Wood Chippers

[Sawduster]

Spent the morning at the Church helping to chip huge piles of brush. Lots of cedar and some live oak scrubs that had been taken down when we did the slab for our building.

We were using a rented chipper and it was a real PITA. The thing does not like cedar, the stringy bark and even the wood kept clogging it below the outlet, so we had to take it apart several times, tilt the shoot back and clear major clogs. Of course it might have worked better if the blades didn't have all those huge chips out of em.

Amazing how little mulch we got considering the amount of brush we put through that puppy. This was a fairly large one, supposed to handle up to 8" diameter logs, and we didn't put anything near that size through it. Heck, I can generate that much mulch in twenty minute with the tailed planer. Well, seems that way, anyhow.

Was supposed to be a work day and should have been a bunch of folks there. When the LOML and I arrived, there were two other folks there. The LOML did what she could picking up trash left by the construction folks while I helped out on the chipper. Supposed to be shifts of a couple hours and after I'd been there four hours, one other fella showed up. I'm a bit disgruntled over the whole thing. Seems the same folks are on all of the committees and are the ones who are there come work time, and not because they are power hungry or want to feel important, but only because no one else wants to give up their own prescious time. Well, such is life. Same folks, I'm sure, are the ones putting up most of the financial backing for the Church.

Guess it ain't real Christian to complain about folks, but I bet if there wasn't work to be done and we were handin out free hot dogs, there's have been a crowd.

[arcticfox46]

What do they say 10% of the people do 90% of the work.

I was painting at church today - I'll be back there Tuesday. There was a healthy group out to help though.

[quartlow]

Well its not limited to Church, anytime you have to rely on volunteers you can be in trouble.

[rrich]

The Cub Scout pack was the same way.
The AYSO Soccer teams were the same way.
The Little League Team was the same way.
The Boy Scout Troop was the same way.
Indian Guides was better, but not much.

The Sunday School rooms building project was the opposite. More cheifs and very few indians. While the chiefs didn't finish putting up button board in a single room, one 19 year old indian did three rooms by himself.

How many highway workers does it take to hold up a shovel?

As I drive by, it seems like too many to count.

[woodmannie]

>>How many highway workers does it take to hold up a shovel?
>
>As I drive by, it seems like too many to count.

That's easy, here in PA it's 14 :
1 to do the work.
1 to hold his cold drink for when he gets thirsty
1 to hold his coffee if it's cold out
1 to hold a sandwitch for when he gets hungry
2 to lean on spare shovels
1 to sit in a hoe incase it's needed
3 to drive dumpers that sit all day empty
2 flag people
1 to read the print upside down so they can get twice the time in
and 1 cop to sit there all day eating dounuts with his disco's going

wm

[CajunRider]

I still remember feeling funny bringing turkeys and food to a homeless shelter. Inside we were busy cooking and outside these able bodied men were standing around smoking and not helping. It took me a long time to realize that they are mostly homeless because they are not right in their head. Expecting them to do the norms is unrealistic.

[Jeffk]

I agree with ya Tom. For those that don't live in PA, we have some of the worst roads in the nation. To top it off the "construction" methods they use take twice as long to complete and only last half as long as they should. They think nothing of making both directions of a 10 to 15 mile stretch of interstate into single lane for over a year. When they reconstructed a section of I 78 near me a couple of years ago they farted around with it for almost a year and ended up pouring concrete in the middle of winter.

I 78 was made into limited access back in the 60's and it seems that at least one section of the 50 mile section between I 81 and Allentown has been under construction ever since and it's still miserable to drive.

Our state slogan should be "One Lane Road Next 15 Miles."

I guess they consider it job security...

[WoodMangler]

Sounds about right...

I don't know if I told this or not, but with U Haul the AFH (the "F" is for "From" and the "H" is for "Hell"...) had us trimming trees and brush from the various U Haul centers...

Well, we rented a chipper, and it broke down... rented another, and it broke down... went to another rental center, told them our plight, and they rented us a brand new one.... and it worked! :)

Then the AFH decided to really swing into gear, and got me some "labor" from a temp agency... in the first hour one of them went home because the work was too hard, another complained about no gloves or safety glasses (a legit complaint, but we were told they would supply all the safety stuff) and a third swung a chainsaw into my hand .... http://img.clubphoto.com/jerboa/2069...null/image.jpg
... the others did as little as possible... without bragging or any macho krapola, I literally got more done between 5pm and about 7:30 by myself after they went home... spent more time baby sitting them than I did actually getting any work done... This same bunch of clowns also dumped a tree on my rig....

Anyhoo... seemed to much easier to just do it myself.... you probably got a lot more done than if you would have had "help" :)

[spartacus]

Here in North Carolina they just laid off 400 people from the road crews...seems someone invented a shovel that will stand up on it's own.

[rrich]

One of my In-laws was a PA State Trooper. He was nearing retirement and the last few years he worked traffic control for the construction on I80 and I79. With all the overtime and the way PA calculates pensions, he retired at 133% of base salary. Of course he did contribute about 25% of his wages to the pension plan.