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Sawing for Lee logging in Folkston

Started by Tom, December 09, 2004, 03:54:58 PM

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Tom

I'm having a harried time. Customers are talking to one another.  They won't let me leave!  "I'm next,  I'm next".   :D

Now I'm sawing at John Lee's.  He got these loblolly pines from Harriet's Bluff on the Satilla River.  They were too large and were turned down by the pulp mill.  The owner of the property told him to take them home if he wanted them because they would just get pushed up and burned if left.  Not being one to look a gift horse in the mouth, he took them home.

He is cutting 6x6's out of them for a large shed.  John is interested in getting  sawmill of his own and this will be one of the sheds that he can use for storing his lumber.

Jimmy, on the left, is one of John's truck drivers.  His truck was broken today and was helping with the mill while it is being repaired.   John is on the right.


John and Jimmy unload 6x6's onto the drying stack.


John fabricated a fork lift frame onto his John Deere.


Dinner time came early.  I was whipped.  Jimmy went home to get his wife to fix him a sandwich.  John went to the house and then decided to go to town. I climbed up into my Kodiak where I had two Southern Fried Chicken Breasts and 3 pieces of buttered bread.

John got into his truck and left.  As the truck moved, his two dogs, Elmo and Mac, dragged themselves out from under it.  I could watch them from 100 feet away and it was funny.  They, forlornly, watched Johns truck, drive away and began walking toward the shade of the log pile.  Mat's nose shot straight up in the air and he began to trail a scent in the air.  It was my Chicken.

Soon he and Elmo were sitting on the ground beneath the open door of my truck, looking as if they hadn't eaten in month.  I felt guilty eating in front of them but, DanG, There wasn't enough for me and them too.  Have you ever eaten a meal while someone watches your every move? :D :D

Finally, I relented.  One piece of bread was left over and I resisted eating it.  I tore it in half and gave each of them a piece.  GULP! They didn't even chew it!   Like to have took off my fingers!  

I poured myself a cup of coffee and finished my break.  They crawled under my truck and went to sleep. :-/

That's Elmo on the left and Mac on the right.

D._Frederick

Tom,

How many 6 x 6 can you cut per day when you have all that help?

etat

Old Age and Treachery will outperform Youth and Inexperence. The thing is, getting older is starting to be painful.

Tom

I've sawed them the last two days.  It's difficult to say how many because logs are real big, catfaced with fuciform rust scars, full of fat-lightered and the help has agendas other than off-bearing.  That isn't all bad, you see, they will take a few 6x6's to the drying pile and I'll sit and wait till they get back.  Lots of visiting going on too. ;D

Between yesterday and today I have operated the mill about 8 hours.  I think I have cut about (30) 6x6's, about 500 feet of 2x6's and 2x4's, and guess about 300 feet of  1x material ranging in width from 8 to 20 inches. :)

i guess it might be the years I'm beginning to carry but I don't get all enthused over "production" anymore.  I know when we are working at a good pace and Have no need to push anyone.  Sixteen foot 6x6's are heavy and I don't want anybody hurt.  When you were a youngster like me, "D", did you lose interest in how much you could pack in a day too.   I have found that I'm more interested in having a good day than making "the big bucks" :D

"course, I have to make ends meet, but when the logs are decent and the help isn't "anti-work"  I do just fine.  Usually I have no accurate idea what I've done till the end of the job.  The acception is when I'm sawing from a punch list or the customer is counting. :)

The big talk in town is the local high school winning their conference.  they went to Buford (Atlanta) this past weekend and won. ! ! !

http://eteamz.active.com/charltoncoindians/

Kevin

QuoteHow many 6 x 6 can you cut per day when you have all that help?

One ...if the food is good.   ;D

D._Frederick

Tom,

You have to enjoy what you are doing, if some one is looking over your shoulder and saying more- more its not as much fun. As for me, my sawing days are over, not suppose to lift anything over 20 -30lbs- the back is gone.

Tom

Yeah, I have the same problem.  Not my back, but my knees and shoulders.  The doctor figured I needed to quit.  I didn't hear him.  ;D

So far I've had to use some creative body development.  the doc said my stomach hung out too far and was straining my back.  I couldn't lose enough weight to make a difference so I developed my rear-end.  Now I have a Counter Balance. ;D :D

My dad-gummed Doctor is one of those young fellows that eats lettuce, rides a bike, runs 5 miles a day, plays squash and looks at us opulant patients with a critical eye. :D

UNCLEBUCK

Good sawing Tom ! I like your whole outlook on things ! Thanks for showing your sawing .  :)
UNCLEBUCK    bridge burner/bridge mender

WH_Conley

Tom, your Dr. will probably die young with a healthy body and not enjoy the good things in life. What's the sence in that?
Course I'm just a fat man from Kentucky, what do I know?
Bill

Percy

Nice lookin 6X6 Tom. Them logs look like they come from around here.
 :D :D :DCounterbalancin butt :D :D :Dhahaha :D :D :D
GOLDEN RULE : The guy with the gold, makes the rules.

Timo



 :D :D :D

Reminds me of that tee shirt:
"It's not a BEER BELLY, it's a FUEL TANK for a SEX MACHINE!"

Good attitude beats lettuce leafs for lunch anyday in my health book.  ;D
Peterson WPF27 with bipedal, dual grapple, 5'6" loader/ offloader

GF

Thanks for sharing the story and the photos.

GF

Tom,
   My chest is falling towards my wasteline, been trying to walk on my hands to see if I can get it to fall back to my chest.  ;D ;D ;D ;)

Murf

Tom, my doctor told me I was eating wrong and not exercising enough and would not live as long as I might otherwise if I changed my sinfully ways.

I told him that when doctors started living noticeably longer than the rest of the population I would listen to his advice more closely. He smiled, put out his smoke, chugged the last of his cold coffee and called me a "Smart A**ed son of a gun."

On the other hand, I was told, by my smart a**ed niece, that they have finally, unequivocally, defined "middle age" now, it is when a 'broad mind' and a 'narrow waist' change places.

I guess I'm well past that point then.

Personally, you're view of things seems in pretty good alignment with my own. ;D
If you're going to break a law..... make sure it's Murphy's Law.

Engineer

I'm in shape.  Round is a shape.

I'm not fat, I'm just nine inches too short.

Vegetables is not food, vegetables is what food eats.

***********

I don't smoke (except for a few months back in '92), don't hardly drink except for a beer after summer softball games and a good single malt or Maker's Mark once in a while, and consider myself pretty darn healthy for someone who's nearly 300 lb.  And I ask myself, "Self, do you want to eat right, diet like crazy, lose all that love muscle, and still be ugly?"   And who knows, I could lose 100 lb and get hit by a bus at age 40 (which is still a way off).  Or live to 100 like my gramma did.

As the late Julia Child was fond of saying, "eat everything in moderation".  So I'm careful that way.  When I go into a restaurant, I only order ONE of everything.   :D

submarinesailor

Tom,

You're bringing back some old memories.  I was stationed in Kings Bay from the mid 1980 to late 1986.  We had a house one exit north of the Harriet's Bluff exit – Woodbine/Route 25.  That part of the south is the only place at I know, were if it moved, it bite you.  I remember having to wear long sleeved coveralls and groves just to cut the grass – the mosquitoes, BIG mosquitoes, would land on your hands and bite you while pushing the lawn mower.javascript:angry()javascript:angry()The guy who built my house told me about killing a 4'6" alligator in the garage as they were building the house.  Down on the sub base waterfront it was the worst, the gnats and mosquitoes drove us nuts.  At one Change of Command ceremony, the gnats were so bad, the festivities were cut REAL SHORT.  Never thought something so small could have such big teeth.  Never will forget the fishing and scrimping in the Inner Coastal Waterway – between the big and little Satilla River.  Lots of BIG scrimp. Pulled about 78 lbs out of there in one four hour period.

Ahhhh the memories – a lot hard work on the water front, but a lot good times too.

DextorDee

Thanks for pics . I always enjoy your journeys and pics> :)
Ken
KI4BMW
North East Georgia

LSUNo1

I think Mark Twain said something to the effect that...if you didn't drink, use tobacco, eat to excess...etc, you might live to be 100...but it would seem more like 200. ::)

Gilman

Thanks for the post Tom.

D,
Sorry to hear about your bad back.  How long has it been since you've been able to saw?
WM LT70, WM 40 Super, WM  '89 40HD
Cat throwing champion 1996, 1997, 1999. (retired)

rvrdivr

Hey Tom, I was wondering? What makes fat-lightered pine? Is it the species, age, area,...?

I wanted to ask because I have seen many pine stumps that are rotting or just semi-lighter.

I know that the many Sand Pines I retrieved after the hurricanes certainly were not sappy enough to make lighter wood. Also the big 30" diameter,  long leaf pine I had to cut down in my front yard did not have the sapp to make a lighter stump.

Also, It looks as if the trees in your pics have been sitting for a while? Did they have a bug problem?

I've noticed that the Sand Pine seems to be the most popular with the flat-head-borer bettles. Sitting side-by-side, they get it the worst before the other species of pine in my pile.


 

Tom

I'm talking out of school because I don't know the official reason, but, here is my theory.

Fat lighter pine contains the "set" or crystallized sap, which is highly flammable.  The sap crystallizes in the cells of the tree that seal themselves off and no longer carry fluids to the top of the tree.  The cells that seal themselves are those at the base of a dying limb or wound or heartwood.  Heartwood, by its very nature, eventually seals itself.

The heart of log lying on the ground may turn to lighter or the stump of a tree that died may have the sap settle in it and form lighter as well as contain heart wood.

Some pines don't form heart or lighter as prolifically as other pines.  Long Leaf and Slash are notorious for  the development of heart and lighter wood.   Loblolly, Pocosin (pond pine) and others don't develop the heart-wood as readily.

The Logs in the picture had been down for 3 or 4 months. The owner didn't make arrangements to have them sawed until I showed up in Folkston doing another job.  That happens frequently.  He had another Little mill cutting some smaller logs but the guy couldn't handle the  big logs.  Most of these guys know that I have little fear of big logs. :)

Flat head's (Southern Sawyers) will attack any pine that is down.  I think it has more to do with humidity, infestation and temperature than species of tree.

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