How'd it go today?

[CurSedVoyce]

Sean .... 1 per 1 until this hive. American... not African or Eurasian


Thanks B

 

[Stumpshot]

Finished our 2-day stint on the Osage Orange removals (customer's words: "I hate hedge apples!"). Wound up with a decent load of logs (great firewood -- slow burning, high heat ratio), but had to pull the log truck up out of the slop since the snow was beginning to melt and the ground was a bit soft. I passed the day stump grinding 5 Osage stumps and a cherry stump while the crew finished up the last 2 trees + pruning 3 maples. Then another quickie silver maple -- remove a leader over a house + canopy raising. Made decent money over 2 days even with snow on the ground.

 

[stig]

Richard and I have been cutting migrating corridors and setting up nesting boxes for Dormouse for over a week now.

Since we were the ones who got called in to do it, when the State forest started the project years ago, we've somehow become Dormouse experts by default.

So every time they come up with some more money to spend on the little critters, they call us.

Nice easy work, but today the weather was terrible.

High wind and rain and sleet all day. Nasty.

Some kind of little insect got under my clothes and started biting me something fierce.
Eventually I had to strip down and shake my underwear out to get rid of it...in gale force wind and sleet.

Richard came by on the ATV just as I was standing buck naked and shaking my undershirt in the wind.
He looked seriously derped, so I asked him if he'd never seem a viking in breeding plumage before.

Just before quitting time I got an interesting call from a forester, asking if we had time to kill 150 cubic meters of Austrian pine in a stand planted in 1877

I have been drooling over those trees since I first saw them, years ago and told the forester back then, to think of me when they had to be felled.

Nice that he remembered.

 

[Dave Shepard]

 

[Tree09]

what insect lives in the cold like that?!?!?!?!

 

[treebilly]

The tough ass kind that bites the shit outta ya!!

 

[Nutball]

It's getting too cold to work. Diesel engines are having a hard time starting. The mini skid has a 2 second delay on the directional controls.

 

[stig]

what insect lives in the cold like that?!?!?!?!

No idea. Could have been a miniature wolverine for all I know, it certainly was vicious enough.



I went to the hospital for my Leukemia check-up today.

Bad news.

I've sort of been dragging my ass the last couple of months, being tired as hell. I put it down to aftereffects of logging 10 hour days in record heat all summer.

Nope, the Leukemia seems to be getting a lot worse, even an amateur like myself could see that from the graphs of the developement in my blood samples the last 2 years.

My red blood cell count is so low that I'm anaemic and my immune system is shot to shit.

Long story short, Butch is not the only one who'll be having to undergo chemo.

Prognosis is good, they say that usually the chemo renders the patient symptom free for 2-8 years, in my case the oncologist felt that 5 years was a safe guess.

So basically I trade ½ a year of misery for 5 years without symptoms.

I'll go for those odds.

Since I have a logging season coming up and a trip to California, we decided to start in june, when I come back.
They will, however, be monitoring my blood regularly and if the values start sliding badly downwards, we'll start chemo right away.

Hope we can delay it, I don't much care to be the first person to climb a giant Sequioa while carrying a vomit bag

 

[Mick!]

Shit!

 

[Tree09]

That sucks brother

 

[MasterBlaster]

Tell me about it...

friggin' cancer.

 

[Raj]

Sad news Stig.

 

[SeanKroll]

Sorry to hear, Stig.

 

[pete mctree]

That's really shit Stig. My mother has just undergone another round of chemo for her leukaemia- she said she was more resilient to the side effects this time as she had it before her bloods were too critical.

 

[pantheraba]

Hope your overall physical conditioning will be a factor in your favor. Fit guys really don't like down time...it plays with my head.

I'm on your side here, brother.

 

[Stumpshot]

Dang. Bad news from Europe and from Louisiana! Wishing you both well!

Yank those suckers - nothing to it.

Meanwhile, I went to a dentist this morning for 2 extractions, we wound up taking out 3. Lucky break, I'd say. That should put an end to my immediate tooth misery and let me sleep again. I'll probably be getting fitted for an upper partial denture soon. Meanwhile, the numbing's wearing off, so I'll likely have to take one of the pain pills they gave me and call it a night.

 

[MasterBlaster]

I never had a single problem with any extraction... I wouldn't even get the pain pills.

 

[Stumpshot]

Normally I wouldn't consider it either (only ever had 1 Vicodin and didn't care for the "fuzzy feeling" at all), but something tells me this is doing to be a bit worse -- even worse than getting my wisdom teeth out years ago. I've never felt as much pressure on my skull before -- very strongly attached suckers! One was a canine, with the longest of tooth roots. Almost hit my sinus cavity, plus it was impacted. Usually I have a very, very high pain threshold but we might be right there at the breaking point. Going to wait & see for sure, only take 1 if I need it to get some sleep tonight.

Yesterday was back up to full throttle, 4 jobs. 1). Pull an oak back from the house roof, drop a dead hackberry, grind the stump. 2). Drop a plum, then I wrecked down a medium willow in the back. Reduced a Bradford pear by 30% (I usually like full 100% reductions on those). Stump ground the 2 removals. 3). Drop-n-chip a Bradford Pear and stump grind. Executed in about 20 mins -- probably took longer to sell the job than to do the work! 4). Remove a slender pin oak growing between 2 houses. Left 2 x 10' logs for the homeowner, then stump ground it out of its raised bed.

 

[Jonny]

I'm real sorry to hear that, Stig.
Hoping for a good treatment that's as comfortable as possible.

 

[DMc]

Shit, Stig, more bad news. That sucks.

 

[flushcut]

It's getting too cold to work. Diesel engines are having a hard time starting. The mini skid has a 2 second delay on the directional controls.

Please son you don't even know what cold is! If it doesn't take you two hours just to get the gear started let alone running it's not cold.

No idea. Could have been a miniature wolverine for all I know, it certainly was vicious enough.



I went to the hospital for my Leukemia check-up today.

Bad news.

Well god damn Stig! Hoping for the best.

 

[treebilly]

I was gonna say the same thing. Does it even get “cold” in Tennessee? Butch is still running his AC and I’m barely running my furnace. You’re halfway between us. Actually closer to him. What’s the daytime high? 65*F?




Just hacking on ya! Cold sucks. Also cold is dependent on what you’re used to.

 

[SeanKroll]

Submitted 3 bids, got some resources organized for some people in need, just got a call about a failed tree in a driveway at the homeowners summer home on the water, 4 miles from my house...darn.
Drank coffee, ate a bit (too little), have to invoice a job when I get back.

Going to put a water pump in my employee's SUV, which will help his family out a lot. Found him a used phone donation, as his charger port went kaput.

 

[pigwot]

Today we finished two days on a line of nasty, mostly dead, osage orange trees. It was the original farmyard hedge trees behind the oldest house in our town. It's old by our standards, young by Stig's and you other Europeans' standards. The floorboards are 18 to 20 inch wide tulip poplar , some still with the green heartwood coloring.
Most were takedowns, and the wood went to a couple of us woodworkers; the other trees were just deadwooding. Almost all of them were over young white pines and a row of mature viburnum, so a 'lot' of lowering; glad to say we got it done with no damage to the rest of the landscaping.

 

[Stumpshot]

I was gonna say the same thing. Does it even get “cold” in Tennessee?

When I lived in middle TN near the Alabama line, we got a 25 year snowfall: 12" in less than 12 hours. Another winter, it was below freezing (20s) for a full month (30 days straight).

Today we finished two days on a line of nasty, mostly dead, osage orange trees. ...Most were takedowns, and the wood went to a couple of us woodworkers;

We just got done with a decent sized Osage job. We save all wood for firewood (great for burning) and the big logs for milling. It makes beautiful golden yellow flooring with very interesting grain. Probably be good for a slab countertop or slab wood tabletops, too.