Fun Work Week.... 
So a lot of stuff went wrong with the delimber this week. I posted the best pictures of the delmiber I could find in order to give some reference to what I'm saying. On Monday afternoon I had hydralic oil leaking out from the under side of my boom. I quick shut it off so I didn't loose too much oil. Pat found the hose that was leaking (it was attached to the very back of the boom (see picture 2). He said that those hoses (there are two back there) haven't been lasting long... We left an hour late because I had to fill my machine back up with over 12 gallons of hydralic oil.
On Wed., before 10am, my top grab arms stopped working (see picture 1). We got the truck driver to try to call Brad, the repair guy and a friend of Pat's. Until we got a hole of him we started taking all the oil valves in the head out to see if there was anything wrong. We found an o-ring the was in 3 pieces but we couldn't find where it came from. When we eventually got Brad, he said it was the cylinder (it controls the arms). So Pat and I pulled the cylinder out, which was indeed busted in two, and had to wait for Brad to get there with the new one. We got that put back together by quiting time. By this time there was a lot of wood backed up...
So, this morning I went in to work with Pat (5am) to help catch up. The machine tells you what the diameter of the log is that you're working on... After we changed the cylinder, the diameter measurement was completely off. Brad came back today to help fix that. There is also a cable on top of the machine that is attached to a cylinder and the cable was all twisted and not in good shape. Brad checked the pressure of the cylinder and it was 2000lb instead of 900, so it had been pulling the heck out of that cable, stretching it out.

Whew. All we need now is a new cable. Hopefully nothing else breaks....

-Miranda


picture 1. It's an old picture, but I left me in it cause I thought people would appreciate it. :)

picture 2

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Poor Cows 
So now that we have snow, the cows are getting crabby. They have to work for at least some of their food now. They're water is harder to get to them now too being the faucets for the hoses are frozen. So, today Joe and Pat got some wood as well as filled a 35 gallon water jug with water to bring down to the cows. They also dumped snow in the trough so that would melt (the water is heated so it won't freeze) and add some volume.

-Miranda


Picture of the backyard and the snow and you can see some mountains in the distance.

The crabby cows.

Joe stirring the snow into the water in the trough around with Pat watching.

The guys dumping the end of the water into the trough.

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Around the House 
Thanksgiving went well here. Pat cooked dinner and Joe and I found something for our main meal instead of turkey. Nancy's mom had made us two pumpkin pies, so we had a wonderful dessert. Tom also came over for dinner.
I didn't take any pictures then, so these below are actually a little older.
Tom, Pat, and I went to work on Friday to finish moving machines (it was the only day he could get a truck to move the machines to the new jobsite). We woke up to about 6 inches of snow. It's been snowing on and off all weekend.

-Miranda


Here I am playing guitar on our bed in our basement room.

Joe was helping Nancy with her work in the office a little.

Pat was stocking the firewood that's up near the house.

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Moving Day 
Well, we started moving to a new jobsite today. It's further down the highway, but the gate we drive in through is very close to the highway. So, less driving time on dirt road. :)
We finished up the job we were on within a couple hours this morning and then started to get stuff taken care of to move. Pat and Dennis (he runs the clipper which walks around on the hillside clipping trees) went to the new jobsite where the clipper already was while Jesse, Tom and I started to move the yarder and delimber. Unfortunately, during our walk the yarder lost its track in the middle of the road. It came off the front guide wheel. Fortunately the truck driver was up loading logs so we called him on the radio to tell him to use his phone to try calling Pat. We tried to put the dumb thing back on from at least 2:00 to 6:00. They finally got the yarder off the road in a nearby widespot and are going to work on it tomorrow when there's daylight to help.
During all this, Dennis was at the new jobsite and apparently ended up having a problem with his machine. He was stuck there doing nothing from 2:30 until I picked him up at 5:45ish.
Fun, exciting day.....

-Miranda

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Work Last Thursday 
Last Thursday we had a nice mess in the cable that goes down the mountain. Pat got to try to straighten it out, which didn't go so well. They ended up having to unroll the entire drum of cable.
We have gotten some snow up at the job, but it hasn't been staying very long.

-Miranda


Pat messing with the cable on top of the yarder.

View of a nearby mountain with snow. The road down below is what we take to get into the job.

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