September journal

I also got injured in the woods 2 weeks ago, rookie mistake. had a ash tree hung up, so i yanked it down with the tractor, didnt know it was spring loaded when i cut the trunk half way up from the butt end. it was a large tree, around 12 inches half way up where i was makeing that first cut. When the saw went through, it came back like a giant baseball bat and caught my ankle. saw went flying and i went limping up and down the logging trail trying to walk it off. (swearing all the way). I had a soft brace at home so i nursed it for the last 2 weeks. pain and swelling are almost gone. Bit of worse news. a fellow syrup maker, friend, and his 4 yr. old son were on a 4 wheeler last Thursday evening and were hit by a car. The dad (Danny) was released today with a slight head injury, but his son (Sam) is still in critical condition. Please keep them in your prayers. Thanks......Ryan

Rhino a tree like that is called a widowmaker for a reason be careful. Your friends are in our prayers as well. I think we all get panicky this time of year and tend to go a little to fast. My daughter got a chuckle out of me when she said " Dad how much wood could a mapleholic chuck if a mapleholic could chuck wood?" Driving home last night I went past an accident where a kid rode a 4 wheeler across a road and got hit by a car. Scarey stuff.

Amber- all depends on alot of vareabels,,,,yesterday we did 15,,cut and stacked,,but I am useing a big yard crane (hood 24000) and a man on the ground with a husky 394 (big saw),,,when I had the slasher for the yard crane running I could turn trees into 2 cords of 4 foot wood loaded into the back of my truck in 35 minutes,,,splitting is the slow part,,,I am trying to split alot smaller this year,,had big chunks mixed in in the past,,and they dont burn as fast or as hard as I like.....
gonna try to be just splitting either friday or monday,,,want to get the shed stuffed and 10 up in the barn befor the end of the month,,(tall order)

Not much happening in the sugaring dept up here on the hill. A lot of spare time has been spent visiting a family member in the hospital-not sure if they will be sugaring in the spring. Need to get the crew together and head into the woods to work on the lines!

Rain finally here. Was actually dry here if that's possible. If we get some really bad weather gives me a exscuse to work in the shop instead of outside. I didn't know school was so taxing on a persons mind. I have to give credit to the 3 garcons on here that sugar and go to school they are better men then me anyday to handle it. I spent last night watching tv and peeling horesradish and found that hard enough.

well mom wanted me to stay home yesterday because ive been "out every day for the past 2 weeks" and she said she hadnt really seen me and wanted to see me. so she gets home doesnt hardley asks how my day was and that was it, i gotta go pick up your sister she says and boom shes gone. So uh why exactly couldnt i go out and help my friend with his sugar house???? but any way i took that home time and cleaned up the wood shed and got it ready to start taking fire wood for the house. and i cleaned up the sugar house and mowed the lawn which looks nice because ive striped it in the same direction for 3 weeks in a row so my old gravely walk behind actually looked like it cut like today's zero turns. the stripes are nice and bright and she looks good oh and i also took that "home time" yesterday and took 2 sets of stereo speakers i had and played around with wiring and put suround sound in my sugar house!!! and man is it AWESOME!!!! you can hear the radio clearly when your in my house. which is about 50ft away but still its pretty loud and the speakers i got for free have pretty good sound quality. i still have a big speaker about 4ft high and 2 wide that i didnt have enough speaker wire to hook up. gunna hook that up before the end of the week. also stacked a little fire wood for next year. it was cut late winter and was green and water logged i just threw it in a pile and i was surpised yesterday because it was dry just being in a pile. i thought you had to stack it to get it dry but i guess not.

Finished insulating arch yesterday and today fixing up a few little things in the sugar house put in an outlet so I can "plug it in " when I need to. maybe next year I will run some electricty to it, so I don't have run an extention cord to it.

I have a cold yeah bo hoo! but man I am tired tried to take a nap but can't sleep just kinda taking easy and just watch some Spongbob with my little wood hauler.

Going out to get some bricks tomorrow and start the brick puzzle. looks like fun:rolleyes:

Man its hot today all this cool weather lately and its like 82 degrees and humid sweating bullets working with arch board now thats just bad!!!!

Yesterday I got a load of pallets from my granpa win my 5X8 trailer and my cub cadet. Today I started to dice them up. How do you guys use to dice up the pallets?

pallet cutting: carefully and methodically:) I have 9 cord of them ready for 2010 season.
I built a crude holding station from a couple of saw horses with a base between them and a leaning post, Then I chain saw the thin boards off and cut the stringers at least in two pieces. I try to compress them as much as possible or they will take up 4 times the space in the wood shed.

Regards,
Chris

Usually when I burn palletts it is at the end of the season when I know I'm not going to have enough wood to make it through the season. I don't need to store them like Chris does so I only rip down through the middle of the slats, staying away from the parts where nails are. Then depending on the size of them I might have to cut the stringer in half.
I use a chain saw with a short bar that way if I do hit a nail it doesn't take long to sharpen.
Keith