Dusted off my biggin' this morning. Will be dimantling a worthy chestnut oak soonish. Boat dock has to come out and I gotta finish moving splits first. Gotta come up with a plan for the lower woodyard. Whole bunch of logs headed to an area that's prettymuch spoken for already. I can't box in my older splits as they will be the first out. Upper yard is becoming a little crowded as well, but a couple cord at least will be transfered to lower yard over the winter. I'm thinking this next batch of wood is going to put me 4 years ahead. Still up to 3 cord of 'sell wood' left and just bucked maybe a third cord designated for. Still trying to feel out the woodstand as far as knowing what to make for it each year.
Rained out yesterday. I did go for a little buggy ride and then straightened up in the tractor shed. Finished up the white oak Saturday. Estimate a solid cord & half of it. Log splitter did fine. No drips, seeps or drama. This is my inagural for this season. Had a few short ends. Went down to sit by the river in the afternoon. I dunno if I was blocking his route where I parked or if he was curious. This chipmunk observed me for a good ten minutes.
Finally broke down and ordered a new feeder. I've been looking at repairing the old one after it was knocked over and damaged. Need new legs, new outer funnel and motor mount for the old one. About $100 in parts and shipping I think. Had a birthday credit at TSC on top of an already good price. I'll still repair the old one, now I can take my time. Once I have them both going (same site), I shouldn't need to fill but every two weeks or so if I alternate between them. Gonna add a varmint cage to this new one to deter coons. If they persist, I will hook it to a solar powered electric fence box (I don't mind them eating but they will literally stay there for hours gorging themselves if allowed). I been using these feeders for nigh on 20 years now. I like them. On Time Elite. Will keep you from going to the poor house buying feed *and keep the deer coming every day.
This saw has had on/off flooded crankcase issues after sitting. I had previously replaced the needle spring with a more robust one, but unsure yet if problem persists. It took some looking, but I managed to find the OEM part # for a Solo 681 (sister saw frum anutha mutha) carb which is 2300862. Found some shop in France willing to ship international (i think? lol) and have one on the way for $58. Will update and advise later on this subject if I actually receive the carburetor. lol
New feeder arrived Friday night. Went to tractor Walmart to get some corn for it that evening. It's so nice to again have one that works and hasn't been frankensteined up like my old one is. It's getting fixed too in time, hopefully for the late winter feed time (less trips to fill for me). Before I got started on it saturday I went and grabbed some small sugar maple I'd tossed aside while doing drainage work with the excavator this summer. Got it all setup and programmed. Ran a test to see if the drop level was ok for the corn to get to the spin plate and all worked well. I left it and went to work on the beech tree mouse trap in the crick since I had some help with me. Failed to get pics but finally got it on the ground and drug a log up to the woodyard. Trail now open again. This is why I like to have someone with me on the spring loaded jobs. I only took a pic of the *first time I got hung. Happened one more time. My buddy enjoyed needing to cut me out second time. First time was 'fixed' by using a long branch for a lever. "Hey....Mr..... you didn't leave any corn last time you were here..." That's fixed now. There will be corn every day, twice a day. Local herd still looking good. Couple up and comers. First time I recall seeing three squirrels at once here. Bobcats must not be being too hard on em. Turkeys are settling into fall patterns. My buddy's 19 year old son has decided he would like to try gun hunting deer and asked me if he could come and hunt. His dad is the one who helps me sometimes so of course I am going to oblige (I like to encourage the youngsters anyways). We spent a couple hours scouting yesterday at the north tract. Found some good sign and located current travel routes. Picked a spot for a blind and one for a stand (morning/evening spots). I was having too much fun 'camoflaging' the blind after we set it. lol He's got a good chance to kill a nice deer up there and I hope he does. We'll set the stand maybe next weekend. We're a month out from season so still plenty of time to get him situated. He seemed willing to listen to my ramblings about food sources, funnels and bedding areas. Trying to learn him right instead of him relying on bait like they all do now. I have a salt lick up there by the water hole but have not done any feeding there for about 10 years so it's legitimate 'fair chase' hunting.
Mostly blew my day Saturday helping erect a couple of ladder stands. Getting mildly frustrated at my friend hijacking of his son's desire to deer hunt. He can't do anything unless he overdoes it. The piece of ground in question is (was) *ultra* low pressure. That has now changed as we can't just go hunt... we gotta buy multiple waiting aids and guns and cameras and mineral and all. lol SMH I hope the boy does good but he's now relying on luck because the entire area is compromised with human scent and activity. The deer who live there know an occasional visit from the well tender and once a year trail cleaning and bush hogging, normally. I might also once in a while go there to clear blowdowns. This is on purpose and those who know will understand. I did get the modified coon buster finished and mounted before the deer chasing escapade began. If this ain't enough, I'm adding electricity. No motivation for wood yesterday, so I sighted in a crossbow instead. Had this thing since last year just now starting to play with it. Cocking it is a bit of a faff, but beats having to pull 200lbs. Penetration seems healthy. All I can do to pull these bolts out. Made it to here at 20 yards and wrapped it up. I'm having a bit of self induced 'crisis' over where to move and place my made wood at the moment. Not that I don't have room, I just can't decide the best way to go with it. Sigh.
Zero firewood made this weekend. Bleh. At least got to shoot some guns. I can no longer effectively utilize the small rear peep on this rifle so I am improvising. Looks a bit out of place. Seems to work well. 3 hours of range time re-sighting a couple .357 rifles. The lever fought me on the red dot initially but by the end I was pleased. Very happy with the Ruger 77. Sighted specifically for a new fancy factory load and found it to put other varieties acceptably on target as well. One hot Underwood loading with a fancy bullet was showing a couple inches high compared to others. Noted. Broke out one of my 7.62 rifles so my buddy's boy could experience suppressed shooting. As usual, he's a fan. lol Buddy's boy is confident with his rifle that he sighted (.450 bush) and I am confident that if he is able to take a concentrated shot that he will kill, not wound. He had it on target within 5 shots and put about 25 total rounds down range. He also fired his Dad's gun several times and concluded that he prefers his shorter 16" barrel and brake to the 20" setup, recoil wise. Both are Ruger American variants in 450.
Got the Chestnut oak split and stacked Saturday. Left the Hickory for Sunday. Blew some leaves out of the woodyard yesterday. They were getting annoying plus they will hold moisture against the stacks. What I had after finishing the hickory. River view is lacking color but still pretty sometimes. Upcoming work. Mostly sellingwood for now. Thanks for the new feeder! The brow tines on this guy. lol
Anyone know if these YTL splitter tires have tubes in them or not? I got one that goes down over a week long period.
Ok they are tubeless. TSC has em complete for $65. I'm thinking mine will get some Slime in there since replacement includes wheel also. If I end up changing it, I'll send the messy wheel to the landfill.
It shouldn’t be too hard to find a tube for that tire. On those smaller tires with stamped sheet metal rims I think a tube adds an extra layer of protection. Some of the factory tires can be pretty thin on some splitters, because in reality they’re not very heavily loaded. But Slime works too, as long as it gets distributed well after it’s inserted.
Ya, I'll take it for a ride after squirting it in there. Have used successfully in the past on a couple things. This green stuff is different from what we used in the quad tires growing up. You'd have to go to a shop and they would put in some pink slimy stuff. Later removing same tire you would find a taffy like substance that was fairly easy to peel off in a big chunk. Dunno what it was called but it worked well and the aftermath wasn't bad at all to deal with.
I've destroyed more than my share of tubes over the years. Needed a new wheelbarrow a few years ago and found one with a "flat free tire". The old wheelbarrow had a tube tire. Would hold air until I needed it again and then flat... Bought a flat free tire for the old one and now it's getting a second life.
I ha I had dirt bikes as a kid as well. I got real good at patching tubes. Of course I usually had to patch the holes I made while fixing the original hole. Some of my tubes were epic looking. Usually had to buy new ones every year as they just got so tore up. I found using the butt end of a crescent wrench worked really well to get the tire back on the rim.
I've had the same issues over the years with the tires on my Troy-Bilt splitter. For whatever reason, it seemed like they were always losing air. Finally replaced one of them (tire and rim) around 2018. When I bought the new tire/rim, it came in a 2-pack so I put the second one in storage. Glad I had it because when I started splitting again this fall, the other old tire on the splitter was completely flat and coming off the rim. Did a quick swap and good to go now. Old tires were just thin, cheap ones so they had a lot of dry rot. Did the same thing early this year on an old wheelbarrow and liked the flat free tire so much I got a set for my hand truck. They work great and no more worrying about those pesky slow leaks.
The tire in question has some cracking. Hoping slime can fill the voids for a while longer. I never road tow it so no worries there.
