Staying Up Late Tonight?

And More Is On The Way

We had 5 to 6 inches of snow last week before Jason could move the last of his logs out.  He bladed off the landing with his skidder so the ground could freeze, then we had another 5 inches.  Oh Well, or words to that effect.  Forecasters say we have more snow coming on New Year's Eve, and I bet Jason is out early in the morning to see what he can do.  The truck with the knuckleboom on it has big ag tires, and they can move logs to the road to load a semi-trailer.  Most of the wood has already been moved, but our loggers would like to get this job finished so they don't have to come back next spring.  They have already moved the Timbco to their next job, and they need to move the rest of their equipment. 

Have Pity, O Lord, In Misery I Languish...

...in other words...Back To The Old Grind! 

Photo Credit:  Page 463, Samson Et Dalila, Metropolitian Opera, New York, 1915, with Caruso, Matzenauer and Amato.   The Victor Book of the Opera, Victor Talking Machine Company,1929; RCA Manufacturing Company, 1936.  Photo by White

Revisiting The Sotz Monster Maul

We had a comment on our YouTube video showing how to use a Sotz Monster Maul, and it was a pleasant surprise.  Ed in Detroit bought the unsold stock from the Sotz corporation, and he is selling it all via Craigslist.

The Sotz Monster Maul was a well-thought-out design which solved inherent problems of wood splitting mauls.   Most mauls sold in the pre-Sotz era had wooden handles, which broke with annoying regularity when splitting wood.  Sotz fixed that by making the handles out of steel, with a reinforcing collar just above the head.  Most splitting mauls are only six to eight pounds, and you swing them like an axe to deliver sufficient energy for splitting.  That's great if you are young and athletic, but big swings don't work well for middle aged and older folks.  Sotz's solution was to make the head a big slow bullet; 16 pounds heavy.  You don't swing it; you raise it, and then bring it down, using the handle as a lever to deliver a bit of speed.  We were able to split any species of hardwood with our Sotz mauls, even elm, though we never did enjoy busting elm wood.

The other problem with splitting mauls and axes is that they stick in the wood you are trying to split.  The wide angle of the Sotz head eliminates sticking almost 100%.  I finally gave up using a maul and bought a hydraulic wood splitter a few years ago because of a bad elbow, but that was caused by using a hoedad for tree planting many years ago.  If you use a Monster Maul correctly, it won't cause tennis elbow.

I looked around on the internet a bit, and Monster Maul knockoffs are not as heavy as the original product.  Northern Tool has a Monster Maul wannabe that has a 12 pound head, and that is typical.  If you want the original, check the Craigslit page and order one.  Ed does ship, so anyone in the country can still buy one of these useful artifacts from the 1970's energy crisis.

Ed also has some Sotz fireplace tools, which were designed to use with their barrel stove kits.  He is asking $40 for these, and that looks like a very fair price for useful American made product.  When these are gone, there won't be any more, so visit these pages and have a look.

Sotz Product List

Sotz Monster Maul

Sotz Fireplace Tools

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Not My Victrola

Lucius1958 shares a beautiful George M. Cohan show tune, played on his Edison machine.

It Was A Long Good-Bye

"What's going on out here? You talking to Joe again??

"Oh No...I can't watch this."

Marvin Cat started showing up for meals many years ago, and soon became part of the family. This photo was taken in 1995.

This photo was taken in 2008, after we had learned that Marvin had melanoma. We figured he was a short-timer, but his cancer advanced slowly. He has been losing hair for a couple years; and a year ago his lungs began to wheeze, but he didn't show many signs of being ill.

He went off his feed Christmas Eve, and retreated to a little cat hut where he could curl up and stay warm.  Yesterday he was sitting in front of the water bowl, unable to drink.  We had a couple of long sessions with an eye dropper to give him water and a molasses mix.  When I greeted him this morning he cried instead of purring, and I called the vet.

The vet gave him a muscle relaxer in his hip and I held him in my lap; Marvin purred until he went limp. They took him away to administer the IV to finish the job, and then I brought him home and buried him next to HeyJoe. Jack figured out that this was serious business. He was with Joe when he died, and watched me wrap him up and bury him. This was a tough way to end the holiday season, but on the positive side, this year Susan and I managed to to bring our mothers through some serious medical crises, and that is a real blessing...and we have more pets, thanks to our brother-in-law who gave us SEVEN feral cats that he caught and had neutered and vaccinated. We aren't about to run out of cats, and they have mostly tamed down so I can pick up most of them.

Weekend Steam: Antique Entertainment

I can remember asking my Grandmother if she had seen silent movies, and of course, she had.  She laughed about it and told me that movies were very different when she was a girl.  She told me that more than fifty years ago.  (I also asked her if she knew how to dance the Charleston...she was a Covenanter, (I didn't know that back then.) so that was sort of a dumb question.   Anyhow, here is a great example of a silent film from 1915, with Helen Holmes saving the day, and Thomas Edison Studios promoting cigarettes.  Posted on YouTube by sfo1164.

Crankin' It Up

The Van Eps Trio performs Hill and Dale, a "Syncopated Fox Trot."  Brat Cat helps out a bit.

Timber Cutter Tricks

The loggers working in our woods put on a real push in the days leading up to Christmas.  They completed cutting, and then dragged logs like crazy the last couple days.  I was up on the landing at sunset on Christmas Eve when Jason dragged in the last logs.  This was really important with a major snow in the forecast, because once you have snow on the skid trails this time of year, they are done for until things dry out next spring.  The logs can all be loaded out and sent to various mills now, and the loggers can make their money back on their time and effort in a timely fashion.

Here is a little demonstration of a neat cutting technique for trees that need to be pushed over.  The key to this trick is to leave the release cut uncompleted, so that the fibers will hold the tree steady until it is pushed over.

Never, Ever Give Up

...and in what used to be Great Britain, you are a dangerous person if you have tools to putter around in your kitchen. Soon, you will have to demonstrate a need to drive nails if you possess a hammer.