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Wardner: My farm contained 500 acres of mixed woodland By the early 1970s I was getting hasseled by workplace safety folks (govt) in allowing employees to operate tractors in the bush, I bought a forestry skidder. Before the days of a lot of cows on the farm either my dad or myself operated the tractor. Dad was no longer able and I was milking 100 holsteins. The forestry skidder was a 1975, John Deere 540A, and I used it for tillage and packing bunker silos in summer, plus it did some custom work. In the winter time the same crew that did cropping, harvesting and custom work in summer, harvested forest products. I had a loader device I used on a tractor and my own tractor trailer to haul products to the mill. Other than drive the truck on ocasion between milkings, I had little personal involvment. I always found that barn full of holsteins a comfortable enviornment in cold weather. Yes, there were a couple of Paul Bunyans amoung those guys running chain saws. The down side of guys running chain saws 4 days per week, is they drank all weekend, then couldn't get going on Mon. I remember growling about this one day in a line up at the bank. An old guy in the line up said, "Hugh, could you run a chain saw 8 hours per day, everyday without drinking all weekend." He had a good point. On the subject of chain saws, there were guys out there that could hack it and they made big money. I remember one guy, came from a poor family, he got married at 20. He and his wife went on to build a new home, raised 4 children and bought a new car and pickup every three years. His wife never worked outside the home. As those children got married, he was able to put substancial dollars into their new homes, something his dad was unable to do. Yes, he achived all this cutting 20 cords of wood per day, probably 150-200 days per year, basically 3,000 to 4,000 cords. He told me once, he averaged 3 new chain saws per year.
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