Saturday's Harvest

I snuffed 4 trees on Saturday, a couple which were forked at the stump. This yeilded 7-17' timbers, 4-12' timbers, and a large diameter 8' trunk. A couple of the trees were doty in the bottom 6-8', this was caused by limbs decaying and funneling water into the trunk. The doty sections were cut into ~20" bolts to be split later and rived into roofing shakes with a froe. On Sunday the timbers were bucked to 17' lengths (my mill's maximum for now) , the remainders were cut into 12' and leftovers became fence posts.

Farmall A

I spent a couple of the wet weeks in January repairing and painting my 1944 International Harvester Farmall A tractor. My grandfather traded a pair of stout trained mules for a Farmall B sometime in the 40's, after which he said "I'd rather have my damn mules back". I think I prefer the A over smelling mule farts, but I don't log in the same conditions that he did (mountain sides), nor farm near as many acres. I replaced a front wheel bearing, filed the flywheel teeth, rebuilt the starter, replaced brake bands, changed lots of seals, full rewiring, stripped and cleaned the radiator, and repainted the entire tractor. I also built a custom seat to replace the springless aftermarket seat. My dad helped me throughout the entire process, making everything go much faster. I should have taken a before picture, but I always seem to forget that step.

Japanese Carpenter Toolboxes

These are some of the few things I have made out of my lumber. This was some of the wood I milled during the fall. I think this was actually the tree I got subcutaneous anthrax from(I am a statistic now).A lesson was learned there, don't log in short sleeves. Brier cuts and dirt sum up to nasty infections. I made these when it was too soggy to log and mill. These are nothing fancy, just something to get a little better organized. The big toolbox is for hand saws(nokogiri) and is based of Toshio Odate's drawings from his book and measures 36"Lx7.5"Hx10.25W outside dimensions. The chisel(nomi) box has dividers glued in it, it measures 24"Lx1.5"Hx10.25"w. They are fastened together with nails. Both are made from Eastern Red Juniper and finished with linseed oil. I plan to make another toolbox just for my planes (kanna).