What's under your lip/in your nose right now? - Part 2

[hittman]

With all the snow this year it made it hard to clean up the yard. I had plenty of that canine fertilizer myself. I think it weighed more than the dog. I got my weed preventer and renovator for the lawn but am going to wait until tomorrow to put it down since it's supposed to rain Thursday and Friday. I'm trying to put off running the sprinklers as long as possible. Since the water dept has hiked prices the last few years to pay for repairs that should have been done a long time ago, our water bill has become pretty brutal in the summer months.

 

[The Rebel]

Yeah Hitt, I do the Scott's system. I need to put down the crabgrass preventer first or else I'll have a lime green lawn by August. I'll get that out this weekend after I clear out the fall leafs I missed. Then I'll put the next step down in late May to take care of any dandylions and other weeds. Put the mower battery on the charger overnight on Saturday and got nothing Sunday, not even a click. So that'll have to replaced as well. Always something around the house that costs me money.

 

[hittman]

You've got that right about something always costing money. My neighbor and I next door use a local place called the Grass Pad for all of our lawn chemicals. They have people working there that actually know their business and can make suggestions on what to use and how to solve issues. Right now my biggest expense is the kids. My oldest will graduate college in May so I'll get a short break from paying her rent but the youngest graduates high school in May also and will start college in August. We have some saved for her but no where near enough. I've got a feeling that she's going to end up with a fair amount of student loans.

 

[rothenbj]

I've been in permanent round creation since spending the time to cut up the large tree. We had a storm that dropped one across by drive in four pieces. I thought it would be worthless but it turned out pretty solid and cut it into rounds to be split. It was only about a foot in diameter so fairly easy to deal with. Then there was similar one that I had dropped last fall.

The bigger issue is my neighbor. He had 5 or 6 dropped that we're going to share the wood. He had one that was approaching the three foot in diameter range but not as tall, maybe 40 foot. I know it was close enough to his place that it might have hit his house which is a mobile home upgraded to look like a modular.

He's away right now so I cut up the first one at his drive and started on a second until I ran out of gas and need to sharpen chains. The last few futs I was burning fuel getting through a 2 footer.

Glad I don't give a crap about lawn. lol

 

[The Rebel]

I hear ya Hitt when it comes to kids. Had to pay driver's training for my oldest, then dues for his club soccer. Then we had to renew the wife's RN license, then the youngest needed his club soccer paid for and the last kick in the March budget, HOA dues. Gonna have to pick up an Uber job on the weekends pretty soon or check out that black market organ donor thing. I got two decent kidneys, only need one...

 

[hittman]

I just paid my HOA dues also. The oldest has a senior showcase trip to LA later this month and we have already paid application fee and room deposit for the youngest. It's always something. My wife has two specialist visits coming up this coming month and also needs two crowns. We have a dental discount plan but no real dental insurance.

 

[firechick]

I've been working the regular 40 at the factory, and 4 nights a week at the other gig and it's been a crazy heavy maple season. I am exausted and I am definitely not ready to start on any yard work yet. We found a lot of dog presents when the snow melted too but she has a 20 x 40 fenced area for doing that in so cleanup is just raking that whole area out and replacing the pine shavings.

Roth, do you hire out as a wood cutter? I already ran out of the wood I had split for the evaporator. The yard is a mud pit this time of year so the splitter is still in the barn. I've been doing it as needed with an old double bit axe. I'd gladly pay you to take that chore off my hands.

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[rothenbj]

FC, this is the first I hear that you also were into maple syrup making. That's pretty cool. How much wood do you go thru?

I put a big dent in the neighbor's logs. We still have the big 3 foot wide one but he'll have to help on that one. I'm pretty good on cutting stuff up but not so good at sharpening my chains. lol I'm learning though, the hard way.

I've always been taking my chains to the shop and having them sharpen them. Then last year I saw HF had a machine that had good reviews so I bought one, read the directions and off I went. I had some old ones and newer ones and ran them all through the machine as they got dull. Used them and they worked like butter. Nice shavings and all was good.

When I started working on the 30" tree I noticed that I was getting saw dust instead of shavings so I changed chains. Started out fine but soon it was a battle. Worked through the chains I had and found one I hadn't used in a while had some rusted links and one that was at the end of life so I really only had three to work with.

Sharpened them up and this time all I had was sawdust. Now I know about shaving the depth gauge. I probably should have read up a little more before I became an "expert".

AND, speaking of expert, I finally was forced to figure out why my Husky sits in the shed while I always use my Echo Chainsaw. I bought the Husky when my older one stopped running in the middle of a project. It had the new "combo switch" as opposed to the two piece switch that I was used to. You know, pull the choke out, crank a couple times, choke half way and your live. I read the instruction but I couldn't get the hang of it. It was a hit or miss on getting it started. I saw videos but no luck.

Well, the old one came back and I immediately gave up on the new one. I was a happy camper but feared not having a dependable backup. A tree had gone down a couple years ago and in the middle of working on it, my nearly 20 year old saw stopped running. I loaded it up in the truck as well as the "new" two year old Husky and went to the shop.

I gave them the old one to look at and told them of my frustration with the new one. Now it's a fancy 545 that has the electronics tracking info on usage. The quickly found out a used it almost never. lol The guy showed me how to start it. I returned confident and returned to my ineptitude.

I found out that the old Husky wasn't worth fixing soon thereafter and sheepishly admitted my failure with the new one. I still needed a second saw so he sold me my Echo and told me he'd take my Husky in on a trade. I said I'd think about it.

I started using the Echo, never needed the "backup", better saw and I was a happy camper until this chain issue. The only sharp chain I had was the one on the Husky that still sat in the box after my earlier visit.

After considering on taking the chain off I said NO, I'm going to start that machine. Looked up a video again, went out and same deal, no start, frustration. Got back on my computer and found a new one done by Tractor Supply. Sitting the two types side by side and comparing the process. Bingo! My brain finally understood it. Who said you can't teach an old dog new tricks.

 

[hittman]

Roth, you will be an expert by the time you're done. Your expert story reminds me of a phrase I hear quite often from welders that come in with issues and blame the machine. It's " I've been doing it like that for (X) years. It always worked before."

 

[rothenbj]

The one thing I've always been willing to admit is my lack of knowledge when I strive beyond my abilities. I don't mind talking about it either as I'm sure that it will at least get someone to think of admitting their own limitations.

I've proven to have mastered starting that Husky 545. Now I all I need to do is get it restarted after in runs out of fuel. It's kind of nice to have to give up after a full run of the tank, particularly when your back is denying your right to bend after days of repeating the action. However, there are times that one tank is just not enough. lol

I did find a couple others on the net, one from last year with the same machine, that had the same issue. Unfortunately the thread ended before a resolution but I did get a few ideas. We'll see.

 

[firechick]

We will use about 5 cord this year. We tapped about 20 trees on a steep slope at my mom's house and ran them on tubing to a couple barrels next to the driveway. Pull the truck up, drop the hose in and hit the switch on the 12v pump. Much easier than buckets.

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[firechick]

We have a tube set on the slope behind the house to a barrel and buckets closer to the house. Hubby made me a small portable 12v pump with a battery in an ammo can that I haul around with buckets in a sled or wagon and pump out the closer barrels. It's a huge amount of work but there is nothing like fresh, real syrup. I like to make sugar cookies with it too.

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[rothenbj]

Wow, that's a lot of wood! I burn probably six chords in my fireplace 24 x 7 basically. I just am thankful for the pallet companies close to my place. I can get three chords for around $200 that is mostly hardwood with a lot of 4 x 6 cutoffs that run 12" to 18" in length. It's a lot of work to stack but a lot easier than chasing down trees to cut up. Although I can find a lot of free wood looking for it, when you can only move maybe a half chord at a time, the cost of gas and wear and tear on the vehicle and chainsaw is probably as expensive if not more.

Do you make any maple syrup also? I used to love pure maple syrup but as I've gotten older it's all maple syrup light for me.

 

[The Rebel]

FC, me and a couple of the guys in the subdivision took up maple syrup a few years ago. Fun, rewarding process but it can be a lot of work boiling all that sap down. We're no large outfit but we managed to boil out about 6 gallons of pure maple syrup last year as it was a bumper crop on sap. Scaled it back a bit this year as we all still had leftovers. Since we only do a small amount and only for personal use we use the three burner propane camp stoves with some custom pans my friend made at work to boil down the sap. I use it in a lot of stuff besides pancakes, like when I'm smoking pork or in cakes and brownies.

 

[firechick]

A sap evaporator is run a lot hotter than a fireplace or wood stove. It eats a LOT of wood for 12 hours straight to keep 3" of sap at a rolling boil constantly.

We did hotel pans on cinder blocks when we started. I've been running on a homebuilt barrel and a half set up with a 2×3 pan to this point. We bought a Smoky Lake Starcat this year that will be set up at the end of this season for next year. It's smaller but far more efficient than what we have.

The bigger reverse osmosis system got it's first run last night. We concentrated 50 gallons of 2% sugar sap into 25 gallons of 4% in just under 3 hours. That cuts boiling time in half which will save wood too.

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[stols001]

All this talk is making me think of Fargo. I am so glad I do not cut wood, I have never cut wood, I see a Very High probability of my losing a foot. Also, wood burning whatevers are like, so lovely... In theory.

I mean, you have to feed it and nurture it worse than a kid. And if you fail to feed the wood stove enough, YOU die (if it's deep winter.) If you fail to feed the kid, IT dies, not you. I'm not saying that is better.

I am just saying.

Anna

 

[rothenbj]

LOL, burning firewood creates double energy. First, the energy it takes to prepare it to become firewood whether it be just stacking it or going to the extent of felling, turning it into rounds, splitting and stacking. Then comes the daily chore of un-stacking on a daily basis from outside to re-stacking in the house and then the maintaining while it's burning. No one's going to freeze as there's always the oil burner backup if the fire goes out. However if all you have is the oil, electric or gas burner and you run out or lose electricity, you may end up cold for quite a while until you can get it up and running again.

Yeah, it's a lot of work but when it's the only real exercise you get during the day, it's not so bad. Also, when you live in the woods there is always a lot of that same work required on a regular basis. The 60 foot tree I cut up a couple weeks ago is probably a month to two months of free energy next winter and, had I not gotten the electric company out to take it down, it would have eventually taken the electric out.

You are right about one thing, it's a dangerous hobby and you better know what you're doing or you're gonna get hurt.

 

[rothenbj]

I'm really getting tired of this. My buddy in NJ where I own his 36 foot sailboat is not in good shape. I got an email this morning from his daughter stating, "He is currently in the ICU and intubated because they could not stabilize his BP or O2 levels. He has bronchial pneumonia and it’s taking its toll."

He was diagnosed with liver and kidney failure last year and seemed to be doing okay, or at least that's what he's been telling me. He was supposed to go to the boat and get some information for me a couple weeks ago and he sounded fine. However when he didn't get back to me in response to calls or texts, I reached out to his wife and found he wasn't doing well.

He's only around 60 and I'm really afraid of how this is going. His daughter lost her mother, his ex, two years ago. None of us need this happening. Gawd life sucks at times.

 

[hittman]

It does suck sometimes Roth and you've dealt with more than your fair share of sickness and death. I hope your friend makes a recovery. After watching my wife get breast cancer at 36, not much surprises me any more when it comes to illness. When she was diagnosed all those years ago I thought this can't be cancer. She's too young. Nope.

 

[rothenbj]

I hear you Hitt, the same with the guy that died at 38 after being diagnosed with brain cancer at 35. I really sense this is bad. His daughter sounds pretty dire. I asked how she was doing and got, "I’m alright I guess. For now." That has made this real scary. I'm running out of close friends and family.