobbly. I also have the trunk to take down.

 

 

 It's the stem on the right with the big bole. I'll have to get that bole to the mill, but the rest should be good firewood. It's about 22" or so on the stump. I think I'll try to drag that log out in 2 or 3 chunks. After that I have to go hunting for more wood.
 It never got over 27° today, which along with the partial sunshine, encouraged me to get out and do something. I am also concerned about this cold week ahead, as mentioned, my wood is dangerously low. So this was a 'feel good' boost to collect some decent wood and get it processed. The wood has been dead standing for quite a while, but has all the water picked up with the recent rains. This dries off pretty quick in the shop. SO having the wood stacked by the stove for a day or so is enough to pretty much dry it to a burnable state. It's already burning quite well, it just takes a different stove feeding philosophy. I keep it full most of the time. The wetter stuff on top gets dried out by the lower stuff already burning. Yeah, I know I am loosing energy doing this but it works and the shop is warm. I have the stove backed down to where the shop should be around 60 right now, but it is holding at 65 so I am getting better heat out of this wood then I expected. Between today and yesterday I think I cut and split about 2/3's of a cord, which is like most of a season for Magicman, or about 5-10 days for me. :D I threw tarps over the pile by the splitter and the stack in the Mule because we have snow coming in overnight and most of tomorrow, but it doesn't look like much. I just don't want snow sitting on this wood just after I split it.
 Funny thing, yeah it finally got cold and yeah, I got excited because the cold opens up opportunities for me. So I thought to myself this morning "Hey, maybe the swamp is finally hard and I can get out there with the Mule, or at least walk and work on it!" So I went out there to check it out. :D :D ;D Yeah, um, NO. The air may be a little cold and below freezing, but the ground and surface water are going to take a LOT more time to cool off.  I had to pick my steps carefully and still came out with wet boots and nearly went in over my ankles in a few spots. Probably need at least a week of these temps to even get close to having thick enough ice to drive the Mule over. I feel like I am not going to live long enough to get this swamp cleaned up, leveled off and drained properly. If I can't get a machine in, I can't even start. But that's a different issue. It's just that finally getting some winter weather got me a little excited. Probably won't last long anyway. >:(

 But I take today as a winner so I am hopeful for tomorrow too.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Glad you had a good day of it. Be careful with that ash. Around here they like to break off about half way up and fall back on you. That one looks to have enough lean to prevent that. Dead limbs like to fall while sawing.

    I split a little wood today by hand. I thought it was WO when I dragged it up but am about decided it is basswood. It is very green but I have a lot of dry ash to burn with it.

    I regret now that I did not go buck and drag down another big poplar log for my shed project yesterday when the ground was frozen and drier. Now we have several inches of snow and no telling when I can get my tractor back up to that site.

[Old Greenhorn]

Either I mislead, or you mis-read, but either way, no harm. There was zero hazard today, everything I cut was flat on the ground. Down and long dead. The neighbor had been after me to clean that up for over a year, but my 'feelings' on that are another discussion. ;D I wouldn't mind maintaining his woods if he came out and gave me a hand, but that hasn't happened. What I saw today tells me there is bout a days work cleaning up what's come down in the last 2 years on the upper lift, and I have no idea what's happened down on the lower level, 40' below. There is a hickory I could pull wood off of down below that dropped 2 years ago, but that's a challenge with the mule and tough ground to keep your feet on.
At any rate I needed the wood and this was a low as hanging fruit as anyone could find. The stem remaining is not ash, it is maple and has a good lean uphill. It's a fairly good sized log, but I will likely save that until I can borrow a machine to pick it up and drop the good part on my trailer. I want to mill that bole and see what's in it, if anything. I suppose I could drop it and just leave the bole log for another time and take the rest in firewood, but I will ponder on that for a bit. Yeah, I have cut a lot of ash that has gone wonky at the last second, even had one throw an entire top straight back at me after it hit the ground. I am still alive. I never ever trust a dead ash.

[WV Sawmiller]

Tom,

   My bad. You were talking about ash firewood then started talking about the stem and I thought you were still talking about ash.

   We had an ash fall from my neighbor's place that nearly took out my mailbox 2 weeks ago. I dragged the wood and a cherry top it took out from out of my mail carrier's way with my ATV and cut it up and have used most of it for firewood. The root ball and about 12-15 feet of the 15" diameter trunk are still on the slope and in the days ahead I'll bring a ladder over and climb up and cut it off and salvage it for firewood too. I have another big one stand in my spring run above my house I'll cut too. I'll have to use the tractor and a long cable to drag it down.

[aigheadish]

@beenthere It's hard to see but there is insulation in the roofline and I like the tall ceilings in there enough that for the foreseeable future I won't put a ceiling in. I do need to insulate that front wall area sometime but it's only marginally fun walking around on the roof joists to add the insulation.

Tom, great job on your firewood!

[Old Greenhorn]

Well, since that last post, on Wednesday, Bill sent one of his guys down with the 1 ton dump filled with nice wood. It was snowing pretty smartly so we duped it right on the side of the shop and I pulled the tarp over it pretty quick to keep the snow off. It is dead dry wood but all frozen with the rains of the prior week. SO once it thaws and gets some airflow it will be in good shape fairly quick, plus I am still burning that stuff I cut early in the week. Still with the over night lows in the tens and the daytime highs not getting much above 17 or so it's a little bit of a fight to get, and keep, the shop at 70 for doing finishes. SO I kind of gave up on that for this cold spell. I've been out there doing glueing and finishes on boxes about 4-6 hours a day, then I bring the work in the house to sit overnight where the average temp is 74 and the humidity is 20%. That does it overnight, out in the shop it takes 2-3 days. SO that is working.
Today I flocked up a bunch of trinket boxes. If the gallery was up, you could imagine a photo of a half dozen boxes or so with nice green flocking right about here.  ;D I left all the flocked up parts out in the shop to dry, I don't care how long they take, they are done. I just have to match tops with bottoms and they are good to go. I have one that goes as a gift to a little girl and the others I will get photos of and stick on my FB page to see if anyone wants them. I still have quite a mess of cremation urns to make and they are progressing a little at a time. I'm just doing one day at a time. I had a request from a sick friend come in the other day and I am trying to figure out how to best help him out. It's a very sad situation and since he asked, it has weighed heavy on my mind. I may post more on that later, right now I am just trying to work it through my head and figure out how to handle this right. Even at best, it will likely be a bit of a cluster, but this stuff always seems to find me. I don't know why.
I like working outside if the sun is out, but when it's cloudy it ain't so much fun because it gets real damp here. So I guess I am just laying back a bit. Hey, it's winter, I can do that, right? This is kind of when I envy the guys in the grits belt, but they haven't had it so good this past week either, so, no complaints from me this time.
I notice forum postings seem to be down quite a bit, probably everyone is laying back while Jeff does his thing and that's probably best. But I thought I would throw and update here just because.
Tomorrow is another day.

[newoodguy78]

OG I like that license plate in the rear window . Need to find me one of them.

[GRANITEstateMP]

Newoodguy78,

Maybe we can get a box of them and split them!

[Old Greenhorn]

I assume you guys means the one on the right that says "FARM USE"? Funny story on that. When I built a rig for road spraying on the back of the Mule and brought it to a music fest to keep the dust down, the director of the event was very impressed and some time later she saw that sign and got it for me just to 'dress up the Mule' she said. It was on the for a few years and I was trailering it back home from a more distant fest one year and the wind got hold of it and ripped it off. (It was plastic.)
SO I searched for another one in aluminum and found one on fleabay. When I got it I saw it was plastic, so I complained to the seller. The ad clearly said 'aluminum'. They apologized and sent me another one, this time supposedly the 'right one'. Well that was plastic too. SO I again complained and aksked them to at least change their ad and stop saying they were aluminum. Well, they had had enough of me, so they just refunded my money and told me to keep what I had, they didn't have aluminum. I never saw them change their ad, but got tired of playing with them and just used what they sent. At least I had a spare now. I think I put 4 screws in it so the corner can't lift up and catch the wind again.
These are still up on fleabay in many forms from $10-20. You guys can find them there. What I am really looking for is one that is printed in the correct dialect. It should say "FAHM USE". This is a little inside joke because the farm the we use for the weeklong bluegrass fest in July is simply referred to as "The Fahm" by the staffers so a bunch of folks would get a smile out of that one, and that's my job during that week, or part of it. But I don't think I will ever find that sign.  ;D :D

[SawyerTed]

I know those Farm Use tags are a novelty for some.  Just a note to use discretion in displaying a Farm Use plate on a vehicle ATV or SxS operated on public roads.  Every state is different. 

NC doesn't recognize those unofficial tags without a DMV registration and plate. We do have DMV issued farm plates.  Virginia is starting to require a DMV plate for farm use vehicles.  Va won't recognize the Farm Use unofficial plate starting in July.  The fine is $250.

[WV Sawmiller]

    I am pretty sure you can get the Farm Use plates at any TSC or Rural King and probably at most WalMart or local Department stores around here. I know the farm supply places keep them. In WV I think the rule is you can drive it on the road a certain number of miles from your home.

   I don't think they are too strict on enforcement here. I've been running an expired temporary plate on my truck since the end of August and never been questioned. I even stopped and asked a Highway Patrol to sign a form I/DMV needed to get my tag and title issue fixed 3 weeks ago and he would not do it so I had to get the local Sheriff deputy to do it. Neither were concerned about the tag.

[Old Greenhorn]

Yes, Ted, I am aware. here in NYS they tap, as heavily as possible, every opportunity to suck registration, insurance, and any other fees they can from the working folks. Farm vehicles here need to be registered and insured and are held to strictly controlled travel routes which you must declare on your application and update if they change. It's ridiculous, as usual. Put the burden on the working people and collect the fees.
For me, it's a bit of a protest because it seems that the ONLY vehicle type you cannot register in NYS is a SxS. You can register a golf cart, atv, boat, trailer, and just about anything else, but not  SxS. The ATV groups do not want the SxS's registered as ATV's because then they could use public trails, and they want to keep them out. So, they put a lot of lobbying money behind that and have been successful. There is a bill pending for over a year now, but seems dead, to fill this gap. I hade a dickens of a time getting mine insured (liability) so I could show proof of coverage to use it at music festivals. But it's not registered.
I talked to a State Trooper Sargent I was friends with and for what I do, and the time I am on the public roads, he said "Forget it" and "If one of my people ever give you a hard time, tell them to call me before they write any paper". For me it's a tiny teeney slice of time in it's usage. Yes, I take a risk, but when you see off-road logging equipment, skidders, excavators, bucket trucks, lull's , and lord knows what else, my little buggy driving down the shoulder at 15MPH won't even get a second glance. ;D Although we get troopers transferred in from urban barracks to here and they behave like they are on the face of the moon until they get the flow of things. :D

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It was 14° overnight and either I set up the stove too early (9pm) or I did a lousy lay because the shop was 44° this morning. Just up to 55 now, and I am tiring of the fight. I'll go out and give it another kick. The last time it got down below 45 was the 1st weekend of February last winter and it was -18° overnight with 30mph winds. I was away and the shop dropped in the low 30's with no fire. Took 3 days to warm the building back up. I try to avoid that.

[SawyerTed]

Just a note of caution is all.  Some who read here may not be aware of the regulations on the Farm Use tags.  It can be expensive.  Highway patrol here has no sense of humor about registration, weighted tags, Farm Use tags, etc. 

[Old Greenhorn]

Absolutely Ted, the lesson is: ALWAYS know the regulations that cover your locale. In my case I often wondered what would happen if I came across a LEO on one of my 2 minute rides along the shoulder? They can't really write me up for an unregistered vehicle because in my state, that is not a registerable vehicle, in fact, legally it doesn't even exist. They can't write me for un-insured, because it is insured. They can't write me for inspection because there is no procedure for inspecting these things either. So likely some sort of 'operating an illegal vehicle on a public roadway'. If I were the LEO and really wanted to write me up, I would write the tickets and let the judge figure it all out. But of course, any of that is no good for me. >:(
Still I will take my chances with the 'grumpy old man just trying to get by and not hurting nobody' routine. That works a lot of the time. ;D

[GRANITEstateMP]

What I am really looking for is one that is printed in the correct dialect. It should say "FAHM USE".

Tom,
You should reach out to my neighbors to.da north, in Maine.  Pretty sure that is the correct pronunciation up that'a way!  :D

[Old Greenhorn]

Yeah, I looked around up there, but no joy unless I get one custom made. That nickname actually came from one of our staffers who tawks funny. We have a lot of staff from VT, Smashachussets, Maine and those other non-grits states and one gal had a particularly thick accent the others from down south picked up on.
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Well I got the shop up to temps this morning but it took a while for it to settle in and hold. I took all the trinket boxes I had drying in the house and stacked them on the inventory shelf in the shop loosely and just draped plastic over them to keep the dust off. I'll wait a few weeks for them to get good and cured before I bag them to keep clean. So that finishes all the trinket boxes I had in work, but I still have more in parts. I had 7 cremation urns all glued and sanded, so I spent 3-4 hours putting the first coat on all those and the tops. Then did a re-wipe after the finish sat long enough. They are now in the house drying and should be good for another coat by tomorrow. 75° and 20%RH does it fairly quick.
(Imagine yet another exciting photo of ERC boxes placed here.)
I still have to order the screws for the urns. I found a new source and just haven't placed the order yet. I need to drill and tap the holes also which can also be tedious. Frankly I am tiring of doing boxes and will cut it off at some point soon. I just wanted a handful on the shelf in case somebody orders one or two. Then I can build to replace with the parts I already have cut. Tomorrow I will do an inventory, see what's done and then do one more cycle to give me a good starting mix of the two sizes. The small ones move faster than the large ones.
I need to work on something different, something a bit bigger. Maybe a bench or two. Something I have everything on hand for and don't need to buy anything. I just paid the taxes and have to wait until something comes in to start buying supplies again. Watching pennies for a little while.
Tomorrow is another day.

[Wlmedley]

The closest unincorporated community where I grew up and live now is called Frame. I went to Frame elementary school which has been gone for approximately 40 years.We had a fellow in the community who painted Frame Use on the side of his old truck which didn't have any license and neither did he.The law pulled him over once and asked him if he had any ID.He said "about what ".They laughed and let him go on his way.

[Old Greenhorn]

That's a good one! :D

[Resonator]

OG, You could say you're an artist and put "FAR MUSE" on your plate. ;D