Staying Busy and out of trouble, 2020-21?.

[Nebraska]

Yeah some of us wondered  what you had been up to. 

[Old Greenhorn]

Well today was(is) Monday and I tried to start off on a better foot. Got up at 4:30, cooked breakfast at 7 and was out working before 8. Nice and cool. I uncovered the mill and drug up a questionable EWP log that I got from a neighbor and expected would wind up being campfire wood, it was old and grey and had shake. But I cut all that off and got 4 decent 2x8's out of it. I should have started by saying I am trying to clean up the log pile and work on logs I need specific wood from, but I have some stuff in the way that just needs to be milled and out of the way. This was one of those logs. I have an order for a pine bench to match a family made farm kitchen table of a friend's wife. They want it 16" wide and I might have a log (at the bottom of the pile of course) to make it in one slab, but I had another EWP log that I thought I could join 2 pieces for, so I milled that one next and got some nice 2x10x12's out of it.  I got a nice clean cant out of it.


 
And except for the knots, the boards look good and clean. I asked the client and he sent me a photo of the table showing it was also knotty, so this will match just fine.


 

More than enough to make 2 benches.  Then it was lunch time and the mail came. The new (used) wireless access point showed up to replace the one that blew last week. As the wife sues this for her netflix casting to the TV I thought I should spend a little time and get that working for her. Turns out that the WAP never blew up in the first place, the modem from the company had issues, so when I figured the work around and got it all going, I had an extra WAP and as the shop wireless is not working as well as I would like I put it out there and messed with it a bit. Probably wasted too much time on that but it was dang hot so I was in no hurry. Finally strated thinking about the logs again and got back to it.
 Now I was starting to 'loosen the log pile' by getting rid of a couple of logs, I thought if I did a little re-arranging I might get to the big log on the bottom. Roll one this way, and another the other way, working from one end of the pile, then back to the other, like playing chess and all I had was a cant hook and my amazing physique  ;D :D.  I rolled this one RO log that I got from a neighbor, it has been on the pile about a week, but when I rolled it, brown water started running out of what looked like, it's mouth. I got a lumber crayon and outlined the face I saw. The heat does funny things to a man sometimes.


 

Anyway I kept working logs back and forth hoping for an opening. ABout that time, as I was on top of the pile trying to roll something that was about 3 times my weight, a customer pulled in to pick up his order of survey stakes (or 4' tomato stakes, they are very similar) and he commented that I was too old to be doing that and should buy a machine. Thanks, that is very helpful coming from a 30 year old kid. ;D Anyway, he got his stakes, I got my cash, and we did a little catching up. He left and I went back to work on the pile.

Push here, roll there and the next thing you know, I thought I had an opening. Got the mule, a length of chain and the log tongs and dragged that sucker right out. Soaked in sweat, I called it a day right then and there, just left the log where I can grab it in the morning.
 Tomorrow I will mill that log into planks and then either take a poplar or a basswood log and mill up some stuff for the luthiers and wood carvers. Mainly this week, I have to build another drying skid, but I am hoping for a rainy or way too hot day. I'll build it mostly in the shop, call someone to help me move it, then finish it out in the swamp. I need more drying space, and I need to start having racks for specific types of stuff to save me time in pulling and re-stacking. I have salvaged new lumber enough for another 16 footer. But tonight I think I am headed to bed early.

[Old Greenhorn]

Well made some progress today, but not a lot. I started on another larger EWP log that I pulled last night. Got 4 clean 2x10's and 2 4/4 boards I made into stickers. The neat part about this one is that it is denim pine (blue stain). Not a lot, but enough that it is either junk or valuable to someone. ;D


 

So that will sit and dry as a possible use for that bench order I have. I will ask the client on their preferences, otherwise I have the stuff I milled yesterday. In any event, I'm done with pine for now. Then I had to run the wife up to pick up her van from the repair guy (frozen caliper). That killed an hour. Then lunch and grab some more logs. I need to get some Ash milled up for winter projects and I have a request from a luthier for an 8/4 slab quarter sawn. I had one skinny ash log left, so I pulled that and stuck it on the mill and as long as I was in log moving mode, I also snatched out a nice Basswood log from the pile to do those woodcarver blocks. That log was covered in Scoharie County Clay (tm) and had gravel embedded in it and there was no way I could put that on the mill. So I dropped it by the mill and set to peeling the bark with an ax. Holy cow that was no fun, but I started to see a pattern where it would peel. One thing led to another in my slow working mind and I got every felling wedge I could find and worked my way around the log driving, resetting, and moving the wedges whenever I popped thru the bark and using the ax in tough spots.



 
It felt like it took forever, but it was probably less than an hour and I had the cleanest white log I have ever seen.  Slicker than greased glass. Only cost me my time and a quart of sweat. :D


 

It was so naked looking that I am thinking I should have covered it with a sheet. ;D The filleting on the outsides of these logs is fascinating.  I could probably make a canoe out of the bark, if I knew how. :D After I finished it I was just shot, so I closed up and got on the mower and mowed the backyard, it needed it...again. Then the dinner bell rang.
 So tomorrow I have at least that Ash and the Basswood log to get milled and on the rack, then I have to start focusing on those drying racks some more to increase my capacity and trim up what I have already. If I am going to make a dent in that log pile this summer, I need a place to put it. For the next rack I have to start from scratch again, cutting trees out of the way and scrubbing the ground to make an area. I feel like this 'adventure' is leading me down a path and I have no idea what it might look like near the end. Every day is a new revelation in what I have to do next. I have such a basic plan that I have no idea exactly how I am getting there...yet. I spent a career being 'the project manager' and sweating every detail way ahead of any due date. This time I am just going with the flow and doing what seems right, at what seems like the right time. It's refreshing to wing it for a change and so far it is going pretty good. I am even enjoying the mis-steps I make (mostly).
 Tomorrow is another day.

[Old Greenhorn]

Well another day. I milled up the ash log I had on the mill into mostly 8/4 stuff for the luthier folks with some 4/4 side boards for me. Then I put up the Basswood log I peeled last night and started on that, got 3 sides open making 4/4 jacket boards as I went (I have no idea what for yet) and took lunch when the 4th side came up. Lunch turned into nap (it was hot and humid) and when I woke up realized I had a Zoom meeting at 5:30 so I hustled back and milled that Basswood into 3 12/4 posts and 2 16/4 posts for the woodcarver folks with a few boards for whatever. I barely got it stacked and stickered in time to quit and make my meeting. I am still amazed by the structure of these Basswood logs under the bark.



 

The fluting is amazing and I have no idea what causes it.
Here is the total days 'production'.


 

I closed up quick and rushed in the house trying to dry off and peel my soaking shirt. I did a quick wash off in the sink tried to shave my sweaty face and got a dry shirt on just in time. My 'meeting' was with my best friend from high school who I had lost contact with and recently located again. He was my Best Man at my wedding and I was his at his second wedding. Seems a shame we lost touch, but that is over now, after 30 years. It was like we just missed a few months in some ways. Mike and I are very different guys, but we also understand each other, so our different lifestyles and priorities really don't matter. It was really good and what I thought would be a 1 hour max meeting turned into 2 and a half hours, but we will do it again soon I expect. Catching up on 30 years in 2 hours can be rough, learning of all the tragedies that we missed in each others lives and the day to do of raising children and trying to help them get going in the working world is a lot to stick inside 2 hours, but it was really good. I feel like I got my old buddy back. He is down in Florida now (a surprise for me), but that matters not except that I wish we could visit again like when he was only 1 state away. Guess we will have to do a road trip when things open up and relax.
 Anyway, a pretty good day. Tomorrow is another day.

[Nebraska]

Glad to hear you caught up with an old friend seems to me that January or February(most useless month of the year) would be a great time for a short migration South.  8)

Taking it one day at a time, or  "Tomorrow is another day" is a great attitude, one I need to remember more often. The basswood is neat mine is stained from the tree being sickly. So it will be sawn into misc 2x lumber. Some time I'll get a good one.

[Old Greenhorn]

These basswood logs I got are beautiful specimens. I don't think the wood carvers mind 'too' much if it is stained. A lot of them paint their finished work. 
 I forgot to mention, or maybe it started happening after I made my last post, but I got no less than 3 separate inquiries last night for pricing on material. 2 from the FB page and one from the Woodcarver I hooked up with 2 weeks ago. SO I am spending part of my morning working up prices and looking through my rack to see if I can fill the requests with what I have.
 I don't know how I will make money selling 3x3x8" basswood blocks for $1.25, but we will see how it goes. Nothing ventured.....
 I like your idea about hitting FL in February. My buddy has 3 guest rooms. I should broach that subject with the wife. It never occurred to me, thanks.
 Today is another day and it is cool enough to wear jeans, so I am headed out to do the aforementioned inventory, then weed whacking and clearing an area for the next lumber rack. Very overcast, humid, and damp cool. Feels like rain, but nothing on the radar or in the forecast. The rain is due to arrive around midnight.

[WV Sawmiller]

OGH,

  That looks like about $2.50/bf on the basswood which seems decent on the surface if this is rough cut, air dried (drying?). Are you doing any planing or KD or other processing other than milling and cutting to length? How much labor is going into cutting them into short pieces? Why wouldn't the customers buy them in 8' lengths and cut them to length themselves? Can you bundle and sell them in groups? Maybe make a simple crate and sell an assortment/pack for $35/$40 or so? Good luck.

[Old Greenhorn]

Yes exactly correct 2.50/BF. These carvers don't seem to have the machines and tools for cutting lumber and their usage is small. Most buy variety packs from Rockler, but they don't get to pick the sizes. Rockler gets about 30 bucks for a 20 pound box I think. Let's see how this develops. I have over 400 bucks worth of basswood drying right now. :D mine will just be air dried at best.

[WV Sawmiller]

    I've still got close to 1,000 bf of 4/4, 8/4, 12/4 and 16/4 basswood mostly 8' long that has been drying 18 months and looks real good. It was a big den tree that fell nearly 2 years ago above my main shooting house on the side of a steep slope. It knocked a small buckeye into my shooting house and I ended up replacing some boards and putting metal over the old shingle roof. I caught a cold spell in February and bucked the logs and snaked them out with my ATV and sawed them into assorted thicknesses and put a box fan between them for a couple months and they turned out well.

   Good luck with yours.

[Old Greenhorn]

Well, I went through 2 t-shirts and 3 hats today. The humidity was pretty high. ;D no logs sawed. no shop work. I decided to get started clearing an area for the next drying rack before I build it. I took out around a dozen small trees and did a lot of low branch pruning. I hauled a lot of brush into the pile and trimmed the small trees with a hand ax, piled the branches and saved the poles 'just in case'. Almost all white pine pecker poles with some hemlock in the mix. Then I raked and leaf blowed, then got the next layer of branches out, then leaf blowed again. Finally had a workable area. I have 30 years of leaf litter piled in here because it was fallow land for me, just swamp. Now I need the real estate, so I am reclaiming it. Took all day, except for a little trip across town to my folks old house where we had taken down 2 trees and I marked the logs I want to mill and the rest will be firewood. Lots of 'sticker logs', which I need anyway. I never seem to have stickers on hand. I haven't been there in a while and hadn't seen this tree in several years. Guess we should check this with a metal detector before we do any cutting on it.


 
I remember when my Dad layed those rebar cuts in the crotch, they are actually 90° corner bends. I guess I lost track of time and forgot about them. ;D I don't think I can use them now.

Then I came back and hauled more brush and hand leveled off a big hump of dirt and rocks that was at the 'entry way' to the new area (I swear I am getting a little old for this digging with a mattock nonsense). I cleaned up a bigger area than I expected and now am planning for the next (after this new one) rack. This is the view from the mill. The hardwood rack I made 6 weeks ago is on the right and the pine skid is on the far left (I need to get that tarp in the air to get some airflow, I know, it's on the list).


 

And here is a little closer up so you can see I have some working room for at least two racks. This was not walk-able area when I started this morning. Just a big tangle with lots of dead tangles on the ground.


 

I am right on the property line here, so I have to be mindful, but this is dry ground I can drive on most of the time. The ground just off to the right of this photo is wet pretty mush year round, which is why I have been spreading brush in there as matting. Anyway, making progress on this front. tomorrow I will stare at it a little more to decide where the first rack will go, then get to work building it. This one will probably be wider than the first one. I am learning you never have enough space.
 I also got a call out of the blue on that Basswood. The guys I had been talking to kicked my name up to the guy who buys wood for this carving club. I guess they group by for everyone and share the cost savings with their members. Anyway, he seems like a nice guy and we had a good talk. He knows his wood and what he wants. He balked a little at my $2.50/BF price, saying that they were already buying KD wood for $3.00/BF. I explained that all the cutting into little blocks added a lot to my time and handling. He laughed and said "Why would you do that?" I told him that is what the other guys asked for. He said 'no, I want to buy in lumber lengths so we can cut it as required'. "OK" says I, "then lets talk turkey, we can cut it back to $2.25/BF" he said that was just fine. I think I undercut myself, but my thinking is he already has a supplier, he doesn't need me. I need cash, and I see this as a way to sell some wood soon. If he is coming to pick up a load and I can move it and make room, so much the better. Him buying in bulk for the club saves me all that hassle of cutting blocks and selling a couple to each customer. I still have two big logs to mill. Not sure how often I will be able to get hold of this stuff anyway. He now needs to get ahold of the club treasurer get an OK and spending some funds.
 One of my other inquiries that doesn't really know what he wants is coming by on Saturday morning to get a better idea of what I have or can make for him. Gotta explore every opportunity. Baby steps.

 If this had been any other year, I would have been camped in a hayfield right now since Monday for my favorite Bluegrass Festival of the year, Grey Fox. But it was canceled like so many others. The great folks at Grey Fox are putting on a live stream event all weekend. It started at 4pm today and is following the normal daily schedule they have always used, so I am trying to catch as much of that as possible. If you have and interest, go find Grey Fox Bluegrass festival on Facebook and open the live stream from one of their posts. They are mixing live video with archived footage. I know so many of these musicians that I am enjoying these very much, but I am missing being with my co-workers up there and mixing with the musicians backstage. That part has me a little depressed because Grey Fox is like my personal Christmas, it is the center of my year. I miss it quite a bit.
 On the other hand in the midst of all the entertainment venues being closed hard since March there has been a dearth of gigs to catch, when I usually catch between 1 and 3 live gigs every 2 weeks. I have been nowhere since February. Well today I got a private invitation to an actual gig! My friends who were supposed to have done an Australian tour in April, followed by a US tour in May and June are doing a live stream for their new CD release from a local music theater that has just been renovated and not allowed to open yet. The live audience is by invitation only, just friend really. The theater can handle about 500 folks and I doubt there will be 100 of us there, but this way the band will have audience feedback and hopefully make it better for the folks watching online. Another COVID experiment, I guess. It will be nice to get out in a fairly safe environment and be with good music friends. So, there is that. 
 And tomorrow is another day.

[Old Greenhorn]

I forgot to mention when I went out to mark logs on my way back I stopped to get staples (eggs, milk, and beer) at while I was catching up with a neighbor, this truck pulls in and my neighbor could see that I was so distracted I couldn't hold a conversation. I apologized and said "I HAVE to check this truck out". he followed me over.


 
 The truck is now owned by a closer neighbor who "found it" about 30 miles away. The department listed is the next town over from us and I have spent many hours working fires and training with them I have a lot of friends in that department. I had to know 'the story' on this truck. Turns out it was bought by that department as new in 1961 for a utility and brush truck, then sold when it was 'getting old' to 'some guy'. He worked it up into a tournament truck: solid suspension, hot motor, tight brakes, etc. (Fire dept tournaments are a 'thing' in the northeast, look it up). SO my neighbor wanted a unique truck to nag around in and this is 'it'. Pretty dang neat. My other neighbor (a music producer) wanted a photo of me with the truck and he took this one. Kind of a surreal 4 minutes in my afternoon out of nowhere. I should have got a photo of what it had under the hood, holy cow. Note how close the running board is to the ground. Normal for tournament trucks (maybe even a little high), but not so good for rural street use.  ;D
 He jsut got it and is going to bring it over to the original department for some photos and to get a copy of the photo they have from the day the truck was delivered new. Pretty neat, don't you think? I nearly forgot to even mention it.

[Walnut Beast]

Great picture and a nice little story 👍

[Old Greenhorn]

Only 1 shirt and 2 hats today, but I finished the day with no shirt, just too humid. A full 10 hour day though. I got my 3rd drying rack layed out and built. Pretty much done, but I do have a little more trimming on the tarp tomorrow and I may paint this one for the neighbors benefit.  
 This one I built a bit bigger and with a lot more support under it. I learned from the last one. ;D We were watching 2 of the grandsons today, so divide and conquer. One is a homebody so he hung with my wife mostly in the house, and the other is an outdoors guy, so he hung with me. He was a HUGE help, more than you might expect from any 5 year old, OK, more than I expected. HE has no fear of the noise of the air nailer or the circular saw noise. He knows to wear his safety glasses. He is used to it. He would hold up one end of the stringers while I nailed them, hold the end of a long board when I was cutting it off, and hand me stuff when I was up high and save me a LOT of jumping up and down. I would not have finished it today without his help. Pretty amazing. He did have one little distraction and that was the frogs in the drainage crick.


 

He finally reached a point where they would not hide when he got in range and he thought it was cool to sit there and talk and try to reason with them. :D I circled the frog he was talking to in the above photo. There was another right next to it his head is covering.
 But we managed to get this up just after lunch, my helper and I.


 

This is a shot from the same perspective as the previous days posts to give you an idea of what I picked for a location.


 
 My helper and I made a run to town and got a proper sized tarp for a cover and I put that up while he played with the cute little girl next door (that NEVER stops talking ;D). Here's the final result:


 

It is no carpenters work of art for sure, but should be functional. I know I don't have drying sheds like most guys, probably down the road I will, but I need to get logs milled and have a place to get them air drying as quick as I can. This one is 8 x 16' and I made it 24" off the ground hoping the snow would not get up to that level.  I put 11 blocks under it to support the load, plus two more bricks under those ridge board supports. I might put shed roofs on #2 and #3 next year. #1 will remain as the pine drying skid, just off the ground, but I do have to get the tarp on that one off the ground to get some airflow. Maybe tomorrow or in the next week. 2 days in a row on infrastructure is enough. Although I would maybe like to paint this new rack to make it subdued, the neighbor can see it right out their front door and I would like to be easy on their eyes. I have some dull red paint I might use up. Brown would be better. One of the nice points on this build is that I didn't mill or buy a stick of the materials. All job leftovers from my son's work. All I paid for was the nails. 8) oh, and the tarp. :D
 Gonna go listen to some good Bluegrass now. Tomorrow is another day.

[Resonator]

I like the pic of the old International fire truck cab (it's not rust, it's "Patina" ;D). 

[Old Greenhorn]

Well, yesterday it was SO hot and I was pooped from the previous days so I became a bum for a day. I just did little piddly things, got a cover up in the air over my pine drying skid and not much else I can think of. Too hot.
 Today, it was even hotter, but we had chores to get done. We had an arborist drop a twin trunk maple over at my folks house that was threatening the house only about 20' away. SO today we did the cleanup, or started it anyway. We don't have any lifting equipment, so we worked with what we had on hand. We rigged up a snatch block in the head of the trailer and winched the logs in pulling with a winch on another truck.


 

And here is the truck end.


 

We took advantage of the work and provided some winch operator training. He did a good job.


 
While he was operating, I had a few seconds to shoot a short video, but that log got hung and I had to go roll it.
Loading the trailer - YouTube

So now I have a little more wood here. We still have some to fetch over for firewood but we got most of the big stuff. I ran out of sweat again.


 
Today it hit 95 and not only was my shirt (when I still had it on) wringing wet, my bandanna was dripping and I had to use another. My shorts looked like I wet myself all over ( I did not) and were just soaked through all around. By 1 pm I was done in.
 I came home and tuned in the last day of the Festival live stream. Most of that wood will either be firewood or stickers unless I find some neat spalting. I am tired of running out of stickers. I figure if I spend a day or so making stickers, maybe I can get ahead a little.

My son hauled the trailer over here an hour ago and we just dumped it. Tomorrow is another day and we have another heat advisory already up for it. ;D

[samandothers]

You are definitely staying busy!  The helper is great!  He'll have some great memories of working with you years to come.  You may have had something on the cable to protect the operators from a cable break that was not in the picture, if not consider laying a jacket, blanket, something over it.

[Nebraska]

Tell that boy to be careful of those cute girls that talk your leg off. You get to liking it and all of a sudden you start getting grandchildren.  I swear it happens that fast. Stay cool, even though it's tough to do right now.

[Old Greenhorn]

Yeah, winch safety is part of the lesson, but these loads were no challenge for that cable by any stretch (see what I did there? ;D). We focused on the "Up/Down" commands from the spotter and working the switch, and never taking your eyes off the spotter.

 As for the girls, I hope he learns, but I always notice he seeks out the cute girls already. He and his brothers are sweet on the one who lives next door to us and also one they see at day care. Should I worry?  :D
 I forgot to mention that I had two guys come by Saturday with inquiries. One is a young fella I know from the folk music business who is starting a family, looking for a house, and wants to make some stuff. We were discussing a 'work for wood swap" wherein he would come help me and I could pay him in wood. This might work out for me, because having a tailgunner is a rare thing for me and I could really get through some logs with just a little bit of help. The other fella was the neighbor that was looking for a few batten boards a week or so ago. He picked out some basswood jacket boards about 11' long, about 1x4 with one wavy live edge. Really they were just above the junk level to me, but I saved them to use as trim after I edged them or some other simple use. If it had been oak or maple, they would have been stickers, and if pine they would be on the burn pile. I just charged him a couple of bucks for the neighborhood discount, figuring it was good PR and he was really pleased with that. So there has bee a little activity anyway.
Gonna be another hot one today.

[Old Greenhorn]

Easier day yesterday, sort of. By 10am I was again soaked through and through. I moved about 8 logs over to the mill and got them queued up. Mostly sticker logs. By 11 it was so hot that I quit for a while. We had that music gig to go to in the evening and I wanted to be fresh. Took a nap in the heat of the day and a cool shower in the afternoon. We have not been to see live music since February. It was a small private crowd for about 20 folks. The first event at this theater in well over a year. The place looks great, I got to meet the new owner. There is art all over, they did a super job in the renovation but kept the original designs and features focusing mostly on the infrastructure of the building and they doing very nice finish work that matched the original. There is a lot of history in these walls. The place was built by Albert Grossman, who was the manger for Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, and several others. It is a complex of buildings, 3 restaurants, sound stage, performance theater, bar, recording studio, radio station, and some other stuff I am not aware of. Albert is buried on the grounds. There were a lot of gold albums recorded here in the '60-'90's as well as more current stuff. So it was good to see the place restored to its glory.
 The band needed a 'get out the kinks' gig because it has been 5 months since they have played together. They have not performed a lot of the new tunes together more than a couple of times so some refinement and tweaking is in order. I have often watched this band do a local kick off gig such as this, then spend a few months on tour and do a final gig here back at home and the difference is night and day for somebody who knows the music. About a year ago they live streamed most of their gigs on one tour leg and I watched them every night or every other night for a couple of weeks. It was interesting to see the conscious changes they would make in a song from night to night as they tweaked it. SO last night was the first of what I hope will be many gigs. It was a lot of fun even with all the virus precautions, temp checks, masks, spacing, etc. Tonight they are playing in an open air park concert over in CT (sold out already), lets see what they come up with next.
 Now I have to go get something done. Today is another day.

[Old Greenhorn]

Well today I tried to tough it out through the heat. It didn't work, but I got in about 8 hours anyway. The slabs and filtches have been building up and I had a real mess, so I focused on that. I cut what I had and stacked the hardwood for shop heat. I doubled the size of the pile, looks to be about a face cord. So, not much.


 
I got the saw horse area cleaned up and tomorrow I will have a little fire to burn bark and whatever I raked up. I want to get rid of all the trip hazards.


 
The pine I had got stacked for campfire wood. I doubled that pile too.


 
But man I really needed a shower. This coming in with soaking wet shorts is getting old fast. I lost 4 pounds in sweat over the last few days.
 The fella that came over Saturday called today and will be coming back Thursday to pick up some of the stuff he looked at. I will have to re-cut some 2x10's into 2x3's or some other such stuff, but he will be giving me a hand to do that. Looks like about a 100 buck order and I need every one of those I can get.  (BTW Howard, just about everyone of the sales I have had has been through the FB contacts. I made a FB page for the business and put up a photo of whatever I am working on every other day or so, it keeps them coming back to look, then eventually I get the 'Hey, could you make..?' question and then things develop from there.)
 Tomorrow I have to take the bride down to Poughkeepsie to drop her sewing machine off for repair, it's an hour drive each way and I know it will kill a good part of the day, but she gets grumpy when one of her machines is not working, so off we go. :D Hopefully I can get something done when we get home. I think we may get a little rain, but I would at least like to get the mill area cleanup done and burn the junk up, it's in the way.
Tomorrow is another day.

[WV Sawmiller]

OGH,

    I ain't saying no forever - just not ready to take the FB plunge yet. 

     What kind of sewing and machines does your wife do/use? Mine does a lot of quilting and has several big Berninna (Swiss made) machines and a great big quilting frame they mount on for the actual quilting part. She has embroidery programs that hook into her computer and she makes specialty designs for special projects. She makes a small theme quilt for Camp Care every summer and all the kids (Cancer patients/survivors and siblings) and staff sign it and they raffle it off at the Christmas party as the grand prize. Over recent years they have included Peter Pan, Wizard of Oz, Superheros, Star Wars, Games, All Roads lead to Camp, etc and all have the Care Bear (Looks a lot like the one on the Shriner's commercials) in appropriate situations and attire.

   Watch that heat - fortunately for me the customer got here this afternoon just as the sun dropped behind the mountain putting me in the shade. Was still hot and I was wrung out when we finished.

[Old Greenhorn]

My wife is a quilter too. I have no idea what machines she uses, but nothing so fancy. She is in several groups, they do quilts for the church, the women's shelter, and several other places they need their work. She also makes dog beds for one of the animal shelters and stuff for cancer patients. Besides this she has her business making quilted pillows, table runners, place mats, wall hangings, and a ton of other stuff. SHe also used to practice the art of gyotaku (google it ) but she found that folks didn't understand what she was doing and how much work it took, so they would not spend a higher price on what they saw as just a fabric print. She learned it from my cousin who had pieces in art books and major museums. So she does do much of that any more but she uses the same technique to make leaf prints and other things.
 We have more fabric around this place than lumber. ;D

 FB can wait. I'm not twisting your arm. Just sharing my short experience. I think both of us are pretty tired tonight.

[RAYAR]

Tomorrow I have to take the bride down to Poughkeepsie to drop her sewing machine off for repair, it's an hour drive each way and I know it will kill a good part of the day, but she gets grumpy when one of her machines is not working, so off we go. :D

Too bad I'm not in your area. I've been doing machine service, tune up and repair as a hobby since back in the mid '70's, more so in the past 20 years or so. Gotta keep the family and friends happily sewing. Of course my name has gotten passed around since and occasionally get calls from others. I also do sergers, an even more complicated machine to understand the mechanics of. Gotta love the older machines, they were built to last forever.

Most of the time, they just need servicing and cleaning and sometimes an adjustment or two, almost never need parts.

Sounds like you have to make a return trip to pick it back up later. :(

[Old Greenhorn]

Yeah, I might consider shipping to NB if you agree to keep it for a while. ;D It wasn't a bad trip, in and out at the repair place, and she will go pick it up. But then she wanted to stop at a consignment gift shop where she has a bunch of stuff to do inventory. She let me sit in the truck for over an hour and I was fried when she finally came out. I was none too happy. The shop is 20x20', how long could it possibly take? >:( >:(
 By the time we got home it was 1pm and I skipped lunch and just went to work. I sawed up a 4' maple log, probably 20" dia. for stickers I badly need, but before i did that I HAD to do something about the sun. SO I finally fetched my canopy out of the garage and put it over the mill head. Working in the direct sun is just a show stopper for me.


 
That helped a lot, but not a total solution. At the same time I set up a little fire pit to burn some of the junk and bark that is collecting, just 3 wheel barrows full, but it is done.
Made a 13" sqaure cant and I got a pile of stickers, but could only do one log before I was out of sweat. 2 Bandanas, I shirt, 1 hat, and shorts soaked through today. Getting used to working wet.


 

Finished off just watching the fire burn down and dug up some rocks I have been tripping over since we bought this place. Got one out, the other I will need a chain and the Mule to pop out. Both theses rocks just stuck i about the size of a softball, but when i dug them up, one is about 12" diameter and the other, so far, looks like about 20". If I can find dirt to fill up these holes, I will finally be able to mow over the area without hearing that gawd awful noise when I forget about them. :D


 

 Around 5:30 a t-storm passed thru and dumped a bunch of rain which pretty much put my fire out.
 I just got a tip on some pine logs. It's funny but 3 months ago I would have had no interest, but now that I am finding that I can't keep it opn the rack. Either I build with it or somebody else does. I still have not been able to mill and dry any 4/4 boards for small projects with the boys or what ever. It is handy stuff to have around, but it is getting used, so I will check into these logs and find out if I can get them delivered.
 Tomorrow I have that pine customer coming over but some are saying it will be a rain out. We shall see, I guess if I can work sweat soaked, I can work rain soaked too. I am just happy for the work and wish I could do more, but this heat is a killer.
 Tomorrow is another day.

[thecfarm]

Next time your wife shops for an hour you should go back to reply #123 and do some shopping too.  ;)
Rocks? I have rocks stories.
We bought back some of The Farm, 7 acres. That piece had a lot of rocks sticking up on it. I cut the trees on it and got it back to where the wife could mow, around the rocks and all. Finally I got some time to remove the rocks that was sticking up out of the ground. I think she mowed around them for at least 2 years, I mowed around them for that long too. Most of those rocks was just sitting on top of the ground. Most no bigger than a foot across!!      At least it did not take me long to remove them.  ;D
This is how most of the rocks treat me around here. The piece we bought is just beyond the stone wall.





This picture below shows the new piece much better. That kinda white rock on the right side of the picture above is the rock in the middle of the picture below. Both pictures was taken the same day. You can see the edge of the woods by the stone wall. This was all trees, they was blocking the view of the my field across the road.






This is a normal size for my place.  ;D





Than there was a so called called stone wall, that was never built that ran along side of the road, that was covered in poison ivy. I kept that wall barren for 3 years, if it was green I sprayed it, I did not look to see if it was grass, a weed or poison ivy, I just sprayed it, than I hauled the rocks off up into the bog for a road.
A few years ago I removed a bunch move rocks off that piece and levered out an area so we could mow it with the tractor.

This is a link to that project.

https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?topic=102708.0