Wood Cutting Service Project- Bug Lake

Monday morning everyone was able to get the day off work and head to the Bug Lake area to cut and haul wood for a DNR service project. What we had to do is thin out trees basically so the trees left would be able to grow healthy and seed better. We needed one tree for every 12 ft space and they were packed in there pretty well. If the tree had beetle damage or was dying we needed to take that over a live tree. We needed to leave good healthy trees to grow big. In case you missed it I said SERVICE project. Which means we went for fun. The wood we cut down needed to be hauled out (which we got to take home for fire wood) and the limbs and branches needed to be piled into big piles so they can burn them. There was a big group going up. Todd and Jana in their truck with trailer. Me, Chris, Kennedy and Cody (Chris's cousin/Dustys son) in our truck with a big goose neck trailer and then Mom and Dad were coming up a few hours after us in his brush truck and trailer. We were there as 'Box Elder County Fire' volunteers. Thats why dad had his brush truck. We were supposed to take ours but we wanted to be able to take the kids along and have a bigger trailer. Dusty and Kaycee (his daughter) met us on there.

 Kennedy helped carry branches and I let her take pictures since we were so busy working!

Chris

 Me

Jana

 Dusty

 Cody

 Kaycee

 Miss K

 Todd

 Mom

 Dad

I limbed and bucked trees for a while which means cutting off the limbs on the side so they are smoothish and cut them into pieces to be loaded onto the trailer. After a while of doing this Dusty decided I needed to learn how to cut down trees. Its quite a complex process to do it right and safely. Dusty has been a sawyer instructor for over 18 years and hes one of the best ever to learn from. He took me to some trees and we went over the basics and started cutting. After a while on some smaller ones he took me to some larger trees and checked to see what I had learned.

We cut down several big trees with out killing anyone so it was quite an accomplishment ha!

Dusty was a great instructor and I really learned a lot!

We were pretty tired by this time and it was noon. We stopped to tailgate. We know how to throw a lunch!

From there it was right back to work. We cut down some more trees

Dusty and I

We loaded all the trailers full and headed for home right after we got rained on. We were leaving about 2pm and started our convoy. We communicated by handheld radios. Dad was first, then us, then Todd and then Dusty. We made it from Bug lake to the first cattle guard crossing at hardware (about 15-20 min). 

Chris and I kept commenting how dads trailer looked funny. We kept looking at the tires when he turned and we couldnt figure out why it looked like the trailer was tipping forward. We thought maybe the hitch was just low and there was some weight on the front end. Dad pulled over before the cattle guard and we realized what the problem was... the hitch beam had broke.

 We didnt have too many options at this point. We got a hi lift jack and jacked it up. 

We cut up a log and blocked under the front end with wood.

 Our convoy

From there we unloaded all the wood that could fit on our trailer.

 We left some wood in the horse trailer but moved it to the back to keep weight off the tongue and keep the trailer better balanced. 

The hitch wasnt disconnected from the trailer, just the crossbeam had snapped. We ran a log through where it was broken, cut a hole on the inside of the trailer with an axe and secured the log to the hitch and broken cross member.

Redneck hammer

 and hooked it back up. We figured we would see how it pulled and if we had problems we would just pull over and drop the trailer off.  It was really solid so we started down the bumpy road. We were joking with dad about how the day had ended and we wanted to make it home with out incident. 

 The trailer pulled great. We made it out of Hardware and through Logan Canyon and into Hyrum. We were turning a corner and Dusty was joking on the radio he said I'll go ahead and block the intersection so you can all turn and stay together. He blocked the intersection and right as dad made a left hand turn someone started yelling across the radio "you lost the trailer you lost the trailer" I was almost asleep in the front seat and looked up to see the trailer rolling past the truck into a lawn and out into a field. Our fixing job didnt break.. the entire hitch came out of the trailer.

We were all in shock saying wholly shit what just happened! Thankfully it came off here and not in the canyon. Dusty had the intersection blocked. The trailer was perfectly balanced that it just kept rolling once it came out. It went across a lawn, didn't hit a house, didn't take out the trees and coasted through a fence panel not damaging it and rolled into a field stopping 1 ft away from an electric fence. We were so lucky!!!

 The owners of the field werent home. The lady whose lawn it drove through was super nice. We got the owners contact info and left a business card with her for them. One post was rotted and will need to be replaced but it didnt even hurt the panel!

We told the lady we would be right back. We had to go drop trailers and unload wood and we would be back to pick up everything. We hurried home, Todd dropped off his trailer, we took off the straps on ours and threw all the wood off into our backyard. Dusty ran home to drop off his trailer and grab some chains and come alongs. Dad went to grab the cable wench that mounted onto the goose neck.  We were exhausted. Our bodies hurt. We had headaches and just wanted dinner and a nap after a long hard days work. We got all our supplies and headed back up to Hyrum. We needed to put the horse trailer on the goose neck we were pulling and Todd carried him, Jana, Mom and Dad in his truck. We all arrived back at the same time. Dusty brought his wife Nickie and their other daughter Jess with them. 

I love this picture here! Its the perfect description of family! We were all tired and sore and exhausted and yet everyone shows back up to help and even bring more help with them! I love our big combined family!

We unloaded all the wood that was left on the trailer into Todd and Dustys trucks. We hooked a cable wench, hooked a log under it to roll it up and started wenching it onto the trailer.

 I made Kennedy stay in the truck so she didnt get hurt in case anything went wrong or the cable snapped. 

 Finally she was loaded! We cranked it down with so many chains and come alongs and straps. By this time it was 7pm. We started this party leaving town at 6am.

  

 Dad took everyone out to dinner at Burger King in Hyrum after. We dropped off the trailer at our friends shop til dad can haul it down for scrap metal. We got back to dads house as everyone was unloading all the wood out of the trucks. It was quite a day! Lets hope the next time isnt quite as adventurous.