[AT] Dragging tail - (was) Tractor pictures.

[Indiana Robinson]

Indiana Robinson wrote:

> 
> 
> 	Hi Gene:
> 
> 	I really hated missing Cubfest... I need to just get away and that 
> would have been a great one. Things are pretty hectic here at the 
> moment. I'm working on the last of the closing of my Mothers estate, 
> trying to bale hay between rains (not much luck at that lately) and 
> dealing with the tornado stuff over in Rush County (Moscow Indiana). 
> Diana said Saturday that she could probably close her eyes and drive 
> over there (I won't let her). I will be supervising a 6 man chainsaw 
> crew from the prison at New Castle Indiana there tomorrow all day. I 
> have to get my part of the river cleaned up before the DNR has a cow and 
> does it and bills me for it. One of the county commissioners I know in 
> Rush County said that they (the county) got crosswise of the DNR on a 
> river project one time and it was hell...
> 	I have hundreds of trees down over about 4 to 6 acres, almost all down 
> in the flood plane. DNR doesn't want them washing down river and making 
> a log jam. We will mostly de-limb and drag the logs upstream to slightly 
> higher ground and burn the brush tomorrow. I have made a deal with my 
> renter there who does a little construction on the side for him to cut 
> the firewood and we each get half of it. A load for me, a load for him, 
> a load for me, a load for him and so on. He will be selling all of his 
> except for a little campfire wood. I will probably sell 2/3rds of mine.
> 	Maybe next year again on Cubfest...
> Take care.
> 
========================================




	I'm getting too old for this stuff... I must have said that to myself a 
thousand times over the last two days.   :-)   Most of my property there 
is on the south-west side of the river and I haven't even been on the 
north east-side. The outfit removing the remains of the old bridge has 
been clearing the trees, limbs and other crap on that side with another 
department of corrections crew. While it was a densely tree lined river 
bank there the tornado left it mostly bare ground then dropped a bunch 
of rubble on it.
	When I got there Tuesday morning I was handed control of 8 DOC workers 
with chainsaws, 4 men from the contractors crew, a Gehl mini-excavator 
with a "grab thumb" bucket and a back-fill blade and a Gehl tracked skid 
steer with a rake and claw bucket. The contractor's guys spent their 
time running the machines and rotating on and off with the chainsaws and 
carrying brush to the fires. Yesterday they brought in another tracked 
skid loader.
	The main damage is over about 6 or 7 acres of river valley with an old 
mill-race and a couple of small secondary small river channels, most of 
which is about as much rocks as dirt. Plenty of dense under-story of 
briars and brambles, weeds (mostly stinging nettle) and old decaying 
rubble typical of a normally wet forest area. Add to that several layers 
of down trees (in full leaf) some twisted off of their stumps, some 
broken over and some attached to a tipped over root ball. All of them 
were laying in different directions and virtually woven together. In one 
particularly nasty place they were piled about 8 feet deep.
	I  started by having them clear an area along an old lane that ran 
along some slightly higher ground and which was not too deep in rubble 
and that became the staging area and where we piled the hundreds of 
cleaned logs and poles to be dealt with later.
	The department of corrections crew have been a real pleasure to work 
with. They have worked very hard, been super polite and worked very 
carefully watching out for each other and everybody else on the site 
including the contractor's about 8 year old son. In two days I have yet 
to hear the first harsh word out of them. They have a very pleasant 
jovial relationship with the guards. Even one of the guards put on 
gloves and helped move some old twisted sheet metal roofing.   :-)
	While I was "in charge" I carried a lot of smaller limbs and stoked 
fires. Just walking around the site can be a lot of work climbing over 
stuff, wading mud and crossing the small channels. I saw several common 
water snakes and one copperhead, all pretty small. I'm not sure what 
chewed several hundred holes in my lower legs but is must not have been 
chiggers since they do not itch. The stuff is really green so burning is 
a chore. The contractor was kidding the prisoners that none of them 
could have been arsonist since they were so bad at starting fires.   :-)
	We will have my part done by tonight and then some other work will be 
done to help some of the folks with hard to access tree damage. About 
all of the main stuff in the village itself was cleared in the first few 
days. Next they will work on the next property down river to get the 
stuff that could wash down river. They have to pull the remains of 2 
houses out of there. The churches in the area have been serving 2 meals 
a day at the local church for the workers and about anybody else that 
walks in. You can work hard and still gain weight.
	I won't plan to take an old tractor over there to work until things 
quiet down a little bit. The residents are about to go nuts from all of 
the goings-on and all of the people that just come to look. They just 
drive into town and pull into any body's yard any place and get out an 
start taking pictures. When they get back into the car they just drive 
out of the yard any direction they feel like. It has been unbelievable...
	This weekend is the covered bridge festival which is held on a lot 
between the town and the cemetery. The town does not really put on the 
festival, that is done mostly by people in the community but almost none 
of them live in the town itself. There are some hard feelings over 
having it this year. Many in town just want things to stay quiet and 
just grit their teeth and wait for the thing to be over so they can have 
their quiet village back. Their nerves are pretty frayed already this 
year, I hope nobody gets stomped...   :-)
	I understand that they are having an old tractor parade around town 
this year but out of respect for friends there I will leave mine at 
home. I don't think I would have the energy to load and haul it anyway.




-- 


"farmer"


I don't mind being absent minded so bad if forgetfulness
could just be a little more selective. Just last week I
was saying so to "whats-her-name..."



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Francis Robinson
Central Indiana, USA
robinson at svs.net