Table of Contents

July 2009 Classifieds

Download the Southern Loggin' Times July 2009 IronWorks classifieds here!

Lobbying Effort Gets Traction by President Allen Ribelin

My first item of business here is to again publicly thank John Deere for its continued generous support of the American Loggers Council. John Deere hosted ALC’s focused lobbying visit in Washington, DC in May and dispatched Andrew Bonde and Nate Clark to join our group. It was a very successful event.

I want to thank the ALC executive committee and others who participated in this highly focused lobbying visit. Even though we had a great deal smaller group than in March, we made many, many visits and actually had an impact where we needed to.

Age-Old Riddle by David Abbott

In the early 1990s, outlaw country rocker Travis Tritt had a minor hit, now obscure, in a blue-collar blues anthem called “Lord Have Mercy on the Working Man.” One line in the song summed up its theme by asking a question: “Why’s the fat man busy dancing/while the thin man pays the band?”

Jimmy Washington, 56, owner of Washington Bros. Inc., wouldn’t mind knowing the answer to that age-old riddle.

Hanging Tough by May Donnell

Times might be a little tight for logger Willie Bunting and his company, Pickin’ Pines Inc., located here, but not too terribly bad, he says. There are plenty of folks in his line of work (logging and timber purchasing) not doing nearly so well. And by all accounts, Bunting is doing okay.

Bunting was named the Wilson County Logger of the Year in 2008 and he doesn’t even live in Wilson County. He works Wilson County plenty, however. While 2008 was a year that marked the beginning of one of the worst economic times many of us will ever live through, Bunting and his crews have managed to hold their own in the rural woodlands of northeastern North Carolina and the southern edge of Virginia.

Machine Upkeep by Elliott Little, Product Marketing Manager

You expect peak performance from the forestry equipment you use every day, so putting aside some time for basic undercarriage maintenance not only ensures maximum uptime but also could help head off potential problems.

Workdays are long for most loggers. The last thing you want to think about after 10 or 12 hours on the job is machine maintenance, but what it comes down to is that maintenance is essential—helping increase the wear life of components and significantly extending undercarriage life.

Nameless Texas Towns

Mill town crowding also contributed to an increased incidence of contagious disease, especially in the early decades of the boom era, when companies paid less attention to employees’ health. Claude and Liddie Kennedy left several dead infants behind them in different mill town graveyards. Around 1903, smallpox and typhoid became so bad at the new Kirby mill town of Silsbee that the company doctor ordered wives to keep their children inside, lest they be infected by germs shaken from the pine coffins of disease victims wagoned through town on their way to the cemetery.

Turn-of-the-century housing in Village Mills approximated countryside standards, but living conditions were so crowded that the shallow household wells, nearby pit toilets, roaming domestic stock, and screenless windows propped open by sticks caused health problems. In 1901, a bad smallpox epidemic broke out in the town and many residents died; then, in 1903, a typhoid epidemic struck. Village Mill’s historian

Non-Native Pests Are Priority in Texas by Ronald Billings

Fifty years ago, about the only major pest threatening forest resources in Texas was the southern pine beetle, a native bark beetle that affects pine forests in all Southern states. Then, in the early 1980s, oak wilt became a focus of attention as large acreages of valuable live oaks and red oaks in central Texas succumbed to this disease. Research, suppression and prevention efforts on these two pest problems alone have occupied Texas forest entomologists and pathologists for many decades.

In recent years, a shocking collection of new and exotic pests have shown up in Texas: These include the invasive plants tamarisk (salt cedar), giant reed, kudzu, Japanese climbing fern, tropical soda apple, Brazilian pepper tree, and cogongrass, plus pest insects such as the Raspberry crazy ant, Formosan termite, western soapberry borer, and many other non-native species. Not since the Alamo has Texas been threatened by so many invaders. Others, such as Asian gypsy moth, emerald ash bor

Oil Myths Addressed

Synthetic oils were developed more than 50 years ago and became widely used in jet engines. Less than -120ºF ambient temperatures, 60,000 shaft RPM and 500º+F exhaust temperatures proved too much for conventional oils. Synthetics were created specifically to withstand these harsh conditions and to date every jet engine in the world uses synthetic lubricants.

Amsoil introduced the first synthetic oil for automotive use in 1972 and has continued to be at the leading edge of development ever since. Mobil-1, undoubtedly the most recognized name in synthetics, was introduced in 1976. Many companies have jumped on the bandwagon and have since released synthetic lubricants for automotive use and all are becoming increasingly popular for their superior lubricating properties, superior ability to flow at cold temperatures, and their ability to withstand high temperatures for extended periods of time.

Staying Fit by Jennifer McCary

Since establishing Watts Timber Co. (WTC) nearly 20 years ago, Steve Watts’ operating philosophy has been to buy new and rotate machines before the warranty runs out and while they still retain a good trade-in value. Today’s recessionary times have pretty much derailed that practice, however.

“You can’t trade like you used to,” observes Watts. “Now there’s no market for my used stuff and it has come to the point that you have to run equipment longer, take better care of it and try to make it last.”

Current Industry News

North Carolina Assn. of Professional Loggers (NCAPL) has reached out to equipment manufacturers, dealers and other vendors and service providers who cover the state’s forest products scene. According to Billy Corey, chairman of the NCAPL board, the equipment community asked for a series of targeted in-woods equipment demonstrations, with an emphasis on chipping, to keep loggers abreast of the latest developments.

This was accomplished on June 4 when more than 200 loggers, foresters and vendors visited Sherwood Padgette’s chipping operation, which was anchored near Clinton, NC. Padgett Logging is based in Wallace, NC. “We found an excellent site for this event that had the space for parking and an ample safety zone around the running equipment. Sherwood Padgette and his crew run a professional job from top to bottom and we were very pleased he volunteered his site and represented the NCAPL in such an outstanding fashion,” says Doug Duncan, NCAPL Executive Director.

More On Michael Conner by David Abbott

In the midst of these tough times it’s sometimes easy to forget how good most of us actually have it. It’s trite but true: no matter how bad you have it, someone else always has it worse. Money is tight, businesses are failing and jobs are scarce. But, even then, most of us are still living a more comfortable existence than just about every other person who has ever lived anywhere in the history of humanity. It’s easy to point out that much of what we consider lower middle class or even poverty might be thought of as wealth to many people in the world even today, who struggle just to find food and shelter.

And even here, where we’re not in a war zone and basic necessities are relatively easy to attain, many people are suffering, either physically or emotionally, in ways that make our financial problems seem insignificant. For me, people with really sick kids always make me feel lucky by comparison, and I just pray I never have to find out if I’m tough enough to face that. I’