Have you worked in the bush?

[billb3]

22 acres left of what was at one time a small farm.
originally 44 acres or thereabout.
I'm 4th generatiion and actually own just a one acre lot on a corner, but manage what's left of parents 'farm'. (Dad's gone)
Could also sneak over into land town snagged for water rights for wells. Nice to never ever have neighbors on that side of the property.
Slowly removing building foundations and planting trees (and just letting the land reforest itself in some places, actually easier and faster, just need patience and weeding)
Stihl and a JD2520. Bucket's never big enough.
Nice for that heavy oak, though.

 

[LLigetfa]

I working pipeline rip wrap (building corduroy roads over swamps) up by Longlac which is a predominately French area. I was a long time union pipeliner and not French. It was a big job so the union signed up some guys that have never worked pipeline but were old hands at pulp wood logging. For those that don't know, pipelining pays really really well and these new guys were trying to make the les Anglais look bad so we'd get fired and they could get their buddies good paying jobs. The rip wrap foreman had never done rip wrap before and these Frenchmen were really trying to pull the wool over his eyes. They would tell the foreman one thing and I would tell him that they were up to.

Anyway, the foreman believed me and sensed the racial conflict and separated us, putting me on the landing rather than felling. Now I've worked with some real good skidder operators that knew how to drop a load so that the logs spread out and the buttons loosened, applying just enough brake on the mainline so it didn't freewheel and tangle. Problem was, this French skidder operator was not doing that. He was making things miserable for me, dropping the load at the landing but then he'd put so much brake on the mainline that it would snap tight bunching the logs back together and cinching the buttons tight. He'd jump off the skidder and go talk to the foreman while I fought the load to get them unchoked. I just thought he was a lousy operator but turns out he was doing it deliberately to make me look bad and then telling the foreman I didn't know what I was doing. An old native friend of mine that I worked many jobs with, was cutting at the landing and saw what the skidder operator did and went over to the where the foreman was parked, overhearing what was said. He told the foreman what was up, that I was a good worker, and asked to swap jobs with me. I was about to warn him about the skidder operator but he set me straight on what was going on and just said "watch this". Now "Shorty" as they called him was built low to the ground but he was built like a brick shithouse. When the skidder operator pulled the same stunt on him, Shorty ran up to the skidder, yanked the guy from the skidder by the throat, and literally threw him on the log pile. He made him unbutton the whole load and told him if he ever pulled that stunt again, he'd be wearing those chokers around his neck.

The foreman gave me a slack job after that, counting truck loads and directing traffic. I thought he was deliberately sticking me out in the open with nothing to do just to make me look bad, spoiling my chances of getting on another crew once rip wrap was done. I hated being out in the open all day sitting on a log, made for a really long day. I was still being paid per diem on my saw and all I used it for was to cut some firewood and noodle some kin'lin. Anyway, I was wrong about him... He was just rewarding me and he got me onto the ROW dozer crew while the Frenchmen got laid off.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

We cut alot of huge hardwood timber in the 90's. Jobs other crews woodn't touch because of difficulty etc. Swamps , deep ravines, near housing , timber overhanging roadways.

One time my dad hired a new skidder operator. Told us he was experienced.
I was in some 24-40" tulip and sets of 2-4 trees 70'+ long were common and the ground was loam . Made for some slow skids. I'd get 2 or 3 sets ahead of the new skidder operator and he wood be phaqin' around hookin' his own sets and gettin way behind (because he WASN"T experienced) so I took a break and helped him hook sets and catch up . I figured for best production I was going to lay the sets out a little straighter and tighter and help him hook and not get ahead of him more than 1 set. This was a mistake on my part and a mistake on his part.

One of the well known rules of skidder logging is every time you return to the next set ALWAYS look for the cutter to see if he needs a tree pushed/pulled, is hurt, or wants a certain set removed so he can lay out the next without making a clusterphaq. Well I had my back to the skid trail and was deep into my "zone" bore cuttin' a big tulip with my 066 MAG barkin like a bayin' hound and I see movement out of the corner of my eye which scares the B-Joseph out of me cause its only a foot or 2 from my head and I tuned to see the skidder blade only feet from my head. By the time I shut of my saw he had the skidder shut off and he recieved an azz peelin Paul Bunyan heard from the grave. Don't ever sneak up on a cutter . Remain at a distance till he knows you're there then use hand signals or voice instruction. Next set he came back in the woods and did the same thing and I was ready to teach this guy a lesson I gaurantee he remembers to this day.

Next set I told him to stop by a certain stump and don't move till we had eye contact . Next set he came back and didn't stop at the stump I told him to stop at.I had a 30" tulip notched ,bored and about 8 wedges beat into the back side aimed at the stump with about a 2"x2""kill cut" ready to snip off to send that tulip flying. He got almost to the stump and no sign of stoppin so I let the tulip fly. It was winter and the branches were brittle. When the top hit the skidder it was like someone threw 10,000 boxes of chop sticks at this guy. I've never seen a skidder travel that fast in reverse. I think he may have hit 4R. He went out to the landing empty told my dad what happened . My dad laughed his ass off and the guy quit. A couple of weeks later he came back to work as a truck driver and refused to get on the skidder if I was in the woods.

lol Thanks for that story Lee. That one really made me laugh and I could picture the entire thing very easily.


I have to tell you about a close friend of mine. He took his first job in the woods when he was around 50 years old or so. He had run a skidder a little bit one year when he worked for a fellow who cut firewood. So he had just a little bit of experience. On his first day on the job....he got lost in the woods! It took him 3 tries to find his way.

He asked the boss several years later what he thought that day. Naturally, he just shook his head and said he figured if my friend lasted until noon that day it would be a miracle. He is still going at age 71.

 

[firefighterjake]

After college I worked briefly for a commercial fishing trade journal before deciding it wasn't working out for me (namely since I knew nothing about commercial fishing -- heck, I don't even like eating fish) so I quit that job and started the long search for a new job. Unfortunately for me, it was in December so jobs were in short supply and I had bills due and so to make a little bit of money to get me by I began cutting pulp on the family land.

It only took a few weeks of working in sub-zero temps and freezing my butt off before I decided that I needed to search a little bit harder and find a job where I would be inside during the Winter months . . . and so I started working as a typesetter for a large print publishing house . . . which, as luck would have it, turned out to be where I also found the love of my life.

 

[Cowboy Billy]

We cut alot of huge hardwood timber in the 90's. Jobs other crews woodn't touch because of difficulty etc. Swamps , deep ravines, near housing , timber overhanging roadways.

One time my dad hired a new skidder operator. Told us he was experienced.
I was in some 24-40" tulip and sets of 2-4 trees 70'+ long were common and the ground was loam . Made for some slow skids. I'd get 2 or 3 sets ahead of the new skidder operator and he wood be phaqin' around hookin' his own sets and gettin way behind (because he WASN"T experienced) so I took a break and helped him hook sets and catch up . I figured for best production I was going to lay the sets out a little straighter and tighter and help him hook and not get ahead of him more than 1 set. This was a mistake on my part and a mistake on his part.

One of the well known rules of skidder logging is every time you return to the next set ALWAYS look for the cutter to see if he needs a tree pushed/pulled, is hurt, or wants a certain set removed so he can lay out the next without making a clusterphaq. Well I had my back to the skid trail and was deep into my "zone" bore cuttin' a big tulip with my 066 MAG barkin like a bayin' hound and I see movement out of the corner of my eye which scares the B-Joseph out of me cause its only a foot or 2 from my head and I tuned to see the skidder blade only feet from my head. By the time I shut of my saw he had the skidder shut off and he recieved an azz peelin Paul Bunyan heard from the grave. Don't ever sneak up on a cutter . Remain at a distance till he knows you're there then use hand signals or voice instruction. Next set he came back in the woods and did the same thing and I was ready to teach this guy a lesson I gaurantee he remembers to this day.

Next set I told him to stop by a certain stump and don't move till we had eye contact . Next set he came back and didn't stop at the stump I told him to stop at.I had a 30" tulip notched ,bored and about 8 wedges beat into the back side aimed at the stump with about a 2"x2""kill cut" ready to snip off to send that tulip flying. He got almost to the stump and no sign of stoppin so I let the tulip fly. It was winter and the branches were brittle. When the top hit the skidder it was like someone threw 10,000 boxes of chop sticks at this guy. I've never seen a skidder travel that fast in reverse. I think he may have hit 4R. He went out to the landing empty told my dad what happened . My dad laughed his ass off and the guy quit. A couple of weeks later he came back to work as a truck driver and refused to get on the skidder if I was in the woods.

Good one! About six years ago I was running a 375 cat excavator digging a cell for a landfill. This one idiot kid running haul truck would not pay attention and was parking way out from the cut and every time I swung out the track was coming two feet or so off the ground. I got out explained to him twice what I wanted and why. The third time he did it I had a big rock ready I dumped this 4' dia rock into the back of the cat truck from 15' above the bed. His head hit the ceiling hard I told him to take the rock behind the stock pile and dump it in the rock pile. Then the boss calls me and ask why I sent him to the top of the stockpile with a rock. He came back and parked way out again. I started screaming at him on the radio and the boss sent him to work with the other hoe.

Right after I got out of HS I moved up to the Michigan's UP. I was snowmobiling out to the woods and cutting cedar poles. I tramped the snow down around the trunks and was cutting them a foot or two below the top of the snow and dragging them out with the sled. The next summer I was going by looked at the stumps with a big what the on my face. The stumps were sticking up four or five feet.


I did a little logging last year. I wanted to build a entry way for our camper that I could put a wood stove in. I had a lot of fun cutting hauling the wood out.

Billy

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Hey Billy, Britton is a long ways from the UP, but those pictures surely say UP. Where is you land up there?

 

[Cowboy Billy]

Howdy Dennis

You called that right! I am in the eastern UP. I am 10 miles north of Cedarville which is about halfway between I-75 Drummond Island. Its 350 miles one way from where I live. I would move up there if I could get a job that would pay my bills. My Dad Brother and I have a 120 acres and it adjoins my Uncles 240 and Cousins 80.

Billy

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Billy, that looks very typical of the land near Cedarville. It sounds as if you are blessed with much land between you and the relatives. That makes it very nice indeed. I know what you mean about the job that pays bills. They are not too numerous in the U.P., but you have to admit, it surely is God's country!

btw, we used to live near Gladstone and Escanaba. We've also lived near Gaylord, so we know a bit about the north country.

 

[Cowboy Billy]

Thats great Dennis. I have only been up to Escanaba once snowmobiling and it was very beautiful and scenic there. Gaylord is our fuel and food stop on the way up. I can rember 25 years ago as a kid coming up to Gaylord and all you would see was the mobil or marathon sign up on that tall tower. There is so much traffic there now its hard to get on and off and we are using the 279 exit more and more.

Billy