Well we really started cutting firewood in earnest this last week. I believe we cut four out of seven days and we cut a bunch of wood.  For the first few days of the week it was just me and my dad cutting but than later in the week a friend of mine came up and the two of us went and cut. When we are cutting, actually afterwards when the trucks are loaded and we are headed home it is fun to see the looks on peoples faces when they see how much wood we have cut.  For example my pickup sits about two feet off of the ground when empty. After we have loaded it with wood it sits around a foot off the ground their is so much weight in it.  We sometimes use a trailer to haul if we are cutting farther from our house since it can hold more and that way we don't have to take as many trips.

This is what a we cut Saturday afternoon.  A buddy and I started cutting at about 1:00p.m. and we got back to my house around 6:00p.m. we thought it was pretty good afternoons work. To give you a scale of how tall those stacks are, the side boards on the trailer are two feet tall and the ramp on the back is four feet tall. Now I just need to get it all split.

Well for some reason last weeks post  somehow got taken off my wall but anyway I've continued working on my trailer this week. I haven't got as much done on it as I would of like but I'm making progress.  I thought I would be able to get it close to done on Saturday but I ended up not having as much time as I wanted. This is because most of my family went and watched them implode the Dev Nelson press box. It was awesome. It collapsed down right on top of itself the only thing that really fell back was the very top which slide down into the parking lot. So that was probably the highlight of my week.
Even though I didn't get as much done to the trailer as I wished, I was able to get some done to it.

I got the springs welded on, although you can't really see them all that well in these pictures, and the side rails. It is finally starting to take the shape of a trailer. The the sides are 9.5 inches tall with a piece of angle welded on top to cap them.  The side are 9.5 inches tall so that they if I wish can easily put a 2x10 into the side to fill in the gaps.  Also I angled the back down so that if I'm trying to load something wider than the trailer I can easily slide it up onto the side rails.  Now that this is all done I'm ready to widen the axle and mount it into place.

Shop Project

 I did school all day Saturday which may sound funny to many people but it wasn't what many people would think of when they think of school.  I started working on my first shop project of the year last week and I was able to work on it most of the day Saturday.  I'm building a single axle 6'x10' tilt utility trailer.  I traded the Keeley's a small pickup bed trailer I had for their old boat.  I then pulled the boat off of the trailer and cut the tongue, axle, and tilt mechanism out of the trailer.  I forgot to take a pic pf the original trailer though.

This picture shows what I started with.  I had already cut some of the iron, that is why there are some shorter pieces. 

In this picture I have the outside frame of the trailer and the floor supports welded into place.  It is kind of hard to see, but the trailer I'm building is the small square inside of the big trailer's fenders.  The reason it is on top of my big trailer is because it gives me a level spot to work and a place to clamp the pieces I'm welding down.  If they were not clamped down when I started welding they would torque and bend causing the trailer to be lopsided and not square.

In these two pictures I have the tilt mechanism welded into place and the springs for the the axles are ready to be welded down. Once that is done it will be ready for an axle and then I will flip it over and had small sides to it.

I hope to have it ready to pull by the end of this week so more pictures will follow soon.

Well Bethlehem Revisited is over and I'm extremely thankful for it.  I love doing it and I look forward to it every year but after three nights of being up till midnight and awake a 6:30 it's nice for it to be over.  This year was a huge success. I'm not sure of the total number people who went through but I do know that Sunday night their was over 850 tickets turned in but with the people who don't have tickets they are guessing that over 1100 people went through, and that is was just Sunday night.  To put this number in perspective last year over the course of all three nights around 2000 people went through. It is such an honor to me and I know it is to many of the cast and crew to be able to help share the gospel with so many people.  I've heard one of the guides say more than once that it is one of the very few times anywhere that people come by the bus load to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. We did have a couple of things happen that could have turned out bad. The first was one of the propane lanterns caught fire when we lit it for the first time and we had to put it out with a fire extinguisher. This was also kind of amusing because there was six of us all standing around it watching but nobody was freaking out or doing anything. We were all like "Oh that's not good" and then just continued to watch it until someone grabbed the extinguisher.  Also one of the horses got his halter caught on a fence and when he tried to pull off he banged the fence panels together which spooked him.  As I ran over to try and calm him down the Roman soldier jumped off his horse to come get the halter off, right as group walked up.  So not only was a horse jumping around making a huge amount of noise there was no Roman soldier to issue the decree to Mary and Joseph. But all turned out okay.

Well now that BR is over it is time for firewood season to began but for that to happen its going to have to get cold and I hope is does. Since my dad and uncle landscape, they will continue working until the ground freezes.  Also since I sell wood when its warm people don't burn very much meaning I don't sell very much so that is another reason I hope it gets really cold, soon.

I wasn't really sure what I was going to write about this week but I think I will write on something that I look forward to every year.  Now you may be thinking, Thanksgiving or Christmas and yes I'm looking forward to the holidays but what I'm talking about is something called Bethlehem Revisited.  This is a "play" if you want to call it that of the story of Jesus.  Although it isn't the traditional Christmas story we all know so well.  This story starts back with Moses and continues through several of the prophets who foretold of Jesus' coming.  Not only does it tell the story of Jesus, it isn't a traditional play, it isn't performed on a stage and the audience doesn't just sit and watch.  Bethlehem Revisited is spread out over several acres and the Audience walks through the story led by guides who narrate and expand on the story told by the actors.  You will visit Mary as Gabriel appears to her, and watch as the decree is issued telling everyone they must return to their hometowns to be registered   Roman soldiers might stop and fleece you as you enter a crowded market at Bethlehem and then see Mary and Joseph turned away from a crowded inn.  Next you will take a trip out into the hills to visit a group of shepherds.  As the journey continues you will get to see the wise men  stop by the stables to see a young babe, visit the temple where you will meet Anna as she blesses the baby.  Next you will stop by a cross and hear the story of Jesus' death and last you will stop at a empty tomb to hear how Jesus rose after three days just like he said.
I've been involved with Bethlehem Revisited for four years now and I love helping do it.  It takes hundreds of people working together to put this on.  First their are the actors and guides, then their are the bus drivers who transport the groups to and from the farm, next their are all the people who donate food for the actors.  Then there is the technical crew which is what I'm a part of.  We take care of animals, keep fires and lanterns going, make sure the electrical components are operational.  Provide transportation for the handicapped and do the set up and tear down.  I would dress up if it were every needed but I'm the type of person who prefers to be behind the scenes.

So the name of this blog is a little different than some so i'm going to give a little explanations of just why I chose this name.  Many of my friends know I enjoy farming, trucks, and hard work so that is where the work boots part comes from.  I wear work boots more than any other shoe and actually my work boots are the most expensive shoe I own. I don't mind wearing other shoes its just that when you work around equipment, livestock, and things like that its not really safe to wear tennis shoes cause they don't offer a lot of protection. That is where the work boot part of the title came from.  Now onto the chainsaws part.  My dad and uncle both work for landscape companies in the Manhattan area and when the ground freezes they can't really work since they can't dig holes, they both say they get to play in the dirt for jobs but their toys have just gotten bigger, anyway they have a lot of spare time in the winter.  When my family moved to Riley eight years ago or so the house we bought had a fireplace and small propane stove for heat and very little insulation.  We had to cut wood to keep the house warm so what better for two landscapers with nothing to do.  We since removed the propane stove and put in another wood stove, so are house is completely heated by wood, and my uncle bought a house with a wood stove so we get to cut more wood!  We might go a little overboard sometimes when we cut and we may have as many as four to six chainsaws going at a time and half a dozen trucks and trailers. We cut a lot of wood and enjoy doing it, if we burned all the wood we have I think we could probably burn for a couple years without a problem.  So that is where the chainsaws part of my title comes from.  Now I may post about other stuff but the majority of my posts I imagine will have to do with some type of farm work, firewood cutting, or what I'm building in shop class.