Scrounging Firewood (and other stuff)

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I love my little MMWS 261 Ver II saw with 18" 3/8 square filed. It punches well above it's weight. I'll often pull it out for limbing, then end up using it for much more!

Running a MMWS 261 Ver II saw would have to be up there with 'heating your home with firewood' in the list of life's little pleasures! Not that I've ever run a MMWS 261 Ver II :)
 
Well, what goes around comes around. A couple who we have discounted our services to over the last couple of years own a dairy farm locally. The Khyber Pass fell out of the dairy industry a couple of years ago and they were under a bit of pressure. Things have picked up a bit now, I think. Anyway, they invited Cowlad around to have a play on the farm with the cows, dogs and 4-wheelers and me around for some scrounging! In her words, there are plenty of trees to clean up. I wasn't sure what that meant, if it meant it was a big mess or were on the side of a hill you'd need to be a mountain goat to traverse. So I went out (the farm is less than 10 minutes away) with Cowlad, the saws and trailer and found out that the trees mentioned were dead standing peppermints that had been pushed over with an excavator and dragged into the open. Score! So she says, "How about you take these ones here...

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...and leave those ones over there for us".

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Beauty, I sez. All dead peppermints, my favourite of the local species. She refused all offers of mine to cut up some of the other wood for them.

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There were also a few burn piles about which had up to 12 inch stems in them and she was happy for me to pick those over too. With the monkey saw in saw hospital at the moment I figured they could wait for another time and got stuck into the trunks earmarked for me with Limby and the workhorse. More to come...

:)
 
Running a MMWS 261 Ver II saw would have to be up there with 'heating your home with firewood' in the list of life's little pleasures! Not that I've ever run a MMWS 261 Ver II :)

I'm rather content with a version I with the muffler opened up, so yeah, the later version being worked over would be rather enjoyable. I have yet to try square file, have too many chains to buy any more.
 
Here's another shot of some of the logs allocated to me this morning.

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So I got stuck in with the 460.

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Down the other end, the 661 was the weapon of choice.

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I had to get going to get to work on time so I loaded up some of the bigger rounds. They were a bit oval shaped, about 20 inches the thin way and 26 inches the fat way.

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The best bit (or bits, actually) was that part way through, the farmer's wife and Cowlad drive up in the 4-wheeler. Cowlad had a 'Special Sentient Sammich' wrapped in foil for me for morning smoko. It is apparently a creation from Cartoon Network, a sammich with an egg whisked with cheese then fried with lashings of tomato sauce/ketchup then stuck in bread. Yum, yum. The other best bit is that the farmer's wife said that her husband said I could take the other trees as well, "Go your hardest". You know, those ones over there...

4th Apr 3.jpg

Score again! I know they look a bit straggly but they're great burning firewood and very pretty in the firebox with good coals and very little ash. The view from where I was working isn't bad either. Those mountains will be snow covered in a few months. I got another 3 or so cubes cut today to take home another time in addition to what's in the trailer and there's some more in these logs before I get started over there. All up, there's a full season's wood right there.

I'm going to make sure I leave this area looking like an Augusta fairway so I get invited back next year.

:)
 
Score indeed!

Sandwich sounds good. I've been eating more eggs recently, my 2yo loves 'ping egg', a scrambled egg done in a mug in the microwave, 60 seconds of brrrrrrrrr, then ping, done. Or occasionally 58 seconds of brrrrrrrrr then pop! Oh sh**!, ping.

Good photos and scenery, I look forward to yours and Dan's the most, and always feel photos of a suburban London garden with a pile of logs doesn't quite match it somehow!
 
It's been a quite the year for me. Feels like Mr Murphy (not you Bill, the other one LOL) has been right behind me at every turn. Been out of town for several weeks longer than expected (not all bad since I am south where it is 74 today and the north is still getting pummeled with snow as we speak) but I am really ready to get back home now.

To cut to the chase: my grandpa had a really nice Super EZ that my I let my cousin take after grandpa passed as I already had a few saws. That was back in the spring of 02' when we were cleaning out grandpa's stuff. I had reached out to my cousin a couple years ago to see if he wanted to sell it and he never answered me. I had asked my aunt (who I have an arms length relationship with after she raided my grandparent's house for all of the good stuff) about him and she and my other cousin just said that he didn't really talk to anyone any more.

On Sunday I get a text out of the blue wishing me a happy Easter from this cousin who i haven't seen since my grandma's funeral back in 2006. We went back and forth catching up and after a while I asked him about the saw. He said he has never ran it since he took it home and as soon as he can find it in his storage unit he will give it to me. So not holding my breath to see the saw anytime soon but it was great to reconnect as we were pretty close back before my grandparents died. I guess he doesn't have much contact with my aunt either which is not a huge surprise as she can be quite overbearing and has had her share of issues.
When my Father-in-law passed away I tried to stay out of the I want this, I want that game. Kind of took the leftovers. Had to talk my brother-in-law into keeping his dad's 20 gauge shotgun. Nothing special about it other than it was his fathers and I thought he should have it. Probably has never shot it.
 
Just Jeff, I just got home from Orillia. Was a pretty tough ride, white outs a lot of the way. I went Stayner way because of the 50 car pileup on the 400 in Barrie. I took Horseshoe Valley Road, they closed 26 from Barrie to the Valley road. There was about 20 cars piled up at the lights, 3 ambulances and cops everywhere. 10 more cars on the curve just before it. Was at least 10 more accidents with multiples from there to Stayner. Last one was right at the fertilizer plant corner. I just drove slow and in 4x4 and pulled over when I had lots of room.
No wood cutting here for awhile. I do have 200 logs piled up but too many other things need done anyway.
 
We had a weird winter, very cold and some snow early, then warm in the middle, then moderate cold and several snows late in the season.

Lots of power outages, etc. Ironically, many of the Westchester repair crews were in Puerto Rico, so there were crews from Canada and other States fixing the service in Westchester!

Some folks w/o power for a week were mad the Gov had done a helicopter fly over in PR, but not in his own State!
 
We had a weird winter, very cold and some snow early, then warm in the middle, then moderate cold and several snows late in the season.

Lots of power outages, etc. Ironically, many of the Westchester repair crews were in Puerto Rico, so there were crews from Canada and other States fixing the service in Westchester!

Some folks w/o power for a week were mad the Gov had done a helicopter fly over in PR, but not in his own State!
Well, consider the mindset of comrade governor....
 
No pictures but I took a few trees down in town today, had to rent a lift, trimmed a few up close to houses as well. One nice american elm that lost it's bark a couple years ago, some of it's iffy but I still got a solid cord and a half I think. Cut down a small ash tree, and have one more to cut tomorrow.

We just got a few inches of snow on Monday, and then it dropped down to 8 degrees F over night so the ground was hard enough to work on, looks like more on Sunday but I rented the lift for a whole week so I'll be using it unless it's straight nasty out.

No need to buy any more, you can easily convert any full chisel chain to square file, I do it all the time.

I think this is probably the third time you've told me this, I usually look at the files to do so, then say no, you'll **** it up. I keep thinking I'll order a couple loops to see if I can do it by hand. Then again, I could find someone with a square grinder and send all my chisel chains to them, then I should still have two loops of semi for each bar size. I bet the 661 would love a 28" loop of square chisel and an 8 tooth sprocket.
 

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