My new client and Quarry update

[tule peak timber]

Hard won flat ground for sure! Us mountain guys feel your pain in the quest for usable space. 

[teakwood]

it's not a pain with a 30to excavator. took out 20 truck loads today and that hill is still intact!
 

[Stephen1]

Hardly made a dent in it. Are you trucking it down to the quarry?

[teakwood]

No, just dumping it right down the hill, outside the big entrance gate. i will make a lower level terrace there where the planer shapings will be piled up. so the cattle trucks can just shovel it from there. no need to get inside the sawmill area. will make a pic today

behind the kiln, lumber storage, where we where siting for lunch

staircase is gone and the car park is now same level as the house

[tule peak timber]

Nice pics Ramon, we have wet snow falling here predawn. I wish I was in CR !

[doc henderson]

Very nice.  I bet Victoria is very happy with those results.  what fun.

[Ljohnsaw]

Fun! So the fill is going between the road and the planner wall? Isn't that where you have the line of non-productive banana trees?

[teakwood]

Exactly John, the no good banana trees are way at the start of my driveway, the fill wont get to them. but boy can this hole take some loads. dumped about 35 truckloads and went down and did a stone retaining wall so i can extend the area, now it can easily take 100 loads more. will build that terrain up

just dumping it outside the gate

making a retaining wall (against the public road rainwater culvert)
you can see the "retaining hole" where the excavator tracks are. at the upper right corner you see the gate. still a long way up 

[okmulch]

Looking great Ramon! Your gonna have more flat ground then you know what to do with. Not going to recognize the place next time we visit. 

[Resonator]

Banana trees, is that where "banana logs" come from? 
-----------------------------
When I drove dump trucks doing material hauls for excavation, the trick for moving the most dirt in a day was having the right number of trucks running. You wanted the big shovel to keep going steady swinging dirt. Too many, and the trucks would be lined up waiting to load. Too few and the shovel would sit idle to much. 
Haul distance from dig site to dump site also came into play, a short run cycle time and you didn't need as many.
Also they'd have a guy in a dozer blading off the piles at the dump sight. After each load was dumped, he'd knock it down, and the next truck would back in on top of the flattened fill.

[aigheadish]

Man, I had no idea the hills were that extreme Ramon! That got me to my trip to CR, when I thought the house we were staying in was at the bottom of a valley, when it turned out to be on the side of the hill I was quite surprised. You ever check that dirt for gold?

[teakwood]

Thanks for all the info. after lowering the tire pressure and having the heavy machine sitting on the tire it's really only one inch (in height/diam) . i bought 2 new 12ply ag tires from a guy who has 5 sitting around, for 500$ each. next week they show up, so i will mount one to see how tall they are, and put the 2 on the back axle, if they are similar i buy one more to match the front. if they are not similar i buy 2 more to have 4 new identical ones, but would loose the one i mounted this week, which would be a bummer.

you right doc, the treats are new and that's because they are bigger and higher.

Heck, the machine is 54 years old and the fixed rear axle has dragged itself in every corner since then and the gears are like factory new, so the engineers  from deere back then did something right!  the B models have a open back diff i think 

ok, after using one of the 2 Russian tires i bought and that sucker develop cracks just after inflating it (probably not from 2018 like the seller assured me) i had a discussion with the guy wanting half of my money back or a super deal on the 3 remaining tires he had left, to at least change them prematurely if they fail. long story short he gave me the 3 tires for 1000$, so now all the tires are new on the machine and have 2 new ones in storage.

first tire has cracks


one of the tires is neat, so i don't know if i got lucky with the 3 remaining tires or not, only time will tell


how do you like my skidder now!? looks slick to me

[doc henderson]

The one with cracks may have had sun exposure.

[Magicman]

Or as Ramon suspected, very old. 

[Peter Drouin]

Looks good. 

[teakwood]

some updates on project "make more room"

incredible the stones that pop up

good progress


making a greenarea behind the kiln

[teakwood]

liking it!!

hope these palms don't die, we are in dryseason and lots of ruts got cut when you dig them out. we are watering them like crazy

[doc henderson]

Looking like a resort.  I do not know palms, but I bet the small ones will do OK.

[doc henderson]

I want to have a beer in the Palm Garden, next time.  Out behind the woodshed (kiln). .  We can have Rob prepare us raw seafood. 

[tule peak timber]

Looks great ! You have plenty of roots according to the photo, but I might suggest cutting away at least 50 % of the fronds starting at the bottom going up. Keep the water on them.

[WhitePineJunky]

There have been some Palm trees growing in Nova Scotia with the additional help during jan feb covering up