Cutting/loading/splitting/stacking wood on our little farm fall of 2018

Surprise, surprise, been home from school for a couple of days. So, finally got my pictures downloaded and named so I could post some of them here. This will allow you to see parts of my operation. I will try to gather them into some semblance of order and make an explanation of what is happening. These happened late Nov and all of Dec 2018.

Here is the second bundle of slab wood I buy from a local sawmill, $25.00 a bundle, loaded on the trailer. Oak. Debarked, clean. They produce oak flooring from log to floor, kiln dried using OWBoilers to heat the kilns. I generally cut them into four pieces then cut the banding while on the trailer. This year I needed the trailer the next day for another job so pushed them off of the trailer with the tractor and loader.




With the bundles pushed off of the trailer, I cut the bundles (some of the strapping broke when they were pushed off of the trailer). Messier job than cutting on the trailer, but it worked out. Had the oldest daughter's 4 children for a few days after Christmas and the youngest daughter's daughter so with kids, cool weather, a little work, then in the house warm, they will snooze!!!! Youngest is 4, oldest is 11. Here I made cuts for length and an old manure spreader with beaters cut off, makes a nice trailer. Low to load and easy to tarp. I use slabwood mainly in the summer for my hot water, but like a tarped load just for fire starters. They started with an empty trailer, pulled long ones out for cutting. They are not afraid to help.



Will add more pictures hopefully tomorrow. Hope you enjoy!

 

Nice herding job, Grandpa! I like those oak slabs, too, I bet they are ready to burn pretty quick.

 

25$ for that bundle is a deal!! Nice clean wood to work with

 

This is CJ, my oldest grandchild. Background you can see Mrs. JW. The black Dodge is being used on the farm off of the road as I repaired the frame under the second doors. Now it is rusting through at the front spring shackles. I might get to it this coming summer and try to repair or replace the back half of the frame. If I do, you will see it. CJ saw that I was sawing this large oak log and asked how I was going to split it. So we got the wedges and sledge out and he went to town on this round. I started the wedges for him and man he split the whole thing before he quit. CJ spends a couple weekends at our farm as his dairy beef steers are here so he walks and works with them as well as helping doing chores.




Okay, I have veered off track a little, we are proud of CJ. Here he is showing his large dairy beef steer, Smoke, CJ is in the blue shirt. The judge and ring steward (lady smiling) were enamored with CJ.



Besides a bucket calf and feeder steer, he shows pigs and rabbits as well as wood project. CJ was born on the 4th of July so he has become very aware of Americana. This year's project was a napkin holder, we built a ledge for salt and pepper shakers and then found at a store these telescoping flags for .99 each. He drilled the holes and added the flags. Here he is with a reserve division award and he placed second at state fair with it.



Okay, will try to stay on track and get back with wood pictures.

 

Enjoyed the side trip. If a few got slipped in accidentally I don't think anyone would mine.

 

Nice clean stuff. That is a hard-bitten looking crew you have there!

 

Take as many detours as you want JWinIndiana as long as you include the pics

 

Since I have failed to introduce myself in the proper format, I teach Welding, Woodturning, Engines and Intro to Agriculture at our local HS. Oh, and I have a "company vehicle" (I drive a dedicated bus route am and pm). We have a day every other month that the teachers come in and have the first two hours for collaboration time. On those days I don't drive my bus as I am in meetings when I should be on my route. Soooooooo, just happenstance, coming home from school in my pickup I see this wonderful load of logs/big limbs. I am envious! Well it pulls into a driveway ahead of me so I follow. They turn and back up to unload and so they see me and we meet between the two trucks. I ask how much a load like they had costs. Nothing they reply. I said, "how can I get in on this deal?" They have a beautiful fleet of trucks and he said, "as long as I have a clean place to drop the load, I have probably two more loads today and we are done up here for the year". Yep, no problem, clean and easy place. A couple of hours later, here they are, then another hour later a second load. The picture below shows the first load on the left, second load in the middle.

So this picture is looking North/ NorthEast into our front hayfield. That is a neighbor's house across the road in the picture.



The next day they drop a third load which is in this picture on the far right. Now you are looking East, to the far right our drive cuts the front fields in half so there are horses and cattle in that pasture. I have two sets of old steel wheeled manure spreaders minus the spreader parts hooked together as tandem wagons. Bought the old spreaders here and there, never more than $50.00 each, bottom are rusted out, have steel doors laid down as floors.




So there you have seen the NE corner of our farm.

 

Fortune smiled upon you that day! If I asked "how much a load like they had costs?" around here, the answer would be "$900".

 

In this photo, we are behind the house, you can see my two sheds (aka: mint tubs) and then the stove on the far right. Bought this load and two more like it for $240.00. Two and a half loads filled one shed. If you look beside the bus, the pole is our security light, the next pole you see behind the payloader is my parent's transformer for their retirement home that they built on our farm so we can help them stay in their home as long as possible.




I am cleaning up my wood lot (you will see that in later photos) so as I get some "junk/punky" wood I load it and use it when it isn't as cold. Here is such a bucket at the stove. I don't waste my time stacking it in the shed, I just load what the stove will hold, drop the rest for the next time the stove needs tending. Since we are feeding livestock, the stove gets tended twice a day just like the stock. You can see the back of the house. The short peak rising above the house roofline is the addition my daughter's and I added onto our house back when they were in middle school. The barrels are where I put my hot ashes, they stay there until I fill the second one. Then I take the first out to dump and by keeping up that rotation, my ashes are cold when I dump and safe when I clean out the stove.




Sorry, they got out of order somehow. This is what a close up of that first load looks like stacked in the shed. The roof angles to the back so more wood fits in the shed the closer you get to the front of the shed, the more wood fits in. Mint tubs are metal, I slid these into place, lifted them up and set them on cement blocks then with a torch I cut the floor out. Left the metal floor on the ground but air circulates from under all sides this way and the wood is not stacked on the dirt.

 

I love your mint tubs! Are they called mint tubs because they are mint colored, or were they used to hold mint? Anyway they look perfect for firewood, I bet they are like ovens in the sun.

 

In response to Midwinter's question, here is my response.


Our area/county is a very large mint (spearmint and peppermint) producing region. The tubs are pulled behind choppers and the chopped mint is blown into the tub as shown in the provided picture (a photo I took off of the internet) . Then the mint tub is pulled to a still and the hole you see at the top front a door is put in place. Then the piping is put in place and hot water is piped into the tub and the mint is cooked and the oil then travels with the hot water, goes through the still and separated. I bought the old tubs because they were starting to leak (not a good thing). I have some rough cut lumber stacked in three tubs, a couple for animal sheds, and these two beside the OWB. A typical winter I fill them two times at least when I was buying wood due to health issues.

 

Remember the pictures of the 3 free loads of wood? Well looking at this photo if you could see over the left front corner of the black Dodge you would see that pile. The white rock at an angle going behind the pile is the turn to my parent's retirement home. If you remember the past photo of the mint tubs and OWB well that photo was on the South side of the house looking North. Now we are on the North side of the house looking East. Years back I had a deal with a tree trimmer that he traded wood for pork and beef from our farm. Well it got to where he only dropped laaaaaaaaarge rounds. Then I had an aneurysm in my arm pit that burst. I ended up with my right arm only having a pulse if I held it down by my ankle. So, double bypass surgery on my right arm. Problem, still no pulse. Ended up back in surgery and got a new artery (via a vein from my left leg) from wrist to arm pit. I am right handed and since my suture sites are where a long gun would kick your shoulder and a handgun would flip your wrist, I have to shoot with my off hand now. Anyway, the first couple of years when my hand/arm would get tired it would droop. Just quit working with any strength or ability at all. So my team of ponies have had a few years off. This year has been my best year since my surgery. So some of these rounds have been here piled with my payloader for 4 years. Some are still in great shape, the pile is punky junky junk wood. The red trailer is actually a dump trailer. It has a hand pump on it, but it has decided to quit working. I am going to put a boom with a 12 volt winch and get it back to dumping.




This is a shot of the North end of the addition the girls and I built. Two story, three bedrooms and a great room upstairs. Sliding patio door is nice for loading and unloading large items, just have never finished the deck I planned on having there. When I made the bargain for the free loads, I let them drop in the West end of the hayfield. But that can't happen this summer so am cleaning up all the old woodlot. Bad wood burnt or put out near the pond for campfires, or piled to rot down naturally. Anyway, this will be cleared and made into a parking area for my trailers as well as an unloading area hopefully for wood dropped off this coming summer from the guys I talked with this past fall.


More photos tomorrow if I don't have school, otherwise Saturday cause it is supposed to be raining.

 

Sorry to hear about your aneurysm, multiple surgeries, and all that time it took to recover. But glad that you're feeling stronger and ready to start hoarding again! I hope some of those big 4 year old rounds turn out to be decent. And you have a lovely farm! Take some pictures in the spring, when it all greens up.

 

Here is a shot when we were cutting and loading into the steel wheeled wagons. I am here before the kids got here, I like to cut ahead so a lot is laying when the grands first get here and are rearing to go!





Jon Boy, kindergarten, those log handlers are loved by the grands. I had to purchase more so there weren't issues when all wanted to help. So have 3 pairs of them now. It is fun for them to act like a crane and lift pieces of wood with them.




These are the original flat free tires!!!!!




For this day, this was the crew outside. From left to right, Ashleigh (Ash) 2nd grader, my youngest daughter Tess, Jon Boy, Josh (SIL married to oldest daughter) and of course CJ! The kids all belong to Josh and oldest daughter Fina (rhymes with china). Tess' husband works nights and was sleeping, their daughter and the rest were inside making dinner for us. Oh and the dog is Lilly, she belongs to Tess, our farm dog has gotten grouchy and doesn't play well with the daughters dogs so she has to be in her kennel when the others visit.



Somedays you wonder why. Why not just buy LP or fuel oil or natural gas. Then because I upgraded to a good phone, I am learning to take pictures of things as they happen and can look back and appreciate the fun and work put out by all.

 

Great pics, JW!
And beautiful farm

 

You have some really cool stuff, I love the wagons! Your grandkids are getting lesson in the old ways, for sure!