[mitchmaine]

@mitchmaine 29882 wrote:

Hey john, I wonder if the two are so far apart. The way I’m seeing it, if you try and live sustainably, meaning grow and eat your own food and cut your own fuel, feed your animals and try and keep it whole, the land demands taxes, and the family starts needing insurance and so on so that you need to go outside the system for cash. Work out there, or sell what the farms produces, but there goes the model and we’ve broke a hole in sustainability. We can live as simply as we can at home surrounded by the system that demand fuel of its own, sweat, money or whatever. Geoffs right that 7 billion people create a lot of demand on the system. Don’t know where the breaking point is but it must be close. If 7 billion people were all active in agriculture just trying to feed themselves and their neighbors and oil and manufacturing and capitalism wasn’t part of the story, it still would be a tough chance.

Carl said that ben and jerry were right up front with their business model. Take your money. You have to give them credit for being honest and upfront. Nothing in there about being ecologically aware or enviornmentally friendly. Or even making good ice cream. Show me the money. My dad always said thieves were the most honest of citizens. Stick a knife between your ribs and “its your money or your life”. That’s pretty straightforward. No sugarcoating. Two clear options. A lawyer or an insurance agent or a used car salesman (no difference) would have all kinds of gimmicks and legaleeze in there to confuse you and get your money. Nope. I like the theif too.

I think it was carl again who said something about our culture and not knowing how to make stuff, and I agree, but we, as a culture have also somehow given up the decision making process. We rely on others to tell us what to eat and think and blah, blah blah. That’s why sustainability and organics and green and the rest have any credibility. Its like the emperors new cloths. He ain’t wearing nothing.

mitch

The disclaimer:
Nothin’ against car salesmen or insurance agents, my apologies, in fact we all have to worry about getting’ sucked in by the same system and ending up just like ‘em not that there is anything wrong with it.
Everytime we, organic farmers, timberframers, holistic woodchoppers, whoever, start using the same rhetoric. Fancy slogans, fuzzy cuddly adjectives, other parts of speech that try and make our product intellectually superior to our neighbors, then we barking up the same tree and becoming part of the problem. Selling local, where your neighbor knows where you live and letting your work speak for itself with no explanation is the way I see being as honest as you can.

[mitchmaine]

Hey john, I wonder if the two are so far apart. The way I’m seeing it, if you try and live sustainably, meaning grow and eat your own food and cut your own fuel, feed your animals and try and keep it whole, the land demands taxes, and the family starts needing insurance and so on so that you need to go outside the system for cash. Work out there, or sell what the farms produces, but there goes the model and we’ve broke a hole in sustainability. We can live as simply as we can at home surrounded by the system that demand fuel of its own, sweat, money or whatever. Geoffs right that 7 billion people create a lot of demand on the system. Don’t know where the breaking point is but it must be close. If 7 billion people were all active in agriculture just trying to feed themselves and their neighbors and oil and manufacturing and capitalism wasn’t part of the story, it still would be a tough chance.

Carl said that ben and jerry were right up front with their business model. Take your money. You have to give them credit for being honest and upfront. Nothing in there about being ecologically aware or enviornmentally friendly. Or even making good ice cream. Show me the money. My dad always said thieves were the most honest of citizens. Stick a knife between your ribs and “its your money or your life”. That’s pretty straightforward. No sugarcoating. Two clear options. A lawyer or an insurance agent or a used car salesman (no difference) would have all kinds of gimmicks and legaleeze in there to confuse you and get your money. Nope. I like the theif too.

I think it was carl again who said something about our culture and not knowing how to make stuff, and I agree, but we, as a culture have also somehow given up the decision making process. We rely on others to tell us what to eat and think and blah, blah blah. That’s why sustainability and organics and green and the rest have any credibility. Its like the emperors new cloths. He ain’t wearing nothing.

mitch

[mitchmaine]

@jac 29778 wrote:

Mitch we had this “help the neighbour” mentality over here till very recently.. well in the last 20 years at least.. I remember grandfather and one of my uncles being away most of the summer clipping sheep round the area and then for a day they all decended on our farm to clip our sheep.. hay time saw a gang of retired miners round the table.. these were very much a social event and some great times were had.. that seems to have died out with that generation.. John

had to be the food, john. feed them good and lots and people smile and laugh easier. baked beans and a good lemon meringue pie will keep ’em coming back.

[mitchmaine]

Boys tom, good question.this could be a thread all by itself. I wasn’t going to add any more to this thread cuase I thought I’d shot my mouth off enough on the subject, but……now that you ask……….theres probably dozens of folk, myself included, who’d like to help miles move that schoolhouse, but our community is spread out over the globe. Pretty tough task, getting us together. Then, there must be dozens of teamsters and drovers within thirty miles of miles who’d be happy to get involved. What then?
This new England independent attitude might be a cover-up. 150 years ago, before the crane and excavator, the only way to move that schoolhouse was with your neighbors help. Lots of neighbors. And you couldn’t possibly afford to hire them all. Unless, they all came for nothing to help you out, knowing if they didn’t when it came time to move their own building they’d need your help too. Those people depended on each other for everything. Before the mowing machine, teams of men worked across the neighborhood mowing each others fields, bringing hay together, cause they couldn’t do it alone. Most jobs required lots of men and that was that. We have island people up here in maine. Not the ones that come for the summer, but the fishing families that spend the winter with six or ten other families on a rock out in the north atlantic. Inspite of helicopters and cell phones when the wind is out of the no’theast for three or four days straight with 60 mile winds(jim ostergard back me up on this one) you are on your own. The only thing they have is a boat hanging on by twelve thread to a engine block on the sea bottom. And each other. Their lives depend on each other, really. You can’t dwell on the idea too long cause itll drive you nuts but its there in the back of your mind all the time and they are pretty close, so they take it out on the next island over and its them against us. the rest of us don’t think that way cause we don’t have to. Life is easy and we can rent a crew to move our school house for us if we have too. We may actually have too many options. Anyway, your turn. What do you think?

[mitchmaine]

@Baystatetom 29765 wrote:

If I had to speculate I would say that we New Englanders held onto our oxen long after the rest of the country switched to horses for two reasons. One being we are “thrifty” and the other resistant to change. I bet the reason oxen are in the pictures is because anybody thrifty enough to move a building over onto their property is also thrifty enough to refuse to buy horses.
Oxen are also known to be slow and steady, which might be a asset in a project like this. I would also assume not many people moved enough buildings to become expert at it. Probably everybody who tried it had their own ideas and techniques.
I remember when they moved that bridge in Mass. I think it took at least a weekend and they only moved it off the brook and onto solid ground. Sounds like a great project though, should be fun.
~Tom

hey tom, i agree with your assessment of most new englanders. however, one point sticks, and i think, like timberframing, even if the locals cut their own frame, when it came time to lift the bents, someone was in charge who knew nwhat they were doing.
each drover was in charge of his team, but someone was there to run the show who knew what he was doing and was respected by all concerned or it just wouldn’t happen. those guys all had to be on the same page. the book i’m reading tells of oxen “rigging” being simpler in respect to harness and better suited to moving boats, buildings, mast pine and so on. even so, teamsters were lost under the load and i just read about tearing up a floor in a building to remove the body of a teamster crushed in the process. tricky bussiness.

[mitchmaine]

i was wondering about the oxen myself, and wondered if it might be the way they start a load. especially with eight or ten yokes hooked to a long chain, a steady strain would be better than that snap that horses can make. maybe they just used what was handy.
about the schoolhouse, i would worry about a 15 ton load on wheels hooked behind the animals getting away. we moved a 34 by 38 foot barn a few years ago that probably outweighed the schoolhouse. it took two 40 foot flatbeds side by side to carry it hooked to a skidder with a 353 detroit in it and on the slightest grade, soil to boot, it slowly pushed the skidder, brakes on, til the ground smoothed out. you will probably know if you have enough animals long before you hit the road, but i’d ere on the side of too many animals than just enough.

[mitchmaine]

i think what you are saying is right. on a circular saw blade, the face of the tooth is what you file, outwards to the long point. the top of the tooth does the cutting.
in a true or proper job of filing, the blade ought to be joined by passing a file or stone over the tops of all the teeth while someone slowly turns the arbor. that makes all the teeth true to length. then hammered and set, and finally filed. but a cordwood saw takes such abuse and no one cares about the cut unless its dull. most people just file the teeth.
joining and setting keeps the saw running true and not binding in the cut.
when its done right, the saw sucks itself through the wood, and you know its sharp. two sticks later and you hit a stone wedged under the bark and you cut the rest of the pile with a dull saw. or thats the way it always works for me.

[mitchmaine]

hey farmallb, all saws should have set in them meaning each consecutive tooth sticks out to the opposite side. the cordwood saw or crosscut saw has a ten degree bevel so that the outside of the tooth is the long point and brings the chip back into the tooth gullet to spit it out when it comes out of the wood. the rip saw like a sawmill is flat across the face like holding a chisel square to the grain nand pushing on it. your chainsaw is basically a crosscut saw and each other tooth is filed to the outside with the long point out and a slight rise to the point and bevel. crosscut goes against the grain of the wood so you have to cut at an angle, where ripping is with the grain and you cut square to the grain. hope that isn’t to confusing, i’m a picture guy, not a word guy.

[mitchmaine]

hey tim, nice team. nice work. you mentioned before yarding wood on a stoneboat. looks like it goes well.
mitch

[mitchmaine]

hey all, moving a building must have been a big event around here, cause the maine archives are full of photos of old timers moving their buildings. seems that in the mid to late 1880’s folks just abandoned their farms up here in great numbers and the neighbors after a respectful time just hooked on and took the buildings over to their place. according to the pictures, winter seemed to be the time of choice, frozen ground and snow, and oxen were the animal of choice. don’t know why but its not for lack of horses. the photos are full of teams looking on, and occasionally a lead team might be horses. all the photos had LOTS of animal. thirty or forty teams hooked in equal numbers to peeled hemlock trees laid under the buildings as skids. take lots of pictures for the future. best of luck, mitch

[mitchmaine]

stoneboats great, george. i have a box screwed down on top with an ax and a peavey, two saws, gas and oil, a pail with a scrench, file wedges and a hammer in it and a bale of hay. i hang a pulphook on the hames to carry a saw or gas into the woods and leave the rest in the yard. works for me.
murphys law: where ever you are, some tool ain’t. forgotten twitch chain or something. i leave alot of stuff in the woods under a brushpiloe, if i can remember which brushpile it is.
no new ideas. i like a stoneboat pretty much.
mitch

[mitchmaine]

i have a set of beta singles for my twitch horse and i like them fine. they are getting beat up pretty fast so i don’t see them lasting as long as the leather but like you say the price is right. my new lines are here, but i’m still playing with this rope. first time out, their heads were jambed in close and the cross lines needed letting out, i had tied in the cross lines with a sheet bend so it took seconds to adjust and all was well. that i like. and a figure eight knot in the line ends make a great stop against your hands while driving. i can already see frozen lines won’t work at all, and the rope soaks up the water. wet rope is ok to handle, better than leather or beta for me. the only problem seems to be the neighbor. he saw the rope and asked if times were getting tough? thought it looked like a skunk farm. man.

[mitchmaine]

hey john, maybe you could steal a pitman with the wrist pin and flywheel off an old mower. then drive the flywheel with your belts. the flywheel would add some heft and get you through some heavier grass you might not have too, and maybe reduce the need for so much hp. those old 8n fords were around 23hp. and most of the power was invested in moving tghe machine and powering a hydraulic pump fpr the lift arms. you could put an idler pulley on the belts for the clutch mech. and tighten it with a foot pedal. a deadman, so if you had to jump off the machine for something the mower would just stop on its own. i like donns idea about a dedicated hitch cart especially if the motor has to be so big and expensive. good idea and best wishes with your progress with it. keep in touch and let us know how its going.
mitch

[mitchmaine]

thanks for the news story, tim. leave it to the liberal media to gloss over the story and make everything warm and cozy.i don’t know where she came from, tom. but she’s like everyone else who ever blew in here from somewhere else, complete with a plan to change something and save us all from disaster. roxanne has a long history up here with her midas touch. everything she touches turns to crap.

[mitchmaine]

we have a group “somewhere” called friends of the maine woods. if you don’t agree with them i guess that makes you an enemy of the maine woods. regardless, the wealthy “berts bees” lady just bought 70000 acres of woodland to the north and east. its private property and she can say and do what she pleases with it. and that means no logging, no hunting or fishing, no four wheels or snow machines. ok, but now she and her group wants the feds to create a national park with it at a maintenance cost of about $40000. per year to all of us.
the logic is millions of people will come visit her mosquito infested bog and leave money for the locals.
the only thing people do up there is cut wood. hunt and fish. and snowmobile. and it makes them a living. she wants to put them all out of work, so who cares? a bunch people from away, far away, who think they are doing the right thing by saving this land from what? trust me, its not threatened. but there you go. a little money, and some nice pictures, and we have a national shrine to some wealthy woman who likes going around telling others how they should live. share some of the money with them, that might help rightoff.

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