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Visitors from afar.

Started by Bibbyman, January 11, 2006, 11:06:19 PM

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Bibbyman

We had some interesting visitors today.  Three Italians dropped in.  One was a log buyer that was working with the log broker who brings in most of the logs on log lot.  The other two were somehow connected with the log buyer.
 


Left to right ..  Engineer, mill guy, log buyer, log broker, and son of log broker.  In front is the wife of log broker.

Not knowing any Italian other than "pizza" and "spaghetti", we had quite a language barrier.  The log buyer could speak English pretty well,  one of the other men could come up with a few nouns but the third could only say "OK" in English.

We had met and talked with the log buyer before.  By the end of the visit I did gather that one of the men other two had a large sawmill operation in Italy.  The other was an electrical engineer.  It wasn't clear if he worked for the mill owner or was some friend.  The engineer had been to the US one other time.  That was in 2001 in Manhattan, NY.

As the engineer and sawmill guy were not active in the log buying process, and were taken by the farm, they asked if they could walk down the hill.  I told them it was OK, no problem but the talked it over between themselves and decided not to go.

It was becoming a nice day with the sun out and all so I decided to drag out the Kawasaki Mule and give them a tour of the farm.  As it was a bit nippy and they didn't have hats,  I offered to them each a new Wood-Mizer hat to wear. 

Off we went.  We had to stop and take pictures here and there at nothing I thought was noteworthy.  We drove to the edge of the creek and paused for picture taking and then I plunged the mule over the bank into the water that was about ankle deep.  For some reason they started chattering among themselves. We made a circle on the gravel bar and came back out of the creek.  The cows and bull had come up to the fence.  Not much training to get them to do that because that's where they get fed.  More pictures.

We then turned up a long, narrow valley we call Deer Valley.  It would have been great if we jumped up a bunch of deer or turkey but we saw none.  As we entered this wilderness area,  the one that knew a few English words asked "No Grizzly's?".  I assured him there were no grizzly's.  I didn't even try to bring up that a mountain lion had been killed in this same valley network about five miles away.

I did point out some trees and we interpreted the names.  They knew a name for everyone but the basswood and Eastern Red Cedar.  The best we could do on ERC was "no pine", or as they said "pinia" or something like that.

We got back to the sawmill and the mill owner guy opted out of the second half of the tour.  I took the engineer on a tour of the west side of the farm.  He noted a couple of deer stands and by using sign language,  he understood what they were for.  We stopped at one place were we could walk to the edge of the bluff and get a good view of the valley to the west.  More pictures.

Later in the morning the mill owner guy had seen one of the LogRite cant hook being used by the broker and log buyer.  He was very impressed.  I showed him the 30" sawmill model.   I then went to the house and printed off LogRite's home page and gave it to him.  I pointed out the different models and other tools available and the web site address.  He looked like he was very interested and folded the paper and put it in his shirt pocket.

The engineer was watching us saw when all the hydraulic functions just quit.  I got out the meter and Mary ran for the phone to call Sparks.  It turned out we didn't need him.  I popped the hood on the pump motors and found there was no juice getting to the solenoids.  We traced the problem back to the corrosion built up on the contact strip and contact.  We cleaned up the strip and contact and everything worked again. It looks like we're going to have to change out the contact again.   Anyway,  the engineer was very pleased he helped us solve our problem or at least be there when it was solved.

About 2:00pm they were ready to leave.  The log buyer came to me and said they had asked if they could keep the Wood-Mizer hats.  I said sure. Big smiles all around.  :)

I just wish I could be back home when they told the story of the Missouri hillbilly that took them for a wild ride in the wilderness while his wife ran the sawmill. :D

Wood-Mizer LT40HDE25 Super 25hp 3ph with Command Control and Accuset.
Sawing since '94

Corley5

Burnt Gunpowder is the Smell Of Freedom

farmerdoug

Bibbyman,  They probably think of you as an Italian hillbilly just for making your wife work while you horsed around. :D  I wonder if Woodmizer and Logrite will see an large increase of orders to Itlay.  Maybe you should put in for a reward. ;D

Farmerdoug
Doug
Truck Farmer/Greenhouse grower
2001 LT40HDD42 Super with Command Control and AccuSet, 42 hp Kubota diesel
Fargo, MI

UNCLEBUCK

That would make for a interesting day wouldnt it .  Maybe they were sizing your place up and next month you"ll get a letter from Italy wanting 20 truckloads a week . You sure saw up alot of interesting wood down there . If e.r.c. was a called a"no pine" I a guess a bassawood a might a be a called a "no fishing" a "no fish"  8)
UNCLEBUCK    bridge burner/bridge mender

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