Stubborn as a mule

Well, after saying I was going to make things easier on myself in the woodcutting game, I decided to go back out to that Douglas-fir and get the 14-foot buttlog I left on the hill. After a relaxing one hour drive, I arrived and took my time. I limbed the top end of the log that was on the fill slope of the road and placed that in such a way that when I rolled the rounds, they would stop before flying over the road. I found out that resting after doing something your body isn't accustomed to is a great idea...because this time the big saw didn't seem so unwieldy. I then went up the hill and began bucking rounds...I'm thinking 10 to 12 came out of it. And they were HEAVY. I was kinda glad for the 3-foot bar, getting closer to the stump it was starting to come in handy.

Well, the sawing done I began the fun task of rolling rounds down the hill. Sure enough, they all went about 10 feet and all piled up together against a stump and under some alder. After that, it looked like a clear shot to the road. No sweat! I rolled the first round down and it went straight to the road, then veered away from my carefully placed log and went SAILING down the hill. I heard it crashing and bashing for quite awhile before it stopped. "No worries, it was bound to happen to at least one," I calmly told myself. The second one was on it's way down a couple seconds later and it too went over the road and joined it's brother down there.

Okay, after the fifth one did that I started to giggle. "What if they all go over the edge?" Best not to even think it. These rounds would get some more speed going down the cutslope and not even bat an eye at my piddly little "stopper" down there. EVERY ROUND BUT TWO went over the road and down the slope about 40 yards. Hmmm, all that work for nothing?


This is all that stopped at the road. The smaller rounds were from my "stopper."

Well, I decided to at least see how far the rounds went. Maybe some were close to the road and I could roll them up. Sure enough, I found four that weren't too far and did just that.

The only ones I could roll up. (There is one back there in the brush)

Hmmm, now what? A sane person would go look for another easy tree and just finish out the load that way. But I only had myself to consult with, and you all know how I am. I wanted that log! It was early yet, I wasn't tired, the temperature was perfect. "Maybe I'll go down there and see just how far they are." So, that's what I did. True to my prediction, most of them were 40 yards down the hill, but luckily were all grouped together. A terrific idea came into my head, so I went back up to the truck and got the maul. Yup, see where THIS is headed?

I really did it. I went down there and split up this wet, heavy wood into mostly halves. The "rind" on it was so wet that a maul hit would cause water to spray out of the impact site...just so you have an idea. Then the effort of hauling these half-rounds up the 30% slope was underway. I piled it all right under the fill slope so the second effort wouldn't be too far of a carry. By the time I was done I had one heck of a trail down the side of that mountain...all just from my boots and the weight I was carrying. After a good two hours of this, I had all the wood to the side of the road! I had saved my log and even picked up some of what went over the edge last weekend.


What I humped up the hill


Small load, big saw


Three+ hours for THAT?

The good news was that I was able to laugh at myself most of the day and I got a lot of exercise. And it's kinda funny, I went to work on Monday and told people this ridiculous story and most of the other woodcutters in the bunch all said, "oh yea, I've done that before." At least I'm not alone.
And, this is something I noticed a couple weeks ago. I see this dumpster a lot...I appreciate that people can recognize the message despite all the dumb stuff I tend to do. (nono, it's not about me and NO I did not write it. Seems to be some sort of juvenile judging by what's written on the inside of the dumpster.)

Odd graffiti

An email

This is an email I wrote to someone regarding the production of a map. The question was, "Can you estimate how long it takes to make a prototype of the ###? And is color acceptable now?"
I took out some of the specifics, but anyone who knows the agency will know what I'm talking about. I just think it's funny...

Hello-
Make sure you have the version of Arc that you want to have on your computer until you are done making the ###. So try to anticipate if you can deal with all the bugs that pester you daily for another five months or so. I would dedicate almost 8 hours to downloading the right tools, making sure your computer is compatible, and installing....both Arc9.3 if you don't have it already and all the PLTS , templates, and tools for ### production.

Then you get the data and begin with "production." You will probably go through some iterations of this and then just end up faking it. This means you run through the steps of grabbing the database data, joining it to your routes layer, and then seeing if it symbolizes correctly...convincing the appropriate people to change the database if it doesn't look right, then connecting it to the routes again. Repeat approximately 10 times. If you end up faking it because of a timeline, unsupportive personnel, or both (like me) the next time you download data out of the database, you will have to do all that manual "faking" all over again.

Alright, you've got your data and you *faked* with it enough so it's symbolizing the way you want. Now you try to figure out which template to use. You will likely try them all and probably follow the production guide, which will lead you to templates you hate, some that ~may~ work, and some that you like but no one else does. You'll find that using MPS Atlas is a pain in the butt and wonder if it would just be easier to use two .mxds. which you most likely will end up doing if you're anything like me. You'll check the website and look through what other people are doing. Finally a light will shine down from the sky, you'll get really excited, and begin working immediately to make your dream a reality. That's the 8 hours when things make sense.

So then you're editing the routes physically to cut out unnecessary roads (connectors, county, private, etc) or to add roads (connectors, county, private, etc). That's followed by autolabeling using Maplex (using the production guide to figure out the nationally mandated size, font, color, etc) and then converting to annotation. The fun work begins now...you get to move each road and trail label by hand! (Don't worry, they come across feature-linked so generally they follow the road/trail...generally. When they become UN-feature-linked and you try to point it to the correct road/trail it will follow a section line, or a river, or something entirely wrong.) You play with the grids, dislike how they make the map look, then take them off. You’ll find out you aren't supposed to remove them so have to re-create them...but then your District also wants township and range on there, so you make that work by hand-editing. You add landmarks that will aid in navigation, again manipulating that by hand…and changing that based on what 10 other people think are important landmarks. Then you must make another layer of trailheads, information sites, and campgrounds...then spend a couple hours trying to find the right symbology within hundreds of sub-symbol types to match the production guide. (Don't invert white for black, no matter how much it makes sense....they will tell you to change it back.)

You'll get tired of working on the spatial side and the collar information will bug you. So you dive into that and begin adding the easy stuff (forest name, contact info, etc.) Then you realize everything is an "element" and is all grouped together as a graphic. It takes time to move that around, make sure it's straight, change wording, change order, cut out stuff that doesn't pertain to your District, etc. This leads you to trying to put the nationally mandated stipple around all routes that allow dispersed camping. Your map turns into a Pollock shotgun pattern piece. Yes, add the other two words to “piece.”

By this time a new production guide will come out and things will have changed. This causes you to go back and check all that you've done to try to make things that didn't work...work, see if any leniency was given on the use of color, national mandates, etc.

Hopefully you can get the Python script for auto-producing the seasonal and special designation tables to work. Otherwise, you're doing it by hand like I did. That takes a couple of hours to query out the correct data and make it look "just right." When you run your query you will come up with other District’s data and have to try to figure out what pertains to your District and organize it accordingly. This is followed by making a short route table by staring at your map and trying to figure out where you put the nationally mandated short route identifiers. You will overlook some and then have to change your table. Guaranteed.

But by now, you're getting really close and the time you are taking on this is winding down. You cut out plss sections that don't cover your Forest to make the map cleaner. Then you look for a photo of yourself to put on the collar and send it to the R.O. for review after having internal review meetings, having meetings with the S.O. and the appropriate local staff, and making any changes that come up.

Here's how my time on this broke out from May of this year to yesterday:

May = 8.75 hours (not into it at all)
June = 20.5 hours (playing with tools, getting familiar and finding a good template)
July = 35.75 hours (I started to get into it)
August = 27.0 hours (cleanup and refinement)
September = 18.5 hours (details and final refinement)

That only totals 110.5 hours or 13.8 days!

All in all, I wouldn't balk at a solid 20 days to develop a prototype...so, basically a month of your time. Don't forget that you will be working on all the other projects, miscellaneous work, addressing plotter / computer issues, annual / sick leave, hunting season, missing key personnel because of holidays / use-or-lose / and hunting season, and meetings at the same time. So this process will be drawn out over quite a chunk of time...for me, it was obviously about 4 months.

And color is still very unacceptable even though county roads look a whole lot like rivers. It’s a good thing county roads never follow rivers…ha.

Hope this long winded, drawn-out, verbose, effusive, garrulous email didn't bore you.

Happy Friday!

BUSY

Yep, same old story just a different month. Not sure why time is flying by so fast nor why I seem to be so busy anymore. It seems like I'm just going from 0600 to at least 1900 every day. But, it's better to be busy than to be bored. And a lot of the times after work, I'm grabbing the dog and a gun or two and heading into the woods for a couple of hours. Those little trips began as walking the dog. Then turned into scouting for good firewood, followed by firewood gathering...and then grouse hunting / big game scouting. Coming up pretty quick, it'll just be about big game hunting.


This larch caught my eye the other night

Well, over the Labor day weekend Sarah and I joined two others and made our way to the Gorge for a Dave Matthews concert. Little did Sarah know that I had been in communications with her good friends (friends since they were just little gals) and they were headed up to surprise her for her birthday. The surprise worked perfectly and we all got to enjoy the concert. However, it rained pretty good right before it got dark...so everyone there was pretty much soaked. Or drunk. Or high on something. It was a bizarre atmosphere but a beautiful venue. The "campground" was totally overpriced for what it was...a field. Just try and find a place to auger your car, then set up a tent within two feet of other campers. The concert was over at about midnight and the parties went on until about 0530. (We tried to sleep...didn't work well.) Well, we all made it through and jumped in the car with Steph and Dorey (sp?) who then stayed at our place for the weekend.


Camp looking northeast



Camp looking northwest

I have continued to see Lucca sneak in the woods. She's getting pretty good at it...I don't even have to say anything now! She'll watch my body language and either sit down and wait for me to motion to her to come, or she'll creep next to me. She even stops panting so we can hear better! It really is interesting to see. She darn near pointed a flock of grouse the other day, I swear she wanted to lift her foot!

Since we have a fireplace, I've been in the "man-nesting" mode. However, I think I'm doing something wrong...listen: First one was a decent lodgepole pine I managed to put down right on the road. Just bucked it up and put it in the truck. The second time out, I found some larch that was already down...right above the road. All I had to do was cut some lengths, push them down to the road and buck them up. Not too bad, but I was having trouble with the idle on the saw....so wore myself out keeping it wide open while trying to cut firewood-sized chunks. Finally got all that wood split and stacked and went back out to get some more. (This is over the course of a couple weeks.) I had managed to find a DANDY Douglas-fir pretty close to town. Quite a find! But I had given my saw to a guy I work with to see if he couldn't help me get it working better. He wasn't done by the time last weekend came around, so he brought HIS saw in for me to work with. Okay, mine is a Stihl 44 and his is a 66. Mine weighs only about 15 lbs and his is pushing 20 lbs with a three foot bar. It doesn't sound like much, but it makes a large difference! I went up the hill and dropped this big tree down toward the road. Well, then I cut it into two log lengths and drug the top end down the road a bit with the truck. Then I lashed onto the second log length, jumped in the truck and got NOTHING as far as movement. Hmm, so back up the hill (it was steep and brushy) to cut rounds and roll them down the hill. Now, we're looking at about 20 - 24 inch rounds of Douglas-fir that just had the needles fall off. Not very light. I found the stobs that had augured in the ground keeping it from getting towed off the hill. Anywho, so when rolling rounds down the hill they will typically get stuck under brush, wedged against stumps, branches, trees, etc. So you are handling these things about 4 times each. Then you finally get them to roll to the road and a couple go bouncing off over the other side and down...down...down. Once you get a bunch on the road and they are stopping the others...a car will come. Then you have to run down the hill and move them off the road. Then go back up the hill. Repeat. All this in one of the hottest days we've had so far in September...90s. Great.

I got so wore out by the time I got all these in the truck, split some to fill gaps, and lugging the saw around that my arm was seizing up! That little muscle on my forearm by my elbow was contracting causing my arm to bend up toward my chest...which caused my hand to do the same thing and cramp. I had to take a walk and relax for a bit to get THAT to stop. Then I would get in the truck to back closer to the rounds and my hip flexors would do the same thing causing me to lay in the cab and stretch my legs out the door...which caused my arm to spasm again...all in all, it would have been pretty darn funny if it didn't hurt so much!

I had the truck weighed down to the point where I was nervous about hurting it. So I crawled home on the back roads. I had to get Sarah to help me with the wheelbarrow because I couldn't throw some of these rounds again. I WAS SPENT.

So I went from easy-going, simple wood gathering to an experience that really made me wonder what I was doing. I'll be a little pickier from now on (I hope.)

All in all, I guess it's just that time of year. Trying to tie up all the loose ends before a.) hunting season and b.) winter all while still trying to get out and have some fun.

I'm still working on getting some photos of the house posted.