Easy winter meant not too much overtime, but volleyball and basketball take up all your weekends. 

 

Then old coronavirus showed up just in time for spring. I have a full time job and two part time jobs, all labeled "essential". So my life didn't change a bit.

 

The kids lives did get turned upside down. No school, no sports, no friends, quite the change. Didn't take long for the stir crazy to set in.

 

We had plenty of time to spend up at Grandpa Marvin's, but I was leery at first. Don't want to get the old man sick, you know. Finally dad said to just come up, he's not worried about some little virus.

 

So, off we go....

 

Built a sweet shooting bench.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grandpa Marvin turned 75 this year. His main past time is making firewood. He has never had a backup furnace, just a wood furnace in the basement, with a smaller stove in the kitchen that was added on to the original farm house. But he is having a hard time handling large chunks of firewood.  He has spent the better part of the last 10 years or so cleaning up all the dead elm. Must be the Dutch Elm disease, cause they are finally all pretty much gone. But, it makes good firewood and hey, waste not want not, right? He would buy a truck load of Oak every other year to supplement his wood pile, but he primarily burned dead elm for years.

 

But, like I said, the elm is pretty much all gone. His 40 acres of woods is just about spotless. So, he started picking out some bigger trees that were prime for harvest, and some miscellaneous smaller ones that we select cut.

 

But first, for his birthday, we refurbished his trailer for him, it was long overdue.

 

 

 

 

OK, now we can get to the firewood. Started dropping trees. Of the first six he cut, five got hung up, so I had to help pull them down with the B, the gator just doesn't have the traction.

 

 

My Dad has been running a chainsaw for 60 years. His father had Parkinsons and couldn't handle the saw so dad had to step up. He was on his third chainsaw when we started this spring, but it started acting up and he took it in for repairs, and just picked up a brand new one while he was there. Retirement must be nice.

 

At any rate, this thing is a Cadillac! Light, smooth, balanced forward a bit, really nice to cut with. Definitely doesn't have quite the same power, but I'll use it if I have to!

 

 

 

 

Load after load...

 

 

Rather than cut all the big blocks up in the woods and wrestle them onto the trailer, I got out the log arch, and added a couple of snatch blocks to really give the boat winch some power. Bring home 8 to 14 foot logs, so we can cut them up in the yard.

 

 

 

 

 

Now that I finally have a loader to play with, scraped a couple of rotten stumps off the lawn that we have been driving around my entire life.

 

 

Hauled some rocks and dumped them in some mud holes in the woods. Been doing that my whole life, never seem to get ahead in that little endeavor.

 

 

Popped the loader off for some field work.

 

 

Take a break to try out the subsoiler I picked up last fall.

 

 

 

 

Might as well try out the two bottom plow I picked up last summer.

 

Setting it up

 

 

 

 

 

That's when I noticed the inner tube on the one tire was trying to make an escape!

 

 

Found a good used tire, so I drained the fluid into a barrel and got out my trusty bead breaker.

 

 

Brought the tire and rim home, this was during that cold snap a few weeks ago. I wasn't fighting that tire in the cold. Down in the basement it goes.

 

 

 

Getting that back up the stairs was no easy task!

 

Bought a cheap drill pump. Wasn't sure if it would work or not, but it did. Took a couple hours, but I got it all back in.

 

 

Back in business.

 

 

Cutting and splitting and hauling and stacking...

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JXrvNcXRCo" rel="nofollow - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JXrvNcXRCo

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0eYj4cG220&t=52s" rel="nofollow - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0eYj4cG220&t=52s

 

Carryall is handy for lifting blocks up to the splitter, and for hauling away the  split pieces!

 

 

 

Snuck in a little turkey hunting too!

 

 

Never did get one, too late of a season this year.

 

Worked till dark one night. That was a giant elm tree that was still pretty green. That log had to weigh a ton.

 

 

 

Break time

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whew! I guess I'm out of pictures!

 

Other than that, haven't been doing much.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Well,,I'll wager your daddy and grandpa are sure proud of your energetic attitude,,,!!  Keep it up and someday soon,,,you're gonna make some very lucky person have their dreams come true,,,!!!

 

I built that arch a few years ago, we were taking popple out of the woods. We carried it out by the pile rather than by the log.

 

If you have some time to kill, and an ice cold six pack (maybe twelve) you can read up on it here...

 

https://www.allischalmers.com/forum/passing-of-the-punkin-popple_topic145222_post1203052.html?KW=popple#1203052" rel="nofollow - https://www.allischalmers.com/forum/passing-of-the-punkin-popple_topic145222_post1203052.html?KW=popple#1203052

 

Its neat to look back and see how that arch started compared to what it is now. Made several improvements along the way, and it works sweet. Couple of those big green logs had to go 2000 pounds.

 

 

 

 

Finally got around to installing the correct headlights on the HB212. Pet peeve when people butcher stuff like that, but I also understand working with what you have.

 

 

 

More gooder.

 

Also finally got the correct air cleaner for the 416, and replaced the leaky rotten exhaust that was falling off. I know its a little hypocritical, but I fabbed an exhaust from what I had available, until I can install something a little nicer. The grass is a growin and the tractors need to be mowin!

 

 

 

Put the mower deck on the B1. Finally, I have a rider for me and each kid.

 

 

We cut down another 60 foot hybrid popple in my back yard. It was going to fall on the neighboring property, so I used the WC to persuade it into my yard. Didn't get any pictures of that though. Brought the old mans wood splitter down. My retired neighbor came over and ran the lever, I threw the big blocks on, and a kid on each side stacking, works pretty slick. Only took us about an hour to make this pile.

 

 

Decided to spend my hard earned stimulus money on an addition. A sunroom, you say, perhaps a library?

 

Nope. In a demonstration of redneckedness, I got a bigger tarp shed. I put up a 10 by 15 years ago, because there was an ash tree close by and a 20 footer wouldn't fit. Last year the ash tree died and was quickly processed. So, now I have room for the 20 footer.

 

Just undid the end and peeled the roof back, and added one more section, rather than tear the whole old one down and rebuild it.

 

 

Handy to have a little monkey around

 

 

Ohhhhh,, look at all that space! Got all three mowers in the shed, plus a project roller that I'm working on.

 

 

Betcha I could cram another tractor or two in there if I really tried...

 

 

 

 

 Hey Marv,,,You sure do take some great pictures,,,!!!!

 What are you using to take em with,,,??

 

If only there was a method for cutting smaller limbs into precut lengths....

 

And then I remembered ol buzz is in the back of the shed!

 

 

I will have to remove one loader bracket. Or maybe buy another tractor?!?!

 

Kids definitely won't be allowed near this thing. You get that blade up to speed, it makes such an unholy noise, I don't want to get near it, either.

 

Something to think about.

Dusty