A Couch Is Not A Holster!

 Your firearms need to be under your control at all times. When you have company come, do not leave guns loose in the house where an unauthorized person may come in contact with them. These little safes are inexpensive and can be staged conveniently in your home. If a gun is out of your primary safe, it should be on your body or in a staging safe for safety's sake. 

How Does A Barberchair Happen?

 Here is a great example of a barberchair, and the guys cutting this tree had no idea it was coming. There are a couple of factors that contributed. The opening in front of the hinge was too narrow. The opening should allow the tree to rotate downward on the hinge nearly to the ground. When the butt of the log hits the stump, the tree will stop motion, rip the hinge apart, or the log will split lengthwise, making a barberchair. You will often see long fibers on big stumps, and that is caused by the narrow opening. The other problem was that the loggers were aggressively pounding wedges in the back cut while the hinge wood was too thick. They may have started the lengthwise crack, but the tree started over with a hinge that was much too thick, and then the opening closed. 

Make your face in front of the hinge at 70 to 90 degrees, make your hinge the right thickness before cutting the backstrap, use wedges to stabilize the tree, and then to tip it over. Know your escape routes if your plan falls apart. 

Epic Tree Fails #32

Garth, over in the Netherlands is putting together some great compilations of tree cutting mistakes and accidents.  There are always ladders, often kickbacks, and some barberchairs.  If you are cutting trees, take a class and learn the techniques you need to avoid barberchairs, and always escape from the stump when the tree goes into motion.  As you come up on the 4 minute mark you will see a man create a barberchair that gets really tall, and he stands still, evidently not understanding what he has created.  It is a fatal pair of mistakes. 

Why Learn New Chainsaw Techniques?

We get a lot of comments on YouTube about chainsaw techniques that tell us many people do not make a plan for each tree they cut, and many do not know how to set up a hinge, evaluate weight and lean of a tree, or recognize the hazards that a tree presents. Injuries from chainsaws and trees can affect you the rest of your life, and getting killed lasts forever.  Find a chainsaw class and learn how to use your equipment safely and efficiently. Contact your University Extension office, or your local Department of Natural Resources forester to find instruction.

Maintenance Reminder!

Guns should be cleaned and lubed after use, especially before being stored away so they don't rust.  Your carry guns should be cleaned and lubed regularly so they are always ready to run.

Oil creeps away from the surfaces that need to move, and lint will pull the oil off.  Pocket carry should be considered as extreme service because of lint and dirt exposure.

Ignore your gun for too long and pocket dirt may prevent proper functioning.

You need only a few minutes to break down, clean, and lube most guns.  Do it at least once a month. 

Take note of of your carry ammo, too.  You need to run your gun occasionally, use up that ammo you bought five years ago and stoke up with factory fresh.

Tree Falling Steps: The Importance Of Hinge Thickness And Placement

Here is an interesting chainsaw video to watch.  Anyone who has been through Game Of Logging training does things differently.  Loggers say that we only know one cut, and that isn't quite true, but we do some things consistently.  Once you have had good training on cutting trees you will make the cuts on the front and back of the hinge at the same height.  That eliminates twisting and shearing of the hinge wood.  We also watch carefully just how thick the hinge is.  If the hinge is too thick you are asking for a barberchair, with loss of control of the tree and possible damage and injury. 

I don't know why the faller is using a jack on this tree; it's not that big, and wedges would have sufficed. The extra power of the jack was part of the problem, but the high back cut combined with the thickness of the hinge were the real causes of this accident.  If you haven't had training, get it!  Learn to bore cut and to set up a tree so it goes when and where you want it.

Don't Just Stand There!

Step back, escape the area around your stump.  Watching the tree go will eventually cause you to be hit.  I had cut several snags and was tired when I did this one, so I stood still.  I got lucky and was only swatted on the hand.


We have lots of chainsaw work in the next couple weeks, so it's Back To The Old Grind!

I-57 Is A Mess

I-57 is a dangerous drive in Southern Illinois.  There are wrecks that shut this road down regularly, and there was one in the news the day I saw this one.  This wreck never made the news, and with a load of steel hitting the back of the tractor, I figure the driver may have been killed.  I guess because the road was only partially shut down, the news people didn't feel the need to report it.  I saw it and luckily had a camera with me.  Be on the alert when you drive on I-57.

Gravel Caution Redux

A repeat from a few years ago, with a new photo:

"Travel the gravel in a front wheel drive? (Also All Wheel Drives) Slow it down to around 40 and your little buggy will stay between the ditches much better. Go fast, look away at your phone, dodge a deer, and get out of the tracks, and suddenly you are on marbles. You let your foot off the gas and your car suddenly wants to swap ends. I have seen a few on their tops in the ditches around our place over the years, and it was always a front wheel drive. Rear wheel drive cars stabilize when you back off the gas, but with your front wheels hooked to the drive train you need to keep power on and steer back into the tracks. That is hard to do when you are skidding. Anyhow, slow down when you are on a loose surface. You will also have fewer flats, because the front wheels flip nails hiding in the gravel. At forty or below, nails have time to lay down again. Drive fifty in our neighborhood and you can expect a nail a week."

                                                                Click Photo To Enlarge.
You also have to be aware of pinch points on the backroads.  The road narrows down at culverts, and there are dropoffs like this one where drainages go under the road.  This one is a good four feet deep and it is a wonder that this car bounced through without rolling over.  The car is surely totaled, but the driver has only some minor bruising.  Shopping for a car is better than recovering in the hospital, but it is a cost that can usually be avoided by slowing down and driving a bit like an old man.  Consider what your safe speed is if you have to swerve and hit your brakes.  I still recommend forty as a limit, and I slow down more when I am in areas with deer movement.

Weekend Steam: Knowing When To Quit Is Good;..

...Knowing when to walk away before you start might be even better.  This engineer was flirting with disaster.  Excellent spotting, Merle!

Got Enough Firewood In?

Back To The Old Grind!   Tip Of The Hat to Terry Wheeler!

Nightmare In The Laundry Room

We did some de-constructing tonight in preparation for a plumbing project.  The box had shaved the insulation off of a wire at a time in the past; either forty some years ago or recently during another part of our basement renovation project.  The house has not burned down and nobody has been electrocuted, so we feel good. The breaker is taped down and this will be properly repaired tomorrow.  It's always something.

Flooded Gravel Challenge

Are you up to this challenge?  You must know your roads and the locations of drainages and culverts to get around in the country during a deluge.  I have seen vehicles swept into fields and also stuck in washed out culverts.  Test carefully, do not go over your hubs.  Do not be in a hurry.  Tomorrow will get here if you don't screw up.

The Curve Eats Another One

It might have been a 'possum; might have been a phone call or whatever, but another vehicle ran off the road yesterday in front of Patti's place.

The really sad part of this is the truck was fine when it ran into the ditch.  If only the driver had let it go on through those shrubs he could have driven parallel to the road and come out on the next driveway with no damage.

Instead, he was trying to get back up on the road and he tangled with a power pole as a result.  Luckily, he did not hit it head-on, or it would have been much worse.

Hit the 'possum, don't look at your phone, hit those curves at a proper speed, don't drink and drive.  Do all those things, and wear your seatbelt. We do not enjoy seeing these wrecks.

The Bombathon Has Begun

It's a holiday season like no other.  Click on the Religion Of Peace link on the left side of this page regularly to watch the celebration unfold. Wear Kevlar if you have it.

Way Down, Low Down

Holy Cow, take a good look at the conditions for that guy watching the clay as the wheel spins around.  He's wearing sandals, not work boots.  Around machinery.  The dust; fine, clay, lung clogging dust, is all around him in this facility, and he doesn't even have a simple mask on his face to protect his airways.  He will not live to be an old man working in these conditions.


Be Glad, that you are not going Back to His Old Grind!

I have been lucky. Fifty two years of work and only two weeks unemployed. I worked six years in Forestry in Kentucky and was outdoors much of the time. Indoor work was office time, and I had lots of fire fighting to make life exciting. I worked in the Southern Illinois oilfields for six years, and that was mostly outdoors too. Indoor work was mostly under trucks. The oilfield crashed in '86 and I got a job with Joy Manufacturing at their rebuild facility in Mt. Vernon. The first month (July), I spent in a rubber suit steam cleaning parts of torn down coal mining machinery, then I worked my way up to a mechanic/welder job. There was always welding smoke in the air, blue light from arc welders, lots of steel on steel noise, and the constant talk of big milling machines machining gear cases and other miner parts. It was all very depressing after working outdoors for the previous twelve years. This song by Johny Cash played in my head back then. I was glad to get back into forestry, where I spent much of the next twenty-nine years outdoors again.

As Summer Approaches, People Get In Their Boats

Forty-five years ago I went under that rock.  My friends say that I was under there for a long time, and I remember it well.  I popped up on this downstream side because I was wearing a life vest.  I am a poor swimmer, so I have never been too proud to wear one.  Davey Kannapel was in his canoe a short distance from where I came up.  He extended a paddle and said only, "Grab the paddle."  He was an Eagle Scout and he did not want a near drowning victim to touch his canoe.  If you go boating, wear your vest.  If you see someone's kid without a vest, read them the Riot Act.  Crap happens fast.

When Do You Say No To A Tree?

This is one I said NO to!  I posted this video here in February 2012, and because I was still working I couldn't give some of the details.  This black oak had a big opening in the north side so you could look in and see that it was just a rotten shell.  It was not a safe tree to cut, and I recommended that the park staff wait until there was a good layer of snow on the ground, throw in some diesel fuel with gas mixed in, light it and walk away.  There would be no picnickers near this tree that time of year, and it made sense to me.  They did not like my recommendation and insisted that I drop it.  Take a good look at the hinge.  It is all rotten wood, but it held together long enough to send the tree to the ground without falling apart on the stump.  Watch that rotten wood dust fly as I cut.

The Bludgeon Of Doom!...

will not save your children!  They even lock it up to make it doubly useless against an attacker.  How about give one to every child to wear on their belt rather than have the teacher lock it up in her desk.

Erie, PA, Millcreek School District (Click)

Stayin' Alive!

Back in November I drove to Chickasha, Oklahoma and back in one weekend to pick up Lisa Marie.  It turned out to be 1302 miles.  I went 100 on both Thursday and Sunday, when I stopped in St. Louis to break up the miles.  Staying awake when driving alone can be a challenge.  I am pretty good at pouring coffee from my Stanley Thermos as I drive, because I have been doing it for decades.  Sometimes coffee is not enough, though.  Susan had packed caffeine shots in my snack bag, but they are hard to use when you are driving.  You have to cut the end off a foil tube, dump the powder into a little bottle of water, recap the bottle and shake it up.  Coming through Oklahoma and Missouri on Saturday I had a heavy crosswind and rain that kept visibility restricted. There were wrecks because of the wind, so I had to pay attention to my driving, and I was fighting sleep.  I reached into my snack bag and fumbled around.  The bottle I pulled out said ENERGY!  I did not have my reading glasses on, so I couldn't see the small print.  I thought it was a bottle with one shot of foul tasting psuedo fruit juice with a big shot of caffeine.  I managed to get the seal off of it and started shooting juice into my mouth.  That stuff seemed mighty intense...got about half of it down and put on my glasses.  Holy Cow.  I had just consumed at least 6 shots of caffeine!  I have over-indulged in coffee a few times, and the results are not pleasant.  The main thing is you can feel your heart pound and your chest tightens up.  About then Susan called and asked how I was doing..."I'm trying not to have a heart attack!" is what I told her.  I was chugging water to dilute the stuff down, and I got out at a rest stop and walked around a bit.  I made it to St. Louis and slept just fine that night, but I don't plan on doing caffeine shots like that again!