Wooden Rain

A very important part of every tree falling plan is your escape from the stump area. As I have told before on this blog, nearly all injuries and deaths related to tree falling occur within a 12 foot radius of the stump. You need to move out of this zone on a pre-established escape route as soon as you set the tree in motion. You should move 20-25 feet, and use other trees for shields if that can be done easily. The escape route should be 45 degrees off of the fall line of the tree, and the opposite direction from which the tree is falling. After the tree is on the ground you need to stay back for a few seconds until you are sure that no more woody debris is going to rain in on the stump area.

The United States Forest Service still teaches the old falling methods which finalize your hinge while the tree is beginning to fall. The reason I have heard from Forest Service chainsaw instructors is that boring a tree to make a hinge is a difficult skill to learn. One of the safety problems with the Forest Service method of falling trees is that your escape from the stump area is delayed or prevented because you are still cutting with your saw deep in the tree.

The picture below is the site of a snag I cut in my woods. Note that the chainsaw is on the stump, and the wood in front of me is part of the treetop which fell backwards as the tree went down. It landed 10 feet from the stump. One of my landowners was nearly killed in 2006 by the same type of incident. He was knocked down 12 feet from the stump, and spent several months in a hospital and rehab facility.


 Dropping dead trees is always a bit more risky than working with live trees, so use the open face and bore cut method when you are working on snags; it will allow you to escape from the bullseye more quickly, and may save your life.

Poets' Corner

UP IN THE MORNING EARLY

Up in the morning's no for me,

Up in the morning early;

When a' the hills are cover'd wi'' snaw,

I'm sure it's winter fairly.

Cauld blaws the wind frae east to west,

The drift is driving sairly;

Sae loud and shrill's I hear the blast,

I'm sure it's winter fairly.

The birds sit chittering in the thorn,

a' day they fare but sparely:

And lang's the night frae e'en to morn,

I'm sure it's winter fairly.

Up in the morning's no for me,

Up in the morning early;

When a' the hills are cover'd wi' snaw,

I'm sure it's winter fairly.

Robert Burns

Weekend Steam

From the cover of the September-October 1958 issue of The Iron Men Album we have a Phoenix log hauler, owned by the Smolik brothers of Osage, Iowa. I saw this engine operating at Cedar Falls, Iowa many years ago. Photo by Ray Ernst of Wayland, Iowa, one of the founders of Midwest Old Settlers and Threshers Association.

Killer Stumps

Mistakes made by other people are valuable learning tools. Some of them are so valuable that I take a picture so I can pass them on to others. These stumps illustrate the phenonenon known as "Barber Chair".

The first stump also shows a strange misconception that I run into frequently. The cutter of this tree cut across the stump at an angle, ostensibly "So the stump will push the tree over!" Stumps do not push on a tree; gravity can pull it over, wind can push it over, you can wedge it over, you can pull it over with a cable, you can push it over with a skidder, but the stump DOES NOT PUSH!

A barber chair occurs when a tree goes into motion while the hinging wood is too thick to bend. Since it can't bend, the tree splits lengthwise. This happens suddenly, often explosively. If the cutter is in the way of the butt end of the log when it happens, he will suffer severe crushing injuries when the tree smashes into him. If the tree misses him at this point, the danger is not over. The tree becomes airborne on a springpole, and it is anybody's bet what the tree will do next. You literally cannot get away fast enough.

The stump below was the site of a fatal accident. The cutter had been ruining trees all over this woods with poor cutting technique, and this tree was his final mistake. He cut a small wedge (barely visible on the ground) on the left side of the stump, intending the tree to fall that way. He then bored through the tree where you see the step on the right side of the stump. Next he cut to the left, severing all the wood to the wedge cutout. The tree was heavy to the right, and when he severed the wood on the left, the tree split to the right and stood on a springpole, which you can see lying behind and to the right of the stump. The cutter ran, but the tree rotated counter-clockwise on the springpole, and the butt of the log hit the logger on the back of the head, killing him. His body was lying 12 feet from the stump.

If the cutter had been using a hinge to control his trees he would still be alive. There is a lot of resistance to learning the new methods of falling trees, mostly because we are all reluctant to change methods we have become accustomed to. Most loggers I encounter are still using cutting methods developed with axes and crosscut saws. Modern chainsaws allow us to bore through trees, giving us the advantage of a hinge of proper thickness before the tree is set in motion. This is a skill well worth developing.

If you use a chainsaw, you should seek out a safety instructor who can teach you the latest methods. Your life could depend on it.


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Vintage Toys

One of my favorite Christmas presents was a mold for casting lead soldiers. I would use up all my lead making soldiers, then melt them down and make new ones. I doubt that anyone is marketing such a toy today. Putting children and molten lead together today would bring a herd of protesters and lawyers on the run. I suspect that this man received the same toy one Christmas and then started collecting molds when he grew up. The toys pictured above are cast out of a tin-zinc alloy, which is harder than lead, and safe for anyone to handle. It would be interesting to know who is collecting and playing with these toys. I suspect that most of the happy owners are big boys.

Poets' Corner

sociological

when the cold weather
comes i always
get a new interest in sociology
i am almost human that way
it worries me as to how
the other half
are going to get through
the winter
last evening i went
into a cheap eating house
and dropped into a beef stew
and had a warm bath
and a bit to eat
and listened afterwards
to a couple of bums
who had begged enough
during the day to get a supper
they were talking
about this new movement
on the part of the jobless
and homeless
to take possession of the churches
and live there during
the cold weather
said the first bum
i dont think i could do it
it would bring up
too many associations
you see i am a minister s son
you too exclaimed the second bum
why i also
am the son of a preacher
my father was a minister
in small towns all his life
he worked himself to death at it
he never got paid enough
to live on
and it was not until i left home
and became a hobo that i ever
got as much as i wanted to eat
at one meal
precisely my experience
said the other bum
have you ever had any temptation
said number one to quit being a hobo
and take a regular job
yes said number two
very often
but i have always had
the strength of character
to resist temptation
it is my duty to my fellow men
to see that they have
material on which to wreak
their passion to be charitable
during the christmas holidays
it makes the well to do
more comfortable and gives
them a warm virtuous glow
when they give me a dime
and i should not feel justified
in taking from them
such a simple and inexpensive pleasure
yes said the other bum
the rich we have always with us
they are the great problem of the age
we must treat them as well
as we can and help them
to have a little fun by the way
so that they can forget at least temporarily
the biblical assurance
that it is as hard for them to enter
the kingdom of heaven
as for a camel
to pass through a needle s eye
well said the other one
sometimes i think i would
be willing to change places with a rich man
and run the risk
oh certainly said the other
i have never had any instinctive
hatred for riches
it is only work that i detest
riches are all very well
if you inherit them
but i doubt if they are worth
toiling for
think of all the millions
toiling miserably in order
to be damned
it is a pathetic sight
but if one inherits riches
he knows that the fates
have doomed him to be damned
before his birth
and it is of little use to struggle
that is far different from striving
desperately all one s life
to lay up enough wealth
to damn one
i perceive said his new found friend
that your early training
has stayed by you
you have a truly religious nature
yes replied the other
at the cost of great
personal sacrifice in many ways
i have kept myself
an object of charity
in order to foster
the spirituality of the well to do
the most passionate piety
could do but little more
but if you had inherited
great riches said the other bum
would you have given them to the poor
i doubt was the reply
that i would have felt justified
in doing that
i would more likely have said to myself
that providence
had by that token
marked me out as one destined
to hell fire
and would have considered it
impious to struggle against
the manifest wishes of heaven
well sighed the other
life is full of terrible problems
indeed it is
rejoined his friend
but i am afraid that i shall
never solve even the least of them
when i am empty and cold
i am not in the mood for meditation
and when i am warm and replete
i go to sleep
the few guiding principles
i learned in father s church
have carried me thus far
and i shall go on to the end
never thinking beyond them
i merely apply them literally
and they work
they have made me what i am
he concluded complacently

archy

FROM: the lives and times of archy and mehitabel by don marquis
doubleday doran & co inc 1935

Weekend Steam

This photo is taken from The Furrow, a magazine published by John Deere forty years ago. The Russell engine belonged to the Shellabarger Brothers, the Advance Rumely belonged to Harold Jarvis, and the Wood Brothers engine belonged to William Seyb and Dallas Kerr. This photo was taken at the Midwest Old Settlers and Threshers show at Mt. Pleasant, Iowa in 1966.

Carbon Credits

There are a lot of words being flung concerning saving the Earth from global warming. Carbon Credits is my favorite term in this shouting match. Some of my customers are collecting dollars simply because they wanted to plant trees, and then did so. They have since signed up with an outfit in Chicago that deals in this smoke and mirrors project, and are now collecting dollars that seem to be real enough. I wonder how long it will be until the investors in this mess wake up and begin to wonder what happens to all that carbon when the trees die. (See: Trees Are Temporary) The Cerambycid beetle larvae in the persimmon wood pictured above are not commenting about this issue, but they continue to work silently behind the scenes, along with carpenter ants, termites, powder post beetles, and assorted fungi. These mostly invisible flora and fauna are one of the big reasons we need to work overtime growing trees, but real forest aficianodos grow trees mainly because we like them.

Culture

Plan writing for forestry puposes has a long list of requirements because of the various bureaucracies involved. One of the unusual parts required in forest management plans is a section on Cultural Resources. This has to be mentioned in every plan that might be in a state, federal, or American Forest Foundation program. The nearest thing to a cultural resource I see are old cemeteries. If I can identify a site used by Indians, I am not supposed to document it in writing because it might cause looting of a grave site. I finally found an old building that I thought might qualify for a Cultural Resource;-)
I mentioned this old shack to the landowner and found that he has burned it down since I took the photo. A meth maker had taken it over to ply his trade, so the shack had become a double liability. Oh well, I will keep looking.

Sunday Service

The Men That Don't Fit In

There's a race of men that don't fit in,

A race that can't stay still;

So they break the hearts of kith and kin,

And they roam the world at will.

They range the field and they rove the flood,

And they climb the mountain's crest;

Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,

And they don't know how to rest.



If they just went straight they might go far;

They are strong and brave and true;

But they're always tired of the things that are,

And they want the strange and new.

They say: "Could I find my proper groove,

What a deep mark I would make!"

So they chop and change, and each fresh move

Is only a fresh mistake.



And each forgets, as he strips and runs

With a brilliant, fitful pace,

It's the steady, quiet, plodding ones

Who win in the lifelong race.

And each forgets that his youth has fled,

Forgets that his prime is past,

Till he stands one day, with a hope that's dead,

In the glare of the truth at last.



He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance;

He has just done things by half.

Life's been a jolly good joke on him,

And now is the time to laugh.

Ha, ha! He is one of the Legion Lost;

He was never meant to win;

He's a rolling stone, and it's bred in the bone;

He's a man who won't fit in.

From Spell of the Yukon by Robert Service