so waht ya doin today?

[Bret4207]

I used to sell firewood with some of my friends for beer money back in the day. I can attest that it is possible to get a full 4x4x8 cord of firewood on an early 70's F250 if you have a good set of racks. You will also go through a lot of brakes and tires doing it!

Foxfire. I think we had all of them. I read pretty much everything like that back in the 70's and 80's. Good stuff. There are some pretty good You Tube interviews/documentaries along the lines of Foxfire. This is one of my favorites I originally found on YT, although it's a lot more mechanical than hand tools- http://www.folkstreams.net/film-detail.php?id=187

 

[CZ93X62]

I didn't make a whole lot of money for the first 8-10 years in LE, so I had all sorts of side-hustles working to put gold in my pockets. Turning wrenches 3 days a week (on days off) made more money than pushing a Holstein 4 days a week until 1981 (when we went on strike for 8 days)--I made a TON of money during that job action).

I hunted fur since the early 70s, usually with a guy that had a broker in Beverly Hills that wouldn't hose us as badly as most of the West Coast "desert wolf" pelt purloiners did. The "Fur Is Dead" humaniacs largely killed that market by the 1990s, and it is just now starting to recover locally. A loose group I hunted and shot with in Ridgecrest still sold their pelts--I didn't need the money, I let them have my part of the take. I just enjoyed the company, the shooting, and the skinning. I was born about 150 years late.

I did a LOT of woodcutting, from my mid-teens into my late 40s. I was a faller, and studied at the feet of masters as a youth to learn the craft the right way. Jiggs Alexander--wherever you are now--I treasure the knowledge you instilled in me to this day. A good man. We always cut our wood at 16" lengths--it fit just about everyone's fireplaces or stoves, and 3-across stacking made easily-sold cords or 1/2 cords. As Jiggs said--"It is A LOT easier to sell a high-priced "fat cord" than a bargain-priced "skinny cord". Eucy, D-fir, and citrus (usually orangewood) were most of what we sold or gathered for ourselves. Orange can be a PITA to get started, but once underway the heat and duration is SUPERB.

 

[RBHarter]

US Department of weights and measures defines the cord as 128 cuft so stacked that a rat can run through but a cat can't follow . There is no mention of Rick's . The Rik seems to be generally accepted to be 4×8 by cut length , you get a quarter for 12" stove wood , 1/3 for 16" , 1/2 for 24 and a full if you want it 4' long . I'm told it is an old standard based on the number of cuts vs the volume of the wood .

Yeah I delivered a little fire wood about 5 summers , we cut over 200 cord one season and had 125 of it split and stacked to deliver at the close of Labor Day Weekend .

 

[Intheshop]

Worked way too hard today.

Had a 3 egg,crab omelet and potato pancakes for breakfast..... got catfish for dinner. Then,pass out in front of the fireplace.

 

[Rally]

I have an outdoor boiler with a firebox over four feet long, sand bottom, low front blower, and high rear blower (Heatmore brand). Good stove and piped into house and shop(radiant baseboard radiators, no blowers). I burn about 14-16 chord a year. I get it hauled in (100" lengths)and placed by my woodshed for $110.00 per chord for Red Oak and $90.00 chord for Tamarack. I bought a used log splitter this last summer and just think it is a pain. I cut my wood at 25" and split all of the large stuff with a maul faster than I can fire up the splitter and handle it again. I cut & split 16" for the wife and stack it next to the stove, so when I go pheasant hunting, it is easier for her to fire the stove, or my buddy who fills it if the wife goes with me. Tamarack makes a nice fast hot fire, or a good starter wood in the morning. Burn more oak than anything, but Ash and Maple work also. The guy I buy it from uses a processor/de-limber, that knocks a lot of the bark off the Oak, and has been on the landing for 9-12 months, so I can burn it the same year I get it. In my experience, and the current price of trucks, it's a good investment. Maybe when I get older I'll appreciate the splitter but for now it just seems to take longer and I have to handle the wood once more. Sure miss having a teenage son around though!

 

[Bret4207]

I've burnt a lot of Red Oak. Real easy splitting stuff for the most part and makes a nice fire. Ironwood (Hop Hornbeam) is about the best firewood you can get up here, but there's not a lot of it.

Supposed to warm up here for a couple days, cool back down then most of next week is supposed to be "seasonably" warm, eg- in the high 30's. I can live with that.

 

[wquiles]

I spent this weekend in Arkansas, at the Petit Jean State Park with our Boy Scout Troop. I little chilly when we arrived Friday night:



Saturday morning at about 7am or so:













I will post a few more pictures soon

 

[wquiles]

Then a couple of pictures for our hike on Saturday:




Flag retirement ceremony Sat night:



and then the amazing sunrise on Sunday before driving back home to Texas:







There was a couple waiting for the sunrise (arrived before us), and I thought this would make a nice "Kodak moment":

 

[Gary]

Beautiful scenery and I venture to guess you all had a very inspiring/renewing experience.

 

[Intheshop]

Very nice..... bet y'all a blast.

Some of those pics would make nice Christmas presents. Print them 3X5,modest frame, and give them to Gparents.

 

[Rick]

If Arkansas has anything it's some beautiful country. Lucky Boy Scout Troop to have such dedicated leaders. Thank you for all you do for our youth,

 

[JonB]

SNIP...

The other thing that's "standard" is an 8' fleetside pickup box piled to the rails and mounded just a little in the middle being called a "cord". Sorry, go fish. After stacking that barely makes a half-cord.

Since we are all talkin about sell'n/buy'n split seasoned firewood. When I had a location (wood lot) to store/season split firewood (for free), I would sell it. I have always cut firewood to 16" <typical> lengths, stacked 4 feet high in long runs, to season at the wood lot. If the customer wanted to haul his own, We'd meet at the wood lot, and I'd just measure off 24 feet of the 4 foot high run and tell them the price per cord...and that 24 feet was a cord. Most were surprised that one cord usually required two trips with one pickup...sometimes 3 trips if they have some fancy extended cab with mini box, LOL.

If I delivered, I'd usually charge by the pickup load. Like Ian says, A loosedly mounded "pile" in a full size truck is about 1/2 cord and that is how I would deliver it. Most people thought they were getting a full cord...I'd only try to explain it, if they were someone I knew...and most of them wouldn't believe me anyway.

Lastly,
Most of the wood I sold, was through a consignment auction. Sometimes I'd get $100 per pile and sometimes I might get $20, depends on the time of year and how many other people brought firewood to this auction house. Mostly, I got an average price of about $50 per pile. I always brought a mix of soft wood and hard wood and mostly the strangely shaped pieces that wouldn't stack...and this wood was NEVER seasoned...I'd just load it as I was splitting it, then haul to the Auction house. Once at the auction house, I'd always split a pickup load into two piles...so a pile was about 1/4 cord.

 

[popper]

You at Petit Jean or Baily lake? Years since I been there, it was pretty dry that time and the 'falls' was a trickle. May go with kids to Jasper area next week.

 

[JonB]

Yesterday, I decided to sort and package Primers while I listened to the radio. I needed some sort of inside project that'd keep me away from the TV...but this isn't about that.

ANYWAY, a couple years ago, I acquired 4 large pill bottles of unused bulk packed Primers.
I knew that style of storage is a recipe for disaster, and have been meaning to repack them into Winchester packaging that I had previously saved. There were a few thousand primers, so I hadn't felt like spending that kind of time on a project like this, until yesterday.

I also spent the time to inspect them and sort out any that may be of different manufacture. I also compared them to others I have in my stash, to see if the anvil style and glue/sealer color matched anything, so I could have an idea of what they were, since the pill bottles only labeling was in black marker "lg pistol" "sm pistol" "lg Rifle" "sm Rifle".

It took several hours...but I got 'em sorted, packed and labeled (3 and a half bricks).

The Large Rifle primers were that only bottle with mixed manufacturers...and that was luckily only 9 out of 300+
total, that were different than the majority. All the pistol primers were Winchesters (WSP/WLP). The small rifle primers were CCI 400 and I have no idea what the majority of the Large rifle were?

 

[Bret4207]

Parts for that head I referenced a couple weeks back came in the other day. Girl kid was home sick from school, so we trudged the 45 miles to the machine shop. While there I found out another valve seat was loose as a goose too. Best guess by the "egg-spurts" there is that during a previous valve job someone tried to use undersized seats or tried to reuse these seats that were already a loose fit. Weird IMO as I've never even seen a seat come loose in a larger type gas engine. Small engines likes Briggs or maybe a larger engine with worn out seats, but never anything like this. The valve train set was almost $300. and the machining bill will add up too. I probably just should have ordered a rebuilt head with a warranty ($500+), but too late for that!

Earlier in the day while she was sleeping off whatever 24hr bug she got, I finally fixed my old Century space heater (salamander/torpedo heater), maybe for good this time. Had to replace the vanes in the pump a couple years back and it's not worked real good since. Tore into it again and I think maybe I got it this time. I think I had the vanes in wrong. I hope I did anyway. Also tried to ID our family snowblower which came trough my son from an ex-girlfirends grandfather. Yup, it's a Yardman. Yup, it's made by MTD. That's about as far as I can get. Needed a friction drive disc. Finally just gave up and ordered just the rubber "tire" that sits in the disc. At least that part fits the 27 different 4.9" discs. I just can't figure which disc is the right one. Heck with it, I hate snow anyway!

 

[Intheshop]

Easy day today,resting a bit from yesterday.

Painted porch parts in shop which is a steady 68*,50% humidity. Then went down in woods with the hotrod tractor and hooked up to some nice red oak , that had dropped dead back awhile. Drug it up the porch,then cut N stacked. Not quite 1/2 a pu load but,the effort is pretty durn easy.

I've already acclimated to the chilly weather. Just have to eat well,dress in layers.....and go have fun outside. Didn't get any shooting done today but,got a box of 175g, '06's to load up.

 

[Intheshop]

Still outside,enjoying the weather. Big arse rock(second riser) was one of the things that got me looking for the nitro yesterday. Shooting red oak chips today with chainsaw makes for a very nice entrance. Coco loves it.

 

[L Ross]

So I planned on working on deer stands, but........something else came up.

 

[Ian]

Good eating there!

 

[CZ93X62]

Panfish on ultralight tackle is pure unadulterated FUN.