The Solar Powered Woodshed

[ChrisOlson]

Thanks, Chris. I appreciate the information. Been a very long time since I ran a skidder. Did a bit of tree work and loggin' in Georgia for several years, as a young fella.

Then you know that log skidders are brutal machines that are broke all the time. And when you run one you get real good at fixing pieces of heavy iron in the middle of the woods, usually someplace where you can only get to it with another log skidder or something on tracks.

[ILFE]

Then you know that log skidders are brutal machines that are broke all the time. And when you run one you get real good at fixing pieces of heavy iron in the middle of the woods, usually someplace where you can only get to it with another log skidder or something on tracks.

Yes, siree. Pulled God only knows how much pine out of the woods, to head for one of several local paper mills. Hauled chips too.

Days long before my interest in solar and other alternative energy were to blossom.

[ChrisOlson]

Yes, siree. Pulled God only knows how much pine out of the woods, to head for one of several local paper mills. Hauled chips too.

Days long before my interest in solar and other alternative energy were to blossom.

I had a chipper and a live-bottom semi trailer and I used to supply chips to a couple customers that burned them in boilers. My chipper has a 12V-71TTA Detroit on it, 900hp. It was another brutal, high-maintenance machine that was broke all the time. And it burned 38 gallons of diesel fuel/hr, which made it pretty hard to make any real money in the chip business. I was always going to junk that old V-12 Detroit and repower that chipper with a Cat 3408. But the Detroit refused to die so I just kept dumping fuel in it. I finally sold the chipper, the trailer and the chip business to a younger feller that has a lot more ambition than I got and I just supply him with pulp wood for his chipper to eat.

That "blossoming" thing sort of goes with the territory when you work in the woods. You learn about all kinds of different types of alternative energy, like how long you can run a grinder off an inverter hooked up to your truck batteries with jumper cables. Then that goes dead so you hook up the jumper cables to the skidder batteries and learn how long those will run the grinder. Then when you finally realize that nothing you got sitting in the woods will start you hook 'em all together and hope you got enough power with 'em all combined to get at least one engine to start.

I've actually done that.

[russ]

Yes, siree. Pulled God only knows how much pine out of the woods, to head for one of several local paper mills. Hauled chips too.

Days long before my interest in solar and other alternative energy were to blossom.

In 1964 I spent one summer setting chokers in Oregon - too much work!

[ChrisOlson]

In 1964 I spent one summer setting chokers in Oregon - too much work!

Basically, anything to do with logging is too much work. And one of the most dangerous occupations there is. I've cut down to supplying firewood with select harvest of mature trees and windfalls. And do some logs for veneer lumber. There's REALLY good money in veneer hardwood. But my equipment is getting a little aged and it's broke all the time. Fixing gets pretty old after awhile - especially when a shaft breaks in the articulated joint on the skidder in some godforsaken location where you can't get to it with anything except a dozer, and it's 20 below zero. About that time is when I hang it up for winter and just leave it there until spring and head for the Caribbean. When I come back to get it in the spring it's usually got a few extra dents in it from deer rifle bullets but I get it back together and do it again.

[russ]

Basically, anything to do with logging is too much work. And one of the most dangerous occupations there is.

I still have a scar on my chin where a dead tree top whacked me - my chin hit the chokers I had over my shoulder while I drug them to a log.

Those fallers were some tough SOBs - the chain saws have possibly changed more than about anything over the years. The fallers saws then were all a man could carry.

[ChrisOlson]

Those fallers were some tough SOBs - the chain saws have possibly changed more than about anything over the years. The fallers saws then were all a man could carry.

The big saws still are. We have the Lumberjack International World Championships in Hayward, Wisconsin every year and professional lumber jacks and lumber jills from all over the world come to compete in it. There's some seriously big dudes that compete there, and some of the lumber jills I've seen in crosscut saw competition could pretty easily pick you up and body slam you a couple times - with one hand.

http://www.lumberjackworldchampionships.com/