How'd it go today?

How’s Otis doing Dave? The mini is prolly getting tracks this week and a couple new tires for the trailer. Still haven’t ordered the engine for the grinder though. That’ll be a winter project.

Today went good I guess. Five crews all cleaning, washing, and doing maintenance on everything. Inventories were done and I’ve got one nice list of stuff to order. Tomorrow is more training and renewing of first aid/ cpr for those that need it. I also have found the pricing for most of the gear on the trucks. This will be made known so every one knows that it’s not a “no big deal” when they lose or destroy something. This might sound silly but we buy a gross of rakes per year. That’s more than four rakes a person. My crew is on last years rakes still and so is another crew. That leaves 24 people to lose and break 144 of them! How is this possible? Either complete lack of care or complete stupidity. Now I feel like I’m venting.
 
We use Razorback rakes -- lifetime warranty. If they break in normal usage, we just exchange them. If we drive over them and break the handles or crush them with the chipper table closing, that's another story. But generally we might go through 4 rakes per year (cycling). I'm more favorable toward wood handles than the chintzy hollow fiberglass ones, though.
 
As far as house wrap is concerned, the idea of breathable houses is not only dead, it's been buried for 3 decades, has turned to bones, and will never rise from the dead. You pipe intake air for the appliances, and then enjoy the energy savings, the absence of mold or pests, and for sensitive people, super clean air. I love old school, but sometimes old school was just attempting to do what they didn't have the materials to do properly. Unless you live in a place where it's always perfectly room temperature, sealing a house is arguably more important than the windows and doors, because the next owner can replace them, whereas they don't want to rebuild everything you touched.
 
treebilly said:
How’s Otis doing Dave? The mini is prolly getting tracks this week and a couple new tires for the trailer. Still haven’t ordered the engine for the grinder though. That’ll be a winter project.

Today went good I guess. Five crews all cleaning, washing, and doing maintenance on everything. Inventories were done and I’ve got one nice list of stuff to order. Tomorrow is more training and renewing of first aid/ cpr for those that need it. I also have found the pricing for most of the gear on the trucks. This will be made known so every one knows that it’s not a “no big deal” when they lose or destroy something. This might sound silly but we buy a gross of rakes per year. That’s more than four rakes a person. My crew is on last years rakes still and so is another crew. That leaves 24 people to lose and break 144 of them! How is this possible? Either complete lack of care or complete stupidity. Now I feel like I’m venting.
Click to expand...

A gross of rakes a year! Holy shiiiiit! Some people just don't know how to use a rake.
 
Tree09 said:
As far as house wrap is concerned, the idea of breathable houses is not only dead, it's been buried for 3 decades, has turned to bones, and will never rise from the dead. You pipe intake air for the appliances, and then enjoy the energy savings, the absence of mold or pests, and for sensitive people, super clean air. I love old school, but sometimes old school was just attempting to do what they didn't have the materials to do properly. Unless you live in a place where it's always perfectly room temperature, sealing a house is arguably more important than the windows and doors, because the next owner can replace them, whereas they don't want to rebuild everything you touched.
Click to expand...


I have mixed feelings about all that. We have a lot of humidity here, and I like the windows open any time it's possible. So a sealed house would be wasted on me.
 
I agree. What can be sealed out can also be sealed in. Air circulating systems for super-sealed houses are complicated and expensive. Air infiltration can be controlled through the build quality and energy efficiency with insulation. A vapor barrier does only what a rain slicker will do, it has no R-value.
 
A good friend of mine built his brother-in-law a house, and they opted for spray-foam insulation. It DOES insulate, I'll admit, but what it will be like inside the house in 25 years, I can't say. It's like a cooler. Sealed ridge board to slab. When it comes to homes, moisture is NOT your friend
 
Fourth day in a row of diarrhea. Doc suggested the BRAT diet; bananas, rice, applesauce and toast. I need to get over this pretty soon, beginning to make me miserable.

The worst part is my current doctor sucks. Everybody I talk to has had it or knows somebody who has it, yet my doc acted like he had never seen such a case before and was unwilling to even hint at a cause until I submit a stool sample for the lab to run a bunch of expensive tests. Then I overheard the patient in the next room describing his diarrhea issues to the nurse, about like mine.
 
Hmm, a good friend of mine just went through the same thing. He is ex-army, so he went to the VA hospital for care & tests. His stool came back positive for e coli, so he's been on the BRAT diet for a solid month. He's making a solid recovery, back in the swing of things.
 
Of course they found E. coli. It's one of the very common bacterial inhabitants of our intestine. It's a great help to digest and absorb a good amount of our food.
The bad news is when they found it elsewhere like in blood or bladder.
What the docs do is tracking some specific bacterial strains of E. coli (amongst other inopportune species), known to be aggressive, invasive and destroyer of the bacterial population's equilibrium.
But mostly, you can "pet" your E. coli, or thank them at least.:)
 
Proteus Mirabilis

That was the bug I had to culture, grow, identify and write a term paper about in microbiology.

It gives you the squats. :drink:
 
I don't think it was the more benign strains -- it was one that causes intestinal irregularities and bowel issues. Not just some pro biotic flora, that one.
 
What do they say about cats? Always landing on their feet.

So I'm the juniorist guy at the mill ...and four job postings come up. Anyone who's worked union will know what I mean, and if not to bad. Job postings are like a permanent position, it's your job then not open to seniority 'bumps'. Three of them are your regular sort of low man positions and the fourth is posted as weekend swing shift dryer infeed. Well what that actually means is you work 2 12 hour days Saturday and Sunday noon to midnight and one eight hour day through the week and get paid for fourty. Also the dryer you feed is not the dryer(s) I've been mentioning it's the newest and most automated machine they have. Does five times what the handfed dryers do in a shift with no manual labour.

So. As of 3:45 and closing of 4:00 I was the only one who signed up for this posting. I expect tomorrow am to receive the official word that the posting is mine and start training on this dryer. I don't think any of the other newer guys actually even inquired what the job was and they assumed it was feeding dryer 1 on the weekends, not dryer five. So if everything goes as I think it will I'm moving up from buttons and a tube screen monitor to five flat screens and touchscreen controls. And only working three days a week for a full 40hr a week pay.

Heh mick, did you catch all of that?
 
Good deal, Justin. Unlike some who need pictures, I read all the words.

No grand pictures today, just 4 trimming jobs -- mostly deadwooding and roofline clearance. Pin oaks, elm, silver maples, cottonwood, river birch. Temperatures were hitting triple digits at the peak in the afternoon, also very muggy due to an approaching rain storm. We finished with high gusting winds and then the storm broke and began dumping rain as we were finishing up job #4.
P1360144.jpg
 
What's that mean exactly Jim. Are you buying. Or selling?

I've got some in around the mill and have it on good authority that my understanding of the position is accurate.

I know Rich, if I get the position I may have to go to the gym or something. Or I'm kind of eyeing up some other work too possibly. I may have a chance to do some delivery work for home builders with some big azz knuckleboom cranes. I won't count those chickens before the other ones hatch though. But. Cranes are cool. I'd do both jobs possibly.
 
Its going to. We are buying the property from 4 sisters and we all get along fine.

Their family homesteaded the first plot in 1890 or so....it was well before 1900.

In fact, these girls grandfather was the first white child born in Blaine County....or something like that!



My father leased the ground 40 years ago, and we have farmed it for near 10 years.


Lots of history I guess and no drama.



I was tough timing because of the drought and low prices, but it was good timing because of an EQUIP project we are approved for to plant the land back to grass, fence and pipe water.

This way all the work will be on our property.....not rented ground.


Its just a lot of damn money!


Might be looking for a mill job pretty soon......
 
That's ten New England family farms worth of land. Well, it used to be. My great-grandfather had about 250 acres, over a hundred in woodland, and made bank with 20 cows.
 
Fellow I bought a used straw buncher from in Saskatchewan is cropping 12000 acres. Most all rented ground.

That means he is farming 24,000 acres.

Makes me sick just thinking about it.

We are going all out trying to prove that the small family farm is still a viable business model. Profitable and sustainable.


Still working out most of the details about that!


I bet your property values would make us fall out of our chair Dave.
 
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