Miami is a Festering Rathole
September 29th, 2017My Chicken House has Been Liberated
People were giving me suggestions on moving the big oak that fell on my chicken house. Here’s a photo showing what has happened to it.
I used the pole saw to clean up the top of the oak as much as I could, and then I sawed through the base. After that, I put a strap on the trunk and pulled on it until it fell off the maple the oak was trying to kill.
I am sick of oaks. They’re worthless, and they choke out better trees.
Now I have to start moving wood to the side of the county road, where it will be picked up free of charge. The problem with this plan is that my property has a ditch paralleling the road. To put the wood down, I have to drive the tractor along the side of the ditch. It leans over. Supposedly, you can lean a tractor 20 degrees without killing yourself, but I am new at this, so I don’t like any lean at all. I keep the front end loader low, but it still feels unsafe.
The pole saw made all this possible. A regular chainsaw is a vastly inferior tool. My advice to anyone who has to clear up fallen crap is to get a pole saw, even if you can’t get a regular chainsaw to go with it. The pole saw will do most of what the chainsaw will do, but the chainsaw will only do a little of what the pole saw can do.
I cut 12″ limbs with the 12″ pole saw with no problems. It was slow, but it beat getting up next to them and being killed when they broke free.
Things are looking up, and I’m still FREE OF MIAMI!
Man, I hate Miami. What a miserable city. I pity every decent person who lives there. I miss nothing, nothing, nothing about Miami. Moving out of Miami is like being healed of cancer.
My house sitter keeps telling me all the godly people he knows are moving out, and he thinks disaster will come when enough of them leave. Whatever. I can’t save the world. I’m just glad I’m in a better place, among much better people.
September 29th, 2017 at 2:19 PM
Tractors can easily roll over. The ROPB (roll over protection bar) can help IF you wear a seat belt. If your tractor does not have the ROPB, then don’t wear a seat belt.
Why not, instead of dragging the oak to the road, you pull it to the center of a field where it can await burning, or, you might run across a low cost bandsaw sawmill and convert some of your oak into building material. $3,000 approximately will get you into an entry level sawmill. Why throw away or burn good wood?
Be well.
September 29th, 2017 at 4:04 PM
I have so much wood to burn, you would not believe it. The other day I saw a truck carrying firewood bundles to grocery stores, and I felt sorry for them. There is no way anyone around here will pay good money for firewood this year.
September 29th, 2017 at 6:38 PM
You need to keep the bucket near the ground; the picture with it up is not good practice. The only reason to have the bucket up is when you’re lifting something with it. Otherwise it’s always near the ground.
A side slope that is safe with the bucket down, might not be with it up in the air and making the machine top heavy. Then you get soft spots or rocks that will instantly change a safe slope to rolling it. (have the uphill wheel hit a rock or the downhill wheel sink into a soft spot, over you go)
A professional operator used to yell at me if I had the bucket up, so I learned.
September 29th, 2017 at 8:34 PM
I knew someone would mention the bucket. It was up because I had to steer around a tree.
September 29th, 2017 at 9:42 PM
We don’t know if you’ve ever used something like a backhoe or tractor. So when we see something not good, it’s better to mention it.
Probably 2% of the urban population has operated heavy equipment…so they don’t know.
I appreciated the professional yelling at me to lower the bucket! I’ve had my backhoe on two wheels more than a couple of times, and it’s always puckered my fanny.
September 30th, 2017 at 10:18 AM
I was too lazy to write an explanation. Typing ten more words…just more than I felt like doing.
September 30th, 2017 at 4:23 PM
With all that wood around, maybe you should get a wood lathe to go with your metal lathe!