Scrounging Firewood (and other stuff)

[svk]

I moved to a low tax area ... in the late 70s I purchased a 2-bedroom house in Brewster and my total RE tax bill was only $660 / year, and the schools were good, and the snow got plowed.

Now, I live 2 blocks away in a 3-bedroom house and my total RE taxes are $12,000 per year and half the HS does not speak English!

We fought some tax increases and won ... but this happened anyway! Very frustrating. I built this house and don't want to move, and my business and some family members are nearby, it is a real dilemma. When you spend over 40 years building a business, it is tough to just pull up routs and leave, and my upstate cabin, etc. (I became a tax prepared, on my own, in 1980. I worked in my Dad's office [helping with the tax preparation] since I was 14). At least NYS does not tax my pension or Social Security.

You guys in NY are absolutely RAPED with school taxes. After having kids in public school in NY, FL, and MN over the years I certainly cannot determine what all of the extra NYS school tax dollars are used for.

 

[snobdds]

I moved to a low tax area ... in the late 70s I purchased a 2-bedroom house in Brewster and my total RE tax bill was only $660 / year, and the schools were good, and the snow got plowed.

Now, I live 2 blocks away in a 3-bedroom house and my total RE taxes are $12,000 per year and half the HS does not speak English!

We fought some tax increases and won ... but this happened anyway! Very frustrating. I built this house and don't want to move, and my business and some family members are nearby, it is a real dilemma. When you spend over 40 years building a business, it is tough to just pull up routs and leave, and my upstate cabin, etc. (I became a tax prepared, on my own, in 1980. I worked in my Dad's office [helping with the tax preparation] since I was 14). At least NYS does not tax my pension or Social Security.

Having a cabin in the middle of a national forest has been an eye opener for me. The Forest service built out entire road systems (bridges, culverts etc.) in the 50-70's and did it all with a much smaller tax base than today.

Today the Forest service can barely keep up with replacing deteriorating signage. The roads all have trees growing in the ditches causing water to flow over the roads and leaving them in horrible shape.

I don't know where it all went awry. But even with 10x the money, they get less done today.

 

[GrizG]

I moved to a low tax area ... in the late 70s I purchased a 2-bedroom house in Brewster and my total RE tax bill was only $660 / year, and the schools were good, and the snow got plowed.

Now, I live 2 blocks away in a 3-bedroom house and my total RE taxes are $12,000 per year and half the HS does not speak English!

We fought some tax increases and won ... but this happened anyway! Very frustrating. I built this house and don't want to move, and my business and some family members are nearby, it is a real dilemma. When you spend over 40 years building a business, it is tough to just pull up routs and leave, and my upstate cabin, etc. (I became a tax prepared, on my own, in 1980. I worked in my Dad's office [helping with the tax preparation] since I was 14). At least NYS does not tax my pension or Social Security.

Having deep roots in an area makes overcoming the “at rest” part of inertia an issue too. My mother’s side has pre-revolutionary roots… 80+ years on my father’s side. Also have grand sons here now. Giving up all the local personal, business, and political relationships present large opportunity costs to my leaving the area.

 

[GrizG]

You guys in NY are absolutely RAPED with school taxes. After having kids in public school in NY, FL, and MN over the years I certainly cannot determine what all of the extra NYS school tax dollars are used for.

You and me both… the school boards have never impressed me. In my teens my long time girlfriend’s mother was on the school board. When they had meetings it was followed by a night of drinking. One day she came home from school and found her mother in bed with a guy from the school board. The guy was also a detective… he got fired and sued for beating a suspect during an interrogation.

Some years later a guy from my neighborhood was the board president. I was tempted to publicly ask how he lost his finger… His father and Uncle were judges, He and his brother ran with a bunch of untouchable trouble makers. If anyone complained about those kids they retaliated. For example, they shot BBs into every window pane on a complainer’s house. Another time they used pruning shears, loppers, and manual hedge clippers to cut down someone’s landscaping (and a finger). They shot someone’s dog with a .22…

These are some of the fine people running our schools. Knowing the history is another pitfall of deep roots.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

It's not cutting perfectly straight, I don't know if I'll try to dial it in or not. It's close dimensionaly, I can see a rise in the middle though.

View attachment 1227016

Check the distance from the back of the blade to EACH bunk, and shim as needed to get them all the same.

SR

 

[mountainguyed67]

Having a cabin in the middle of a national forest has been an eye opener for me. The Forest service built out entire road systems (bridges, culverts etc.) in the 50-70's and did it all with a much smaller tax base than today.

Today the Forest service can barely keep up with replacing deteriorating signage. The roads all have trees growing in the ditches causing water to flow over the roads and leaving them in horrible shape.

I don't know where it all went awry. But even with 10x the money, they get less done today.

Our Forest engineer is so good at getting projects through the red tape, that they call him when funding pops up, but with a very short window to get it approved. They know that other Forests can't have a project ready for approval that fast. There's a whole lot getting done on our Forest because of it. They brushed, removed hazard trees, and paved the road our place in the mountains is on, last summer.

 

[snobdds]

Our Forest engineer is so good at getting projects through the red tape, that they call him when funding pops up, but with a very short window to get it approved. They know that other Forests can't have a project ready for approval that fast. There's a whole lot getting done on our Forest because of it. They brushed, removed hazard trees, and paved the road our place in the mountains is on, last summer.

View attachment 1227147

The forest supervisor always tells me, he's not going to throw money at maintaining a road for 10 people.

I always reply with the forest service motto: Caring for the land and serving people...therefore why can't you serve the people? He laughs and then does nothing.

 

[GrizzlyAdams86]

The county board here had a lot of the "good ol' boys (and girls)" cleaned over the last few years but the shenanigans have continued. After saying they were going to be more fiscally responsible all but 1 board member (and thankfully it was the one representing the ward I live in) voted to build a new $90-100 million courthouse with 6 jury trial courtrooms for a county that has 2-3 jury trials a year, and the county only has about $60 million in total funds. The residents in the county overwhelmingly said to either update/improve the existing courthouse or only build what we needed to build which the board took as build the biggest we could build, plus one of the remaining wishy-washy board members spilled the beans that by building this bigger courthouse the county was "hopeful that they could maybe bring 'extra revenue' to the county by having surrounding counties move their backlog of trials to our county courthouse" . On a sidenote the previous county board member for my ward was listing his business address as his "residency" (and keeping a bed in a closet to meet the law to show he "lives" there) and living at a house he owns in MN but claiming he only lived there on the weekends.

 

[MechanicMatt]

The forest supervisor always tells me, he's not going to throw money at maintaining a road for 10 people.

I always reply with the forest service motto: Caring for the land and serving people...therefore why can't you serve the people? He laughs and then does nothing.

Yeah, that reminds me of when I was a kid and told a fine officer if the law he is supposed to “Serve and Protect” and he was doing neither. Got my first backseat ride for that one….

Thank God I met my wife and finally grew up

 

[mountainguyed67]

It's not cutting perfectly straight, I don't know if I'll try to dial it in or not. It's close dimensionaly, I can see a rise in the middle though.

View attachment 1227016

Still need to mill the stickers, I'm gonna stack wood on the 6x6s.

 

[JimR]

Having a cabin in the middle of a national forest has been an eye opener for me. The Forest service built out entire road systems (bridges, culverts etc.) in the 50-70's and did it all with a much smaller tax base than today.

Today the Forest service can barely keep up with replacing deteriorating signage. The roads all have trees growing in the ditches causing water to flow over the roads and leaving them in horrible shape.

I don't know where it all went awry. But even with 10x the money, they get less done today.

Maybe it is the help and not a money issue.

 

[JimR]

Over the weekend I threw a belt on my Valby chipper. The other 3 rolled over
I was like WTF happened. Upon much closer inspection I found that my upper drive pulley was 1/2 a belt width off from the lower driven pulley. I loosened the upper shaft to try and move it.
Nope, it is not movable. I loosened the lower bearings to try and move that shaft. Nope, it is not movable. I fixed the belts to run right and finished the chipping that I needed to do. Monday I moved the bucked up wood over to my woodpile and decided to put a straight edge on the chipper pulleys. I found the the base plate for the upper pulley somehow got bent downwards on the tractor side which caused the lower part of the pulley to run out of whack. I found a way to fix that using two hydraulic bottle jacks. First I tried to remove the pto shapft and it is not moving. I soaked that for 2 days with PBBlaster. I ended up using my 4 ton hydraulic ram setup and a 4 lb sledge to get the pto shaft off. The shaft now slides on and off and the upper pulley runs true with the lower one. What a royal PITA this afternoon was. Here are the fun pictures. If that plate bends again i will weld in two upright brackets to keep it from moving. I picked up this great 3 foot pry bar at HF this morning for $20.

 

[mountainguyed67]

It's not cutting perfectly straight, I don't know if I'll try to dial it in or not. It's close dimensionaly, I can see a rise in the middle though.

View attachment 1227016

I still need to cut the stickers, I'm gonna use the 6x6s to stack the wood on. Still can get some more out of the mill ends ttoo. I might bring down another log for some more practice.

 

[mountainguyed67]

Check the distance from the back of the blade to EACH bunk, and shim as needed to get them all the same.

SR

Shim what? I only checked with the blade at one bunk. That's a good idea, I didn't think of doing more than one. The manual and videos don't say that either. I'm thinking if it has a rise in the middle, it's because the track has the same rise in it. Also I couldn't get the blade the same distance from the bunk, on both sides. I'm putting the saw head in a bind, trying to adjust it enough. Which suggests to me that the bunk isn't on the same plane as the tracks. The bottom board gained a quarter inch thickness from start to finish, setting each bunk should get rid of that. As it is I have an unusable last piece. On the others, the thickness is consistent.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

Shim what? I only checked with the blade at one bunk. That's a good idea, I didn't think of doing more than one. The manual and videos don't say that either. I'm thinking if it has a rise in the middle, it's because the track has the same rise in it. Also I couldn't get the blade the same distance from the bunk, on both sides. I'm putting the saw head in a bind, trying to adjust it enough. Which suggests to me that the bunk isn't on the same plane as the tracks. The bottom board gained a quarter inch thickness from start to finish, setting each bunk should get rid of that. As it is I have an unusable last piece. On the others, the thickness is consistent.

A stretched string will tell you if the track is straight.

IF you can't get the adjustment for the bunks where they bolt, maybe even by filing the bolt holes, you can shim under the stainless bunk covers to get it.

SR

 

[mountainguyed67]

A stretched string will tell you if the track is straight.

IF you can't get the adjustment for the bunks where they bolt, maybe even by filing the bolt holes, you can shim under the stainless bunk covers to get it.

SR

I did the string, maybe the weight of the log changed it.

 

[diver64]

I looked into NC but they have a personal property tax . My old cars just to register them would be a huge amount it’s based on book value of the vehicle . And you pay the property tax every year . The road use tax is 3% when you first register but that’s a one time fee

The tax issue is overblown. The book value on our vehicles is pretty low and the other taxes are not bad. It's a shell game. If you don't pay personnel taxes you are going to have that made up elsewhere. Our overall tax burden is less that it was up north by a substantial margin. Up until this year with the property reevaluation our property taxes on a 2 story house and garage on an acre were roughly the same as on out 300 square foot camp up north with no power or running water.

 

[SS396driver]

The tax issue is overblown. The book value on our vehicles is pretty low and the other taxes are not bad. It's a shell game. If you don't pay personnel taxes you are going to have that made up elsewhere. Our overall tax burden is less that it was up north by a substantial margin. Up until this year with the property reevaluation our property taxes on a 2 story house and garage on an acre were roughly the same as on out 300 square foot camp up north with no power or running water.

So what book do they use ? My Chevelle alone is valued at 60-70k and that’s a conservative value. Have 10 classic vehicles . Think it would outstrip my income tax up here .

 

[MustangMike]

The tax issue is overblown. The book value on our vehicles is pretty low and the other taxes are not bad. It's a shell game. If you don't pay personnel taxes you are going to have that made up elsewhere. Our overall tax burden is less that it was up north by a substantial margin. Up until this year with the property reevaluation our property taxes on a 2 story house and garage on an acre were roughly the same as on out 300 square foot camp up north with no power or running water.

I believe NC taxes government pensions, with a very small exclusion (unless it has changed). I believe NY and SC are much friendlier in that regard.

 

[djg james]

I still need to cut the stickers, I'm gonna use the 6x6s to stack the wood on. Still can get some more out of the mill ends ttoo. I might bring down another log for some more practice.
View attachment 1227234

Let me start off by saying, I don't own or ever operated a mill. But why do you have yours raised up so high? All I've seen (not many) are just above the ground. Obviously it works for you, just curious.