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Making it through another year '21-'23

Started by Old Greenhorn, May 17, 2021, 08:06:34 AM

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Old Greenhorn

Well, Foresters can do a lot of things, among them is helping to develop a written management plan for a land owner as well as helping with timber harvest plans, finding a logger or a landowner, etc. There are more than a few Foresters hereon the forum, better you should ask them  more about it. As far as Ryan, John, and Zane go, they all have degrees in Forestry and I think Ryan and John at least are certified as foresters, but I am not positive. All 3 are quite knowledgeable about the hills around here as you can tell. All of them are employed full time by the Catskill Forest Association. (I think there are 5 employees total, plus a board of directors, etc.) Members pay an annual membership fee. As part of that membership they get certain benefits (depending on the membership level) and one of those is a free 1 hour visit and consultation to look over their property and provide some advice and guidance. One of those fellas will be invited to walk the property I mentioned in the last post next spring. I consulted informally with a neighbor a week before Ryan came by to give her more professional advice. When I checked in with her and asked what Ryan said shoe told me "He pretty much said and discussed all the things you noticed and had similar recommendations", so I know Ryan and I are pretty much on the same page.

 If you go to the CFA website you can see what they have available to their members, they have portable sawmilling, fruit tree grafting, workshops, GOL classes, etc. and other stuff. Fees vary for each service/event. They also put on a Forest Festival each August which hasn't happened in 2 years because of the plague. I had planned on displaying at that festival this past year and was pretty ticked when they cancelled it, so I didn't pay my dues. Next year, I'll be in though. I miss the GOL loggers competition, it's fun to watch and I usually know a few of the competitors. Of course, if I have a booth, I can't go watch, so there is that.
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 Today was another good day. Got another coat on the table then got to the mill before 10am. It's different now that I have a machine and am more on my own, but I have more to do. I cleaned up a lot of live edge stuff into dimensional stuff and put up about 400BF of saleable stuff. I bucked up some logs, moved them to the mill deck, cleaned up all my slabs and some junk left from yesterday. I learned something new today: If you overfill a toploading OWB, it is a real STINKER of a job to get some of that wood back out as the thing is flaring up with 3' flames. ;D :D I hope I only have to learn that lesson once. I did manage to keep most of the hair on my arms, but not all of it. ;D
 I have one open order left and some 'fuzzy stuff' (orders without clear quantities or might come from other stock), so I guess I am catching up. Hopefully this fine weather holds up for a while longer.
 Came home and did a light sanding and another coat on the table bottom. I am done for today, tomorrow is another one (I hope).
Tom Lindtveit, Woodsman Forest Products
Oscar 328 Band Mill, Husky 350, 450, 562, & 372 (Clone), Mule 3010, and too many hand tools. :) Retired and trying to make a living to stay that way. NYLT Certified.
OK, maybe I'm the woodcutter now.
I work with wood, There is a rumor I might be a woodworker.

aigheadish

Thanks for the info Tom! Our weather is getting rough right now, hopefully it stays south of you!
New Holland LB75b, Husqvarna 455 Rancher, Husqvarna GTH52XLS, Hammerhead 250, Honda VTX1300 for now and probably for sale (let me know if you are interested!)

Old Greenhorn

 Another pretty good day yesterday. Got to the mill by 9 and got a couple of lousy logs out of the way, one should have just gone in the OWB but I got some 1x10's out of it. Did the chores (cut slabs and dumped them in the OWB and got home by noon and had a quick lunch, then headed into town to meet the saw blade delivery guy. This fella is a nice enough guy, but I don't think he is the sharpest tool in the box. I understand his travel and time constraints and went out of my way to meet him at one of his other customers so he doesn't have to lose a minute or go one step out of his way. I just asked him to send me a text when he is close. The last text I got from him was wednesday night saying he would be at a predetermined spot between 1:30 and 2pm. I answered "fine, just text me when you are getting close." Yesterday I get no texts so I text him at 1:15 and tell him I am heading to town now. I finally get a response when I am just around the corner from the place telling me he has left there and is headed out of town.  The time is 1:32. (I missed him by 2 minutes tops) He says he will meet me at the gas station by the thruway (there are 3 gas stations there). So I call him as I turn around and head back, a little miffed and tell him where I am. He says he will pull off on the road and he does that right at a precarious entry into a traffic circle. I am thinking this is NOT a good place to stop and meet, and OH, I now need to turn around AGAIN. He gives me a song and dance about how he doesn't have time to spare and I try to explain that if he had just let me know he was running early I would have been there and it would have taken 30 seconds like last week. He says something about how 'they' don't want him going out of his way unless there is a decent sized order involved. I am thinking "they' must not want the business. I was ticked, but I got the blade and shook it off to a single person who is sloppy at his job. The company does nice work, the delivery guy, not so much.

 I came home and worked on the table. I hit the bottom with some fine steel wool, cleaned it, then put on a coat of hand wax. Looks pretty good. So I set the top and measured it up for the best alignment and marked just 4 holes. I wanted to be careful as this is my first time using those inserts. I took it off, flipped it, drilled the holes, installed the inserts and reset it and the screws dropped right in. The table doesn't look half bad I think.



 

 There is one spot on the bottom that slopes off from the original mill saw cut (not me) and the client wanted me to leave that in there. The issue is that it does not sit flat on the legs. I knew this all along. I have to make a tapered shim from Maple to go in there and fill the gap so all the screws are tight and it stays flat. That will just be some slow fitting work I hope to start this afternoon. The gap runs from zero to about 1/4" over a 3" length.



 

 I also have some of the finish to touch up before I button it up, take it apart, and bring it downstairs to put it back together for the client review. Just another few hours of work. Today is a rain-out, so a good day for it after my monthly chiro tuneup.

 Yesterday I did a little more research on that new property client. Turns out it's a 98 acre estate, very nicely manicured around the main compound. It was listed for sale at $1.6 million when they bought it for around $900k. Several buildings, barns, living and playing spaces. The woods are what I can't find much history on. It appears at some point somebody did some major digging and dredging on the lake to make a formal swimming/boating area, deeper water, and a beach dockage section. Probably before 1953. I'll do some more digging, but it looks like most of the clues will have to come from walking the ground. She told me there had been some cutting and was a log pile left I could have if I wanted, but no idea on the age of those logs.

 Anyway, after the Doc appointment I have a shop day today, unless it stops raining. In that case I may run down and put the new blade on the edger just to get it out of the way. Otherwise I surely would like to get that table closer to finished off if I can.
Tom Lindtveit, Woodsman Forest Products
Oscar 328 Band Mill, Husky 350, 450, 562, & 372 (Clone), Mule 3010, and too many hand tools. :) Retired and trying to make a living to stay that way. NYLT Certified.
OK, maybe I'm the woodcutter now.
I work with wood, There is a rumor I might be a woodworker.

Tacotodd

Another day & 1 step at a time. Slow is better than stop!
Trying harder everyday.

Old Greenhorn

The last 3 days have been pretty routine. I'm getting a in real rut just going from one thing to the next trying to make a buck. I worked on the table some more, then headed to the mill and made some lumber. Saturday I worked ont he table some more, checked out a tree cutting job for a friend, then headed to the mill where we shoved I bunch of old 2x6's ad 8's through the edger to make 2x4's for an order. There were 3 of us and we had a heck of a time forcing the boards through. New blades cutting well, but the feed system wasn't working well at all. When we finished I looked it over and decided to lower the input roller feeding into the feed rollers. Bill and I had a 'discussion' about this and he had a different idea but in a rare moment I invoked my 'old man with experience' attitude and overruled him and talked him into humoring me and just trying it. He is smart enough to know that I might be right and if I wasn't, he could razz me about it for a couple of weeks. Before we could try it, the drizzle turned into rain and we shut it down, covered it up and went in the house to drink coffee and eat bacon. :D The rain wasn't letting up so we called it a day and I went back to the table work.
 Sunday I did some table work early, then went over and cut a bunch of trees for my friend and we hauled them up to his firewood pile. I got home and did more table work and some other chores. The table is looking good now, after compounding, polishing, and waxing it is slick as glass. I took it apart and moved it downstairs and took the stringer and began re-finishing it one last time. 
 I didn the last coat on it this morning and re-finished one edge area on the table I found some drip marks. I got to the mill around 11 and sone after learned the customer was sending a truck to pick up the form lumber order, which was not yet done. We still needed 400 linear feet of 2x4's. Bill found some more stock we could cut down, so I stopped work at the mill and went up and the two of us got to try out the new adjustment on the edger. Man, that thing worked like a charm compared to Saturday. Mostly just start a board and it feeds through, but when one hangs up, it didn't take much at all to get it moving. On Saturday it often took all two of us could do to get some boards through pushing and pulling at the same time. Bill was happy. Now that we know my theory works I just have to go through and adjust the other rollers to match. All of the idle rollers appear to be higher than the feed rollers (except the one I adjusted down).
 Still we were short 150 feet, so I headed back to the mill and made the last boards about 5 minutes before the truck showed up. ;D Bill loaded him and I went back to making lumber and finished off the last log on the deck.``
 I closed up and cleaned the mill and deck, then headed back to my shop and did the polishing work to finish off that stringer and put the stringer back on. I only have the one re-touched edge on the top to polish and it's done.
 So tomorrow I'll do that little bit on the top, then put a final finish on that little short bonus slab I did for the clients out of the off cut and call it a job. When I get to the mill I have to hunt up some logs and get them on the deck and go back to 1x12's. It should be cooler tomorrow, but more sunshine so quite tolerable with the right clothes.
Tom Lindtveit, Woodsman Forest Products
Oscar 328 Band Mill, Husky 350, 450, 562, & 372 (Clone), Mule 3010, and too many hand tools. :) Retired and trying to make a living to stay that way. NYLT Certified.
OK, maybe I'm the woodcutter now.
I work with wood, There is a rumor I might be a woodworker.

Old Greenhorn

Well, still routine here. Every morning work in the shop for an hour or two, then head to the mill for a few hours, then back in the shop for the late afternoon evening. But now that that table is done it reduces the workload. Today was predicted, and turned out to be a super weather day. All I did in the shop this morning was tend the stove, I wanted the temp to stay warm through the afternoon. I got to the mill by 9, well I got to the Bill's shop by 9 and the routine for me is to throw whatever gear I need (chainsaw, blade lube, my kit bag, etc) into the Toolcat and drive that down to the mill. AT the end of the day I drive it back up with a load of slab wood and dump it in the OWB, throw my tools and empty jugs in my truck and park it.. It saves him firing up a machine when he gets home to load the OWB and it helps keep the mill area uncluttered as much as it might be. Bill seems to like that deal. ;D
Anyway, today I knew I had the table client coming for an acceptance inspection this afternoon around 3pm and wanted to get the most out of the waning good weather. Picking my own logs to mill is a mixed blessing. I am learning to manipulate the logs with the forks, but forks, as I am quickly learning, have their limits. ;D Working with high logs on the piles at odd angles is 'tricky' and in some cases a little risky. Put that together with my entry level experience and I work very slowly and carefully. I have a lot of hours on factory type forklifts. A Toolcat is not one of those. ;D You can't use the side of those forks to swing things quite the same, at least not without making some steel do things it shouldn't, like bend and there is no way I want to damage the machine. I could never live that down. SO I go easy and gentle and think every move through. Later, I know, this will come faster of course. But I am mindful these logs weigh thousands of pounds. You know that when the slide down the forks and slam into the fence and shake your teeth. Yeah, I could go back to the shop and trade off the Toolcat for the skidsteer with a swivel grapple, but then I would have to swap back for slab handling. I am learning and it just takes time and I have to allow for that time. SO I wrangled some logs up to the deck and did some milling. All in about 5 hours work with bucking slabs and filling the OWB. I think I did my best solo day so far as far at BF milled, but nothing to jump up and down about. A few hundred feet, but it was a pretty good day and I felt good about it.
I really hustled near the end to get it all done and cleaned up and be back in time for the client. I was a little concerned about this visit. I had not indicated in my general quote that it would cost what it wound up costing but he did have an idea. I couldn't ask for the true amount of time I had in it because as everyone here knows, I had lost a lot of time figuring out the finish and that was all on me, but even without that time, I still had a lot into it. No, I don't think my price was high at all in fact I had two guys look at it and tell me what they thought it was worth and they both came in close to twice what I charged. So I compromised. I put a price on it I would have liked to get (still not what the other guys said), but I gave him and "Old friends discount" to bring it into closer to what he must have expected. Then I just waited to see his reaction when he saw the invoice.
Well I shouldn't have worried. He was over the moon when he saw the table, then the little bonus slab I threw in, and he remarked that he thought the price 'much more than fair, even low for what is involved' and kept remarking how much work was involved. Good enough for me. He paid on the spot and will pick it up the week after Thanksgiving. He's happy and I am relieved that he is happy. I gotta raise my prices. :D I have to admit, I have done enough of these things now that they just look like another slab to me. Getting the finish right is the tough part, and when that's done I have a hard time getting too excited about it. I need to find something that excites me. ;D
It's raining now, but should clear overnight and tomorrow should only hit the low 40's for a high, but I'll be back at the mill looking for a full day. I have 3 orders I am working on at the same time. Just another day.
Tom Lindtveit, Woodsman Forest Products
Oscar 328 Band Mill, Husky 350, 450, 562, & 372 (Clone), Mule 3010, and too many hand tools. :) Retired and trying to make a living to stay that way. NYLT Certified.
OK, maybe I'm the woodcutter now.
I work with wood, There is a rumor I might be a woodworker.

Old Greenhorn

Still routine Here, ho hum. Friday and Saturday I worked at the mill for 4 or 5 hours and worked at home a few more hours. I 'caught' a tractor trailer on Friday trying to sneak through Bill's property past the mill. At least that driver was 'qualified' and apologetic. He had claimed to had a delivery next door to Bill's place and though he could get out 'this way'. But he saw the log across the road and by the time I hoofed it over to him, he was moving the log, which kind of set me off. He explained he just rolled the log forward so he could get a little further ahead and have room to back his trailer into a side trail and turn around. I explained the 'lay of the land' to him and stressed that he had to drive slow because over 10 MPH might make shots begin to ring out. ;D He seemed to get it on the first go. So I left him to turn the rig around and went back to work. In a few minutes he was crawling back out with a wave.
Saturday was the same, but Bill was working at home so we had a little time wrangling and picking logs together. I had started around 9 and left by 1pm, went home and started splitting firewood. I have some big maple rounds and had to flip the splitter vertical to handle them. Backbreaking work. Just doing 6 of those rounds overfilled the trailer, just over 1/3 of a cord. I stacked that and quit with a sore back. It did kill me a little to split this stuff because, as expected when I dropped the tree, this was very nice ambrosia maple. But I need heat more than pretty wood right now and am SO far behind on my stacks that there was no choice.
Today I did take some cookies off one round and set then in the shop for final drying. I will make some tables out of those over the winter at about 20-22" diameter. They don't have much more drying time, the tree was dead 6 years before I took the trunk down.


 


Anyway, I started the day by making some drawer fronts for a job my son has. No big deal, but they came out looking pretty good. Easy with that router table I made last year.


 

Pete brought the boys over today and they helped for a while with loading the trailer and stacking until they had to get to a birthday party. (Man, these sub 10 year old's go to a LOT of birthday party's!) SO when they left I stayed at it and did another load until I ran out of gas on the splitter with just two small chunks left to split in half. I pulled the trailer around and stacked it all, then put the gear away ready for the next session, which will be smaller trees from the swamp.
While Pete was here, I had him help me put that table in the backyard so I could take some photos. They didn't come out that good, but at least I have something. Here's the front edge:


 


And the back edge:


 

And an underside view where I had to add the wedge:



 

By the time I quit at about 4pm I was pretty pooped out. This last year I am finding things take me a bit longer each passing month. Bones and muscles ache all the time and Advil flows on a 4 hour rotation. Its just the way life is. This last week I have been having a fair amount of pain in my right wrist from carrying lumber to the stack over and over. I tried my braces, but they only seem to make it worse. It was really hurting by the end of today with all the manipulating and handling of the splits over and over. RSS, no doubt and the only solution is rest that I know of, but that is in short supply right now, so I will catch up in January and live with it for now. ;D Last time I had this hand problem and my chiro Doc worked on it, he had me in tears of pain, and it took a week to feel OK again, but it did feel OK. Now I've gone and messed it up again and am not sure I want to go through that treatment again, not to mention the cost

As for tomorrow, I have no clue yet. Raining overnight tonight, clearing in the morning. The sawdust is really deep at the mill and causing problems again. So I may just go down and put in some hours shoveling the stuff into bags for chicken bedding to get it out of the way. I just know it is slowing me down, so a maintenance day and picking and bucking logs for the queue may be the order of the day. I won't decide until I have made breakfast. ;D :D
Tom Lindtveit, Woodsman Forest Products
Oscar 328 Band Mill, Husky 350, 450, 562, & 372 (Clone), Mule 3010, and too many hand tools. :) Retired and trying to make a living to stay that way. NYLT Certified.
OK, maybe I'm the woodcutter now.
I work with wood, There is a rumor I might be a woodworker.

aigheadish

Table looks great Tom! 

I occasionally have some wrist trouble also. And some back trouble (right now that being true, I lifted a box, it was too heavy!). A guy at work told me about Tens units (I think they are called, it's "Tens" something) that basically send electrical impulses through some pads you stick to different parts of your body. I've used it, with some success, on my wrists. The units are cheap (maybe 20-30 bucks) and seem to provide some relief to me. They'll also, if you turn them up a bit too much make your muscles do weird things, I suppose, similar to getting tased. Might be worth looking into.
New Holland LB75b, Husqvarna 455 Rancher, Husqvarna GTH52XLS, Hammerhead 250, Honda VTX1300 for now and probably for sale (let me know if you are interested!)

Iwawoodwork

I have had some good results using the Large size Salonpas  patches to help with shoulder and lower back pain as needed, also I take the Costco brand Glucosamine with MSM and Glucosamine with Chondroitin for joint pain daily and it works for me.  When I am not able to take the pills then my thumbs and shoulders start aching, just something that helps make life easier for me.

doc henderson

lidocaine patches work well depending on the pain source.  my wife uses them and she is a pharmacist.
Timber king 2000, 277c track loader, PJ 32 foot gooseneck, 1976 F700 state dump truck, JD 850 tractor.  2007 Chevy 3500HD dually, home built log splitter 18 horse 28 gpm with 5 inch cylinder and 32 inch split range with conveyor powered by a 12 volt tarp motor

Old Greenhorn

Thanks guys, but it's OK. I'm old, that's all. It's repetitive stress. I feel it mostly when I am cranking up the pressure on the blade tension with that short handle. It subsides with rest, so I switched over to doing firewood for a couple of days. Although I did run down to the mill and rush off some 6x8's that it turned out, did not need to be rushed off. ;D Those were heavy enough that I used the machine to get them off the mill. It'll be fine. 
Tom Lindtveit, Woodsman Forest Products
Oscar 328 Band Mill, Husky 350, 450, 562, & 372 (Clone), Mule 3010, and too many hand tools. :) Retired and trying to make a living to stay that way. NYLT Certified.
OK, maybe I'm the woodcutter now.
I work with wood, There is a rumor I might be a woodworker.

Old Greenhorn

The weather is beginning to get cold, no getting around that. Last year I was dreading it and was prepared well ahead of time. This year I seem to be getting on with it a bit better and maybe ignored it a  bit more than I should have. My son had a hole in the schedule and came over with a short crew (4'9") to do the fall cleanup (leaves, etc) and I had to pitch in of course. When I was doing the  pre-winter chores I realized I waited too long.  A fitting had frozen and split on my water tank system. So I set that all up to drain into the creek and found the hose frozen also, replaced that and as it was draining I started looking around. I found my PW extinguisher by the mill, a couple of water buckets, and the mill lube tank all frozen. SO I took care of those, with no damage. They are all thawing slowly in the shop.
SO the boys came by and did a lot of 'stuff' and the yard looks good, for now. I pulled the pump off the tank and brought that in the shop. I filled in with bucking some logs up for firewood and other chores. Never had time to get to the mill today.  It was full, But....

 When I came in the house at 5 I checked the weather forecast to see about milling tomorrow and that's when it hit me.... Today is Wednesday, tomorrow is Thanksgiving day. Somehow I lost a day this week, a complete day. I was sure today was Tuesday and I would lose a day of non-productive work and tomorrow I would make it up. I have no idea how that happened and it's a little disconnecting.
Yesterday I did get some time at the mill and wasted a lot of time measuring and marking logs trying to find what I need for the 6/4x8x14' order, but not much joy. I also wasted time on milling up some poor logs trying to drag the lumber out of those but when I was done, the quality didn't pass my test and they went on the 'some other use' pile. I hate to hack up 20' logs for 14 footers, but it's looking like I might have to because I am wasting a ton of time and logs that don't make grade. On the one hand, that junk needs to be gone anyway, but on the other, it needs to get sold or used in the shop build. Cleaning up the log yard is part of the job and helping Bill get a plan going is also part of the job as I see it. I dunno, but we will figger it out somehow. I may part ways just a tad with what he wants and start milling up lumber to build a covered drying shed a little at a time. I just need to find a place to hide it until the time is right. ;D I have a few ideas. Anyway, he is starting to see my point with these thoughts and come around.

Bill is thinking about getting a resaw attachment for the mill and I asked why. He said he has been getting calls for tapered siding. I am thinking about the board footage we would have to mill to get ROI and don't think we should pull the trigger until the spring at the earliest. He is trying to set me up as his full time sawyer and although I appreciate that, I am not looking for a full time gig. Just getting in a few hours a day is tough enough. I don't want him buying equipment that I have to worry about paying off, and I will worry about it. I have thought about this a lot and first we need some covered drying areas, then we can play. I also need to find a tailgunner I can get on some kind of schedule that suits us both. With winter coming pretty quick here now, I'd like to taper off for a while.
I have to remind myself we are making some progress. That mill had 130 hours on it when I started. It now just turned over 200 hours and I have about 8,000 BF under my belt getting my feet wet, so to speak (although with the mud around the mill I have been getting my feet wet daily). The log yard looks a lot better now than when I started, we are using up junk or putting it in the OWB and getting to a point we can do some sorting to suit production better. So, progress is being made. But there are a LOT of logs (I should do a video for you to get a feel, it's very hard to explain).

I like challenges like this because it's not so much about the physical work as it is about figuring out the workflow and setting up the equipment and resources to handle that flow with the least time expended. I can't do this work for Bill indefinitely, but I can help him setup the workflow and resources to make it work for him or someone else.

Anyway, I driveled on there as I was thinking. Tomorrow I will take the day off, Bill will hunt in the morning, I will sleep in a take a leisurely shower. :D I am already tiring of being cold.
Tomorrow is another day.
Tom Lindtveit, Woodsman Forest Products
Oscar 328 Band Mill, Husky 350, 450, 562, & 372 (Clone), Mule 3010, and too many hand tools. :) Retired and trying to make a living to stay that way. NYLT Certified.
OK, maybe I'm the woodcutter now.
I work with wood, There is a rumor I might be a woodworker.

WV Sawmiller

Tom,

   Have a Happy Thanksgiving with the family and plenty of non-Noggie foods. That funky lutefish, smoked lamb chops and rutebegas just ain't the same as turkey and ham. :D

    Good reminder on the tanks. I need to bring my lube tank off the mill and store it in the well house where I have heat lights that come on when it gets to near freezing. I did disconnect it and blew the line out the last time I used it so the line should be good.

   I hope Bill has good luck hunting today. I'd tell him before he buys a resaw or shingle/lap siding attachment I would make sure I had at least one customer with a big enough order to pay for it. I have read of others here on the forum who did that and it seems like a reasonable way to make such a purchase. The first customer pays for the capital outlay and any sales after that are gravy.
Howard Green
WM LT35HDG25(2015) , 2011 4WD F150 Ford Lariat PU, Kawasaki 650 ATV, Stihl 440 Chainsaw, homemade logging arch (w/custom built rear log dolly), JD 750 w/4' wide Bushhog brand FEL

Dad always said "You can shear a sheep a bunch of times but you can only skin him once

Tacotodd

Trying harder everyday.

Old Greenhorn

Yeah, Thanksgiving wasn't much around here, family streesors are fairly high these days. But it's all fine and we did have some turkey and leftovers the next day, which I enjoy more than that actual meal. All gone now.

 Turns out Bill went out for about 45 minutes to hunt but then started thinking about work, gave up, and ran off two cords of firewood and got them delivered before noon. Then  they went off to his Mom's holiday feast. I just played 'bum'. Friday was lousy weather and I did the same again, just couldn't get motivated in that weather, nasty snotty, overcast, and damp. Bill gave me a call in the evening and told me the plans for today and said I was welcome to come play if I liked.       

 Still in a funk this morning I let both stoves (shop and house) burn out. I don't have enough firewood to burn full time this early in the year. But it is chilly today. High of about 39 and low of about 30 but we did have some blue skies and a wind average of 15 MPH. I got to Bill's before 10am and we ran a mess of stuff through the edger making 4" battens and "frost boards" (whatever those are). 4 of us working as fast as we could move. Quite the pile, we also ran off some 8 and 10" stock. Then we went down to the house and puilled the planer out into the 'driveway' (well, a frozen muddy spot in front of the garage doors) and set it up and started planeing everything we has cut. After an hour or so, Bill went in to cook lunch and we kept planeing. We hit a break point and went in for lunch.

 Lunch conversation soon turned to that RS-2 purchase. I stood my ground on 'drying racks FIRST!' and Bill's closest friend (CJ) was on my side "yeah you really gotta have that first" he said. I learned that CJ has an LT35 hydraulic on order he is waiting to get in the next couple of months. He was interested to learn about this RS-2. He is a full time carpenter/builder and all the wood we made today was for his work. Smart young fella. I told Bill I would call WM on Monday and check the lead time. Bill said he was gonna call WM Monday and order it. I can't win, but he is the boss and he signs the checks, so whatever. :D

 After lunch we went back at it and planed both sides of all that material. It was a pretty good looking whack of lumber we loaded in CJ's 1 ton truck. We quit around 4:30 and CJ said he was going to pull his truck in the shop before he left to see if he could get his headlights working. :D Yeah, that would be handy to have out on the state road, he has a 45 minute drive home. Maybe I'll hear a story the next time I see him. ;D

 I grabbed a couple dozen eggs and headed home, my toes were frozen up pretty well. Just another day in paradise. Not sure about tomorrow, I may head back and help CJ plane up the little bit we didn't get done today or maybe I will do some more firewood. I dunno, but tomorrow is another day, at least I hope so.

 I'm out of beer so I have to settle for a bottle of Jack and an early bedtime. :) :D
Tom Lindtveit, Woodsman Forest Products
Oscar 328 Band Mill, Husky 350, 450, 562, & 372 (Clone), Mule 3010, and too many hand tools. :) Retired and trying to make a living to stay that way. NYLT Certified.
OK, maybe I'm the woodcutter now.
I work with wood, There is a rumor I might be a woodworker.

Tacotodd

Tom, I can see your quotation now, "I can't believe I drank the whole thing".  ;) :D
Trying harder everyday.

Old Greenhorn

No Todd, I didn't drink the whole thing, just a little, but now I remember why I don't drink that stuff very often. ;D Everything is a little fuzzy and my back still aches anyway. :D ;D
Tom Lindtveit, Woodsman Forest Products
Oscar 328 Band Mill, Husky 350, 450, 562, & 372 (Clone), Mule 3010, and too many hand tools. :) Retired and trying to make a living to stay that way. NYLT Certified.
OK, maybe I'm the woodcutter now.
I work with wood, There is a rumor I might be a woodworker.

Old Greenhorn

Well Sunday we woke up to everything being white which was not really in the forecast (imagine that) and I got a call that CJ wasn't going to finish up his wood that day. Just as well, mu funk carried on, but I thought I should restart the shop stove before the building cooled off too much. Well I noticed a lot of smoke backing out of the stove, much more than would be normal with a cold chimney. By the time I realized I had to do some cleaning I had a half a load of logs in there. I had been doing other stuff, like splitting wood and house chores and the fire just limped along. SO I let it go along figuring Monday morning I would do the deed when it had burned out. Monday I took the chimney apart and cleaned it, but found a couple of spots where the acid had eaten through the steel. Nothing real structural, but leaks none the less and it would be stupid to put it back together. About that time I realized that every woodstove shop in a 3 county area if closed on Monday. I checked into and thought about ordering online, but then it might be a week before I got the pipe section I needed. Better to wait until today, and sure enough I found a shop that had my pipe in stock about 1/2 hour away. SO I finished the job today and as I type this the shop finally got up to 50 and is slowly climbing.

 So for the rest of Monday I did 'office work' because it was way too cold in the shop and overcast and nasty out enough that I wasn't going to the mill. I have this new property improvement client who contacted me for an appointment about a month ago. I am supposed to go meet with them this coming Sunday. which I conformed yesterday and set a time. In the meantime over the last month I have been doing a little research on their property here and there. They provided a good start, gave me the first owners name and some info on him. He had a sawmill, tavern, and other businesses on the property such as barrel staves established about 1798. He was a JP in the town, and the town was chartered around 1808. They knew most of the owners up to them. In my searches I discovered there are 9 boxes of records for the first owner in the State research library.

 So yesterday afternoon I began to get into it and found county soil surveys with detailed information on the various soil types around their property. there are detailed interactive maps online where you can find the different soil composition plots on a specific parcel. It is fairly complex (I don't do this stuff) so I decided to break it down for them because it speaks to how they might section their property for different uses. I made a lot of screen shots with each soil types and descriptions of each type. I organized it into a report of sorts (the soils section is 'appendix A') and listed their expressed plans, some discussion material, as well as a list of questions and some discussion about how to formulate a plan going forward. If nothing else, it provides something to refer to for questions and scribble notes on. I don't want to overload these folks with a lot of verbal information. Putting it in writing for them gives them something to re-read and think about. Right now it stands at 28 pages before I get there to start looking at trees, ground, and terrain. On 100 acres, there is a lot to consider in accomplishing their plans. All property clients are different. some know exactly what they want and they just need a hand, others need help figuring out what they want and how to get there. These folks seem to have an idea what they want, but are not sure the best way to get there and I believe they are looking at a 10-15 year plan. I am just trying to see them get off on the right foot with an awareness of what's possible and what is not practical.

 Anyway, the work so far has been interesting and I am already way over the 6 hours I usually figure for these first visits. In no way do I make money on these things, but they are very interesting and a lot of fun for me. They also keep me out of trouble. ;D

 BTW, in my research, I found that this original landowner, according to county records was an "Orthodox Quaker" and was granted a Tavern License. Now I never knew that there was such a thing and as an "Orthodox Quaker" or what that means. I did see that there were many others in the same period who were named as Quakers of many different variations. I also did not think Quakers were the types that would run Taverns. Again, this was around 1800. Anybody have any knowledge of this? Quakers were very populous in this area between 1675 and 1850, but they seemed to be many small groups rather than several large ones. 
Tom Lindtveit, Woodsman Forest Products
Oscar 328 Band Mill, Husky 350, 450, 562, & 372 (Clone), Mule 3010, and too many hand tools. :) Retired and trying to make a living to stay that way. NYLT Certified.
OK, maybe I'm the woodcutter now.
I work with wood, There is a rumor I might be a woodworker.

WV Sawmiller

Tom,

   Sounds like your plans may be like my old boss used to say "Give them something to criticize." Its not really that negative. They don't know what they want but when you give them something the gray areas now start to become black or white and they can say what they like and what they don't and you can adjust from that. Many people just can't get the ball rolling but once you give it a nudge they can keep pushing it. Good luck with them Sorry about the snow. We had a few widely scattered snow flurries last week but nothing close to sticking yet and that is fine with me. I am covered up with little 1-2 day jobs around here and December looks like a real busy month if the weather permits. It is messing up my hunting schedule I did not go today as I knew I did not have time to work one up if I did shoot another. Stay safe.
Howard Green
WM LT35HDG25(2015) , 2011 4WD F150 Ford Lariat PU, Kawasaki 650 ATV, Stihl 440 Chainsaw, homemade logging arch (w/custom built rear log dolly), JD 750 w/4' wide Bushhog brand FEL

Dad always said "You can shear a sheep a bunch of times but you can only skin him once

Old Greenhorn

Well Howard, I hadn't thought about it, but I guess you are right. I seem to have dropped back into my old habits as a project planner in my previous 'life'. I would always make a list of every consideration and possible concerns when doing major machine installations. Everything went on the list and I would solicit concerns from everyone involved. Everything went into the pot from truck size requirements, over the road permits, bridge heights, door sizes, power requirements, floor weight capacities, technical issues and training on the new equipment, required support tooling, storage, and on and on. Then we would meet and either discard an item, or include it in the plan or discover new sub-items. After that everything went into a Gantt chart which listed the required time and materials and placed it in the timeline where it had to be so as not to interfere or hold up other tasks. This also helped identify items that could be handled in parallels with the same resources, saving time and/or money. When that was massaged around and balanced, it produced a workable timeline. (Then the boss would just demand that it happen in half the time  :D).

 So yeah, I have found that to be a reliable approach to start a major project that has always worked for me. If you sweat every small thing out in advance, the likelihood of having a large issue pop up at the worst time is greatly reduced and when that does happen, you are almost always in a better position to handle it.

 I always enjoyed the project management part of my job and I think I was pretty good at it because I got a lot of the major ones thrown my way over the years. Maybe, without realizing it, I am bringing those skills into these new projects as you say. I never realized that until now. Thanks for pointing that out because I was trying to think of a way to reduce the stress on this for the clients and not make it seem so daunting because that can be a scary thing and turn folks off. It is supposed to be a fun thing when you are forming up your retirement and legacy property and I hope to keep it that way for them. There will be unpleasantries along the path for them, but they should be expecting those and be able to deal with them if I have prepared them correctly.
Tom Lindtveit, Woodsman Forest Products
Oscar 328 Band Mill, Husky 350, 450, 562, & 372 (Clone), Mule 3010, and too many hand tools. :) Retired and trying to make a living to stay that way. NYLT Certified.
OK, maybe I'm the woodcutter now.
I work with wood, There is a rumor I might be a woodworker.

Nebraska

Quote from: Old Greenhorn on December 01, 2021, 07:14:32 AM


So yeah, I have found that to be a reliable approach to start a major project that has always worked for me. If you sweat every small thing out in advance, the likelihood of having a large issue pop up at the worst time is greatly reduced and when that does happen, you are almost always in a better position to handle
Prior planning prevents p poor performance!
Sounds to me like an enjoyable project. You will give those folks a few paths to take to enhance the legacy of that property for the next generation.

  
How often do you have to clean that chimney? I thought those catalytic stoves burned enough cleaner than standard stoves to to really reduce the  buildup issue.  Just seems you've only burned a little more than I have (just short of a cord = me) Just got me wondering  now.

aigheadish

I agree it sounds like a neat project and learning about new areas around is always cool. I'd love to dig up the history of my "neighborhood". I assume, fairly positively, that it was just woods or farmland up until maybe the mid-1900's (first houses on the road appear to have shown up in the late 1960's maybe, other than a farmhouse or two). I've gone back and looked at historical Google Maps but that doesn't always show much. 
New Holland LB75b, Husqvarna 455 Rancher, Husqvarna GTH52XLS, Hammerhead 250, Honda VTX1300 for now and probably for sale (let me know if you are interested!)

Old Greenhorn

Yes guys, this is a neat and fun project. I base my one time fee on 6 hours expended as a consultant (no physical labor or tools involved) and I have to agree with those who keep telling me I don't charge enough. I've got about 8 hours of research in writing in so far. Originally I had been working on small plots of just a few acres, this one is 100 and has a real history going back to around 1780. The soil considerations all play into it also. As I am not a trained forester, I have to work a bit harder to do the research. I also confess that I easily fall into interesting rabbit holes about prior owners and land uses. (I now know what an 'Orthodox Quaker" is.)
 So I spent a few more hours last night working up an appendix that discusses various ways to manage their project to consider. This morning I put another 3 hours into and appendix with regard to working with contractors and how to build a relationship. Much of that was learned form listening to all of us hear discuss good and bad clients as well as a local experience I have picked up over the decades. It stands at 35 pages now as a 'pre-field survey report' and I am about to send it off to them. I am concerned that it might be like drinking from a fire hose for them and it will be interesting to see how they accept it. I am thinking they should have time to read and think it over and develop good questions before we meet. Whichever way it falls will be interesting to see. My instinct tells me they will recognize it as useful work.
 It matters not to me. I have been enjoying the research quite a bit and learned quite a few things. My hope is to help them get started ont he right track, but as we all know, it takes two to tango. ;D
 -----------------------
 Today I got the shop up in the low 50's after a good overnight fire and didn't go out to work there until 1pm when I stoked it up and started cleaning and putting things away. Clearing the decks, in a manner of speaking. I did get the temp up to 59°. I did a lot of overdue vacuuming upstairs and put a bunch of tools away from too many little jobs already forgotten. I also did a few small out side chores, new batteries in one of the motion detector lights out back of the shop and other little doo-dads that needed doing. I should have gotten firewood stacked but I copped an attitude.
 Tomorrow is another one, maybe I will have a better plan. These days I check the weather in the morning before I decide. 
Tom Lindtveit, Woodsman Forest Products
Oscar 328 Band Mill, Husky 350, 450, 562, & 372 (Clone), Mule 3010, and too many hand tools. :) Retired and trying to make a living to stay that way. NYLT Certified.
OK, maybe I'm the woodcutter now.
I work with wood, There is a rumor I might be a woodworker.

Andries

OG: Same here, what to do with my day is decided over breakfast while looking outside at the thermometer and the strength of the wind. It's the kicker that says: an insider or outsider kinda day? 🤔 Then I balance that off with the better half and get a reading on the emotional weather report. 😏
.
Thinking of all the research you put into a report for the clients. It might be helpful for them if you included an Executive Summary. It should describe the results you've come up with, and the most important part, what their next five actions to achieve their goal would be. Those five hopefully overlap with what you'd like to do on their acreage. Less than a page long and bullets for the top five. 
That way, if they want to just decide next steps and getter done, they can. If the want to dive down the research rabbit hole with you, they have references and thirty five pages of deep thoughts to think on. 
LT40G25
Ford 545D loader
Stihl chainsaws

Old Greenhorn

Andries, that's a very professional idea! Not sure I can pull that off. :D Actually, seriously, I like that and will do it after I do the field survey. I can't be sure of course, but I don't sense these are the kind of folks that would only read the executive summary. They have too much invested and are planning a legacy property through several generations. They will go over all the details. Perhaps not now, but in due time. These strike me as intelligent folks.
 I did send them the preliminary stuff and also added some 'reading caveats' lest they try to read too much into what I've written before we have met. I wanted them to have time to absorb some of it, but told them "If it's boring, skip it".
 We'll see how it goes over.
Tom Lindtveit, Woodsman Forest Products
Oscar 328 Band Mill, Husky 350, 450, 562, & 372 (Clone), Mule 3010, and too many hand tools. :) Retired and trying to make a living to stay that way. NYLT Certified.
OK, maybe I'm the woodcutter now.
I work with wood, There is a rumor I might be a woodworker.

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