Day 451 - 4-Wheeler Setup + Trail Ride

BPO3 is supported by Timber King sawmills. For more information on my 1220 CRZ mill or one of many fully hydraulic options, go to timberking.com. So, they put an actual sticker on the plastic on the pallet. And I don't know what I'd do with this, but I like banners and such in my shop. So, I want to see if I can't put this in there somewhere. Couple shops ago, I started a sticker cabinet and I wasn't I wasn't able to bring that cabinet to this shop because the bottom of that cabinet was a little bit rusty and janky. But sticker door, maybe. This is my corner of the shop specifically where my wood shop is. So, sticker door. You want to help me rip the plastic off of this thing? I got tack paper though. Tack on the paper. down by the creek. Nope, they haven't come out yet. They're still there. [Music] Goodbye little buddies. Go live a life out in the wild and hopefully a long one. [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] We're not going to go for a ride right now. No ride right now. I got to do some work. [Music] All right. So, I'm trying to figure out a way to secure the chainsaw chest to the four-wheeler. And like so many other times, I don't think of the most obvious. So, I was going to mount some of these um or bolt some of these D-rings to the side of it. Uh side of the b the the chest, excuse me. I'll get it right eventually. The chest. Use some quarter20 bolts. I've got a bunch of bolts, bunch of hex nuts, lock washers, fender washers. That should be just fine. And then um ratchet strap it from the Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Ratchet strap it. Oh, I don't need D-rings. I've got handles. So, that's how I'm going to secure this. That's just the most simple way. Just ratchet strap it on there. I don't need some elaborate something or other. I was even thinking about Oh, it's not in here. Uh I was even thinking about Did I move it already? using these. These are the old um hold downs from my last CNC machine. I I found a couple and packed away in a bin. These were supposed to go to the new owner of this machine. But anyway, uh see those rabbits on either side of that piece of walnut. If I flip it this way, a couple of these fit perfectly in between the rails on the back rack on the bottom. So, at that point, I could do something like this. And then, and then on the inside of the case, I could use one of these knobs to lock it back down. perfectly and and all that. And it's just it's just over complicated. Just keep it simple. Keep it simple. Ratchet straps. If I don't want it on the four-wheeler, just take the ratchet straps off. It's just as easy. And I don't need any D-rings on here. I've got some some D-rings, also known as handles. Uh anyway, one ratchet strap uh loops through the frame over here, goes to the other handle over there, and that's on an angle. So that puts downward and backward pressure on the U chest, keeping it on the rack. But it didn't quite stop it from rolling backwards if I lifted up this this front side over here. So second ratchet strap from the handle underneath the frame on the front side of the mount all the way over to the other side. And it's not going anywhere. not going anywhere at all. Speaking of not going anywhere, I don't think these joints are going anywhere. There's a little bit of concern about uh uh these joints shrinking and the gaps opening up. But think about this. If this board shrinks, this board was cut from the same material, same I mean same log, same board essentially. So this one should shrink. It should all shrink at the same amount if it does shrink. So I don't I don't see any gaps forming or anything like that. Anything more than what I cut into them. Um, so, so there's that. I think this is going to hold up just fine. And I'm going going to abuse it. Not on purpose, but it's it's going to take a beating. This four-wheeler takes a beating. You see that? Got to address that soon. Uh, mud flaps were the most um most commonly recommended solution, some big rig mud flaps. Uh, an uncle of mine is a diesel mechanic and he said he can get me some of those used ones from work and that'll be plenty fine enough for me to fix that when the time comes. There's many many ways to Hey, sticker door. Got any stickers that I could buy? Let me know. Um, one of the there's many many ways to cut trail through the woods and I've used uh I've used just chainsaw and and pole saw and you cut it and you move it physically or manually and like it's old quick. And then I've used the piranha bar on the front of the tractor. The Piranha Bar, if you're not familiar with it, it's it's a tooththed bucket bar or tooth bar that goes on the bottom lip of your bucket on a tractor and it really helps with digging, but it also is really good for spearing um small saplings, small trees and and it just it's sharp so it sticks into the wood and then you can just rip up the tree root and everything. Small stuff when you're, you know, for clearing trails and whatnot. You can't do anything more than like a, you know, like a 3-in pine or or hardwood is probably the limit with the piranha bar. The step up from that is using the grapple because the grapple can just grab it and yank it out of the ground for the most part. Oh, we have bird's nests up here inside the shop. Uh, inside the lean to there's a bird 5T from me. You know, all of the audio in these videos, the bird sounds, it's from this property. Like if I pause for a second, you can probably hear a bunch of birds. There's a bird's nest right there. Oh, there goes the bird. Where was I going with this? Birds distracted me like a squirrel. Okay, cutting trails. The the grapple is fantastic. Grapple is really good with Chinese privets cuz with Chinese privets, you've got to get the root out of the ground, too. If not, then it's the new sprout's just going to pop right up from the root. So, grapple is fantastic. We have a section of the property on my map. I just labeled it the jungle. It's dense. It is um it's just dense. It's just really dense. There's there's trees there. There's briars there. And I found an area. This is kind of like a I'm calling it a little bit of a peninsula. It's not like, you know, like a a water boundary peninsula, but it's surrounded on three sides by gullies by washouts, large large irrigation ditches that all feed down to the creek. So, essentially, I call it a peninsula. It's more like a plateau than anything. Uh anyway, the perimeter of that little area, I've driven the four-wheeler through it five or six different times, and I'm like, there's a trail here. If I could just get in here and just mulch up all this crap, you know, small small trees and briers and whatnot, there's got to be there. There's a trail right there. I just have to uncover it. So, I could get a a um rotary cutter to do some of it, but there's a lot of big stuff intertwined with it, bigger than what uh a rotary cutter can handle. So, with that in mind, as well as a bajillion other locations here on the property, I'd like to introduce a fun new tractor implement. The sun creeping in here is about to destroy my exposure, but this is the Bulma MP 360. Uh this is a mulure PTO driven muler for a tractor. Not a hydraulic powered uh mulure for a like a for mulchure for a skid steer. This is PTO powered. Uh there's the gearbox. PTO shaft comes in from the back, turns this gearbox, turns that shaft over there. Other side of the shaft is a pulley. Other side of this drum is a pulley. They are connected by a belt and that turns this drum full of whackers. It's mulchers. This is going to mulch up wood, mulch up vines, mulch up all kinds of stuff. Powered by this PTO shaft slip clutch right there. Uh up here is a tooth bar to grab a hold of a tree. Well, you know, get a good grip onto a tree as you're backing into it with a tractor. And this is further backwards than the drum is. So, it's going to bend the tree over just a little bit. Uh, and then that way as you start mulching into the base, it's going to make it fall away from you. Now, if this doesn't bend the tree enough for you to be able to hit it with that, odds are that tree is a little bit too big for what we're trying to do. Anyway, I have a lot of trails that this is going to really really benefit from as well as a lot of just random areas on the property uh for fast fast cleanup. Couple fun facts for you. I grew up in Leavonia, Michigan playing hockey and now I live here in the hot soup of Mississippi. Two completely drastic drastically different climates. Uh so Leavonia, Michigan is part of the Detroit sprawl. You know, all the major cities have like the city itself and as it grew and outgrew itself, you have all these supporting cities all the way around it. The sprawl of the big city. So, Leavonia, Michigan is part of the Detroit sprawl. It's just just expanding outward from Detroit. 15 20 minutes to downtown Detroit, something like that. Uh, fun fact for you, Michigan or Detroit, Michigan is the only place in the United States where you can drive south into Canada. Cross the river south and you're in Canada. That's pretty interesting. It's also pretty interesting. I found out that Bomaly is three and a half hours away from where I grew up, northeast into Canada. So that means these machines and all the Bomalite machines are manufactured right here in North America. Are you showing it off for me? Yes. All right. So, the four-wheeler is it's cobbled together with all kinds of stuff. Uh trying to accomplish a lot of stuff right here. So, of course, we know the chainsaw box if I can go through the trails with my chainsaws and whatnot. Uh and then this is also my transportation anytime I need to cut trees down. That way, I have everything that I need, which is going to be pretty darn cool. On top, I have uh so this Velcro, double-sided Velcro. Pick up some double-sided Velcro. You'll you'll see it all over the place around my shop. I love using this stuff for all kinds of things. This is my tripod that I typically put the GoPro on on. And this is the loop that I keep on here, a Velcro for the battery, which is right up there. I'll show you in a second. But, uh, some double-sided Velcro holds my tripod in place. And just a piece of pipe strapping screwed onto here. And a strip of double-sided Velcro allows me to very easily mount a tripod up here. So I can try and I'll use two hands to tighten that. But uh I can take a tripod with me very easily. Pretty cool. Uh another thing just like Velcro quarter20 bolts. I put them on all kinds of stuff just because of camera mounts, you know. Uh cameras a an often tool I use, we'll say. So I've got a GoPro right here. Uh I'm sorry, a GoPro a quarter 20 mount right here. So I can put a GoPro on the inside to you know, you open it up and you get some stuff out. You know that shot kind of a thing, right? Hey, what do you know? More double-sided Velcro. I love this stuff. Oh, what's that? Double-sided Velcro. I love this stuff for all kinds of stuff. All right, so that's the back side of the four-wheeler. It really is not noticeable. The extra weight is not noticeable driving around. It's not that much weight at all. On the front side, this this is fun. Now, this is all proof of concept. Does this look beautiful right here, or does it need to look better? H h I think it's going to be okay. Zero what? Zero tests. Zero what? Test. Oh well, I need to um make a nicer version after this proof of concept is is tested. So I have this is just a uh two blocks screwed together and glu screwed and glued at one joint. So it's pretty much stationary. And then I use three uh F clamps to hold it to the four-wheeler. This is all going to look nicer and actually like an actual item. Uh if this works out, I'll make something nice. So, I have Oh, what is that? Is that double-sided Velcro? Oh, it is. Uh double-sided Velcro to hold a USB battery bank that I can power the GoPro for much longer sessions than say like an hour. Um, and then I have a mount for my GMRS radio. We communicate with radios here on the property when we when one of us leaves the shop. And then because the audio is distorted on here in this setup, I' i've already driven around with just the GoPro testing some stuff. And I think the GoPro is just picking up vibrations from the machine and it's very distracting. You can hear me talking because I'm, you know, within arms reach of the camera right here. Uh, but that vibration is super distracting. So, I put my Zoom recorder. This is a Zoom H6, I think. Uh, anyway, I put this recorder right here and I have it going to my Road Go microphone. And then the that's the receiver over there. The transmitter that I keep to this the transmitter I keep uh hooked on this hat. And I've done this for years. All of the extra cable and whatnot. It goes on top of my head when I wear the hat. But what this does is it keeps the microphone at a consistent distance away from my mouth. So the audio sounds at the very least it sounds consistent. Um, so what I'm getting at is I can wear the hat with the recorder going with the GoPro going, make some audio marks to to synchronize the audio, and then I can have much better audio while I'm driving around, showing the property, showing the trails, showing whatever I'm trying to show. Um, there goes the three amigos. You playing in your bin or your box? Huh? your box. All kinds of toys and kids want to play with boxes. So anyway, this is um proof of concept. If it works, I'll make something nicer for the front. I'm pretty excited about it, though. This is kind of fun. It's a lot of fun. Here we go. [Laughter] All right. So, this is the shooting range trail. And one of the things that I want to accomplish today is just driving through the trails and and seeing all the storm debris and storm damage. I haven't done any cleanup this year on the trails and it's been about 2 or 3 weeks since I actually rode on the trails because we've had so much rain. Ridiculous amount of rain. So, we just got on to the perimeter trail and as I'm driving the property boundary is on the right hand side. The dogs used to stay with the four-wheeler, like super close, annoyingly close, and I've kind of got them trained to get away from the four-wheeler. So, they're they're in and out of the woods all over the place, having the time of their life. So, this tree right here, let me back up. This is the uh Angry Birds tree. It's like a perfect slingshot. [Laughter] There go the dogs. That's the Angry Birds tree. Tell me that doesn't look like a giant slingshot. It's a big tree, too. At the base, uh, right where it connects to the ground, probably 40 inches in diameter. It's It's a big big base. And it has to be to support all that weight. Especially the candy levered weight. All the weight on the lefth hand side. It's a big tree. All right. So, everything that we looked at so far has been on the hardwood side. We are now shifting gears into uh the pine side. So you'll start to see all these pine trees. So, this comes out on the back side of those uh walnut trees He's at the beginning of the driveway. Booies, you were right the first time. We're on the edge of the pines. So to our left it's pines. To our right it's mostly hardwoods. Now up here is a couple just monster trees, monster hardwood, some oaks. And don't know how well it's going to show up on camera, but let's see. I'll drive over here. These two trees right here are really, really large uh oak trees. definite good uh definitely good candidates for tree houses. But the one on the trail, I I made this trail wrap around this beautiful oak tree cuz it's it's just it's a monster tree. This one right in front of us straight ahead is a huge huge huge oak tree. That tree is just a monster. That base is every bit of 4t in diameter at the bottom. Really, really nice tree. This particular trail that we're exiting is extremely rough and bumpy. I cleared this trail with the um piranha bar, primarily the piranha bar on the front bucket of the tractor. And when when when you uproot trees like that, it it leaves a hole behind. And I never did scrape the uh scrape the trail smooth again. All right, let's go this way. This is the trail that I used in the Lane Shark video. Um, it's it's just a very well-maintained trail. It's close to the shop. Dogs always get a bath right here laying down in the water. They're going to be so filthy. They love it though. [Laughter] Kind of can't show it much, but this is the pond. [Laughter] They like to cool off any chance they can. The pond water is really low, actually. Hey, pup. Let's go. Heat. Heat. [Laughter] Hey, pups. We're turning. Lot of down limbs on this side of the property. So, if anyone's familiar with Southeast Michigan, there's a road called Grand River. It's an avenue that has uh an eastbound lane and a westbound lane. If I'm not mistaken, that's the directions. And I've called this Grand River South. Right here is Grand River South. And then there's a ditch and a row of trees right here. And then on the other side is what I call Grand River North. So, we're going to we're going to cross this ditch really quick, which uh has a bunch of limbs down. Now, we're on Grand River North. Everything to the right is uh pines completely pines and of course uh sweet gum saplings in between or trees now more than saplings. This is one of those trails that I really got to get the lane shark on. This is also a bottleneck for the Jeep. Everything that I've that I've ridden today so far, the Jeep can access. But right here to the left of this tree is not enough real estate for the width of the Jeep. Um, actually, yeah, it'll be close. I've never tried it cuz I don't think it can make it. And this is where Grand River North basically stops and then we turn right. So in front of us is the new trail that I want to cut. It parallels this right here to the right. So just like Grand River is two two track uh two trails that have a row of trees and a ditch in between them. This is going going to be the same thing. This is going to be uh essentially well Grand River East where we're at right now and then Grand River West or or whatever. I'll pick up some names. Maybe maybe this is telegraph because it goes north to south. That's what we'll do. We'll we'll do this as Telegraph. Uh, so we have northbound traffic right now where we're at and then a row of old growth hardwood trees on the left with a ditch. And then what I will create is a new trail. And that's that's one of the objectives of of today is to document the overgrown area that I want to cut into or mulch into a trail. And this is our property boundary again. [Laughter] All right. So, this is the trail we just came down. And then there's a row of old growth hardwoods straddling a ditch. And then there's another clear trail over here that's yet to be cleaned up. And I want to continue this because this area over here to the right is essentially like a plateau or like a uh I call it a peninsula because this is the beginning of this little ditch. This ditch turns into a full-blown 20ft deep gully. As it goes that way, it gets deeper and deeper and deeper into a gully and then that goalie wraps around this chunk of land into another goalie over here that goes into some adjacent property. So essentially this is like well like my hand like a plateau surrounded by goalie and all these goalies and ditches drain into the creek but this is completely for the most part undisturbed. We call this the jungle. It is so dense right there. Also call it the Blair Witch Project. Uh it's it's very very dense. But there's a clear trailish right here that I've ridden several times and I really want to clean clean the stuff up and uh and and make it look a little bit more well travelable passable. So this is a trail that borders our property line and it dead ends at what I'm calling the elephant tree. I may or may not show you that. Probably show you that as well. But, uh, where this trail dead ends, where we stopped cutting is where I'll come out on this side. So, I'll come out all the way through here and then meet back up to this. So, we're basically I'm wanting to cut a loop right here. There's no entrance to this area other than where I'm standing. It's just a little loop area, but it'll be a fun extra little trail to ride or to walk or whatnot. Uh, this, let's see, let me go this way. So, this is the trail that I just came down. And this is part of our perimeter trail right here. This is where like three trails meet. About to be four trails. And to the left is not our property. This was somebody else's trail and it's already grown up so much because no one's been traveling on it thankfully. Um this goes through the woods a little bit and gets off to that bean field some and hunters used to come through here and hunt on our side over way over there. Um, so we stopped all that and you know, we put up a uh property boundary right here, a marker rather, clear as day, painted orange, as well as a no trespassing sign. And we put some cameras up here and have had zero indication of people actually traveling through here. So, that's pretty good. Anywh who, um I want to get the forestry mulchure out here, the PTO mulchure, and blaze a path through here. The starting point, I may have to take out some of these trees. Well, I know I'm going to have to take out some of these trees with the tractor and the mulch. So, it'll be a good little test up front. And then as soon as I get past this, it's pretty dense jungle and briars and whatnot. The four-wheeler will just plow over it. Uh, but definitely thicker than what I would want to put a rotary cutter on, you know. So, it'll be a good test for the mulchure. But before I do that, I need to get a before video. I want to run through here with the with the four-wheeler. And that's what I need to shut up and get done. Everything seems to be working out just fine, by the way. I don't hear anything rattling around in the back. And all this stuff is just chilling and easy for me to control from the handlebars. This deep into the woods, the mosquitoes are on like an entire entirely different level. There was a show that I watched. Um it was it was an Alaskan show. Uh there was a a lady up way high I forget the name of the show. She was way high up on the Arctic Circle way up at the top of Alaska and she had a fueling station for planes. I'll put the name of the the video or the show on the screen. Uh, but there was a guy named Glenn, I think his name was, and he lived in this little shack right next to a lake. And, uh, I think he went like 17 months without seeing another person living out there out in the wild. And some of the video of him walking around with these, I mean, it was like a a swarm of mosquitoes, an insane swarm of mosquitoes to where you I I would be afraid to breathe out there. They were so bad. We don't have them that bad, but mosquitoes are definitely uh they're definitely brutal here, too. All right, let's go for a ride through the untamed trail. [Music] All right, we're about halfway through what will be a new trail. And there's there's patches like this where there's little to no work to do at all. Like very little stuff. Some debris down from trees and whatnot. Uh but you can clearly see a path. There's no big trees in the way. On the left side over here, this is where that small ditch has started to get into a well turn into a big gully. That's I don't know if the camera is doing this justice, but that's uh that's a good 15 ft down right there at the bottom. So, there's the other side over there. And some of these trees over here. I mean, these trees are huge. Uh, that's a monster white oak and a white oak and a white oak and a white oak. And this one right in front of us is an ash tree. That's an ash tree. Um, yeah, some of these monster trees. And you have all these like huge leaning trees that like when they fall, my goodness, I'm going to have to figure out a way to get uh figure out a way to get the the lumber out of here cuz these be some heavy heavy heavy logs. Um that one right there, the bark looks like an ash tree. Same with this. But I'm not too sure what they are because the leaves look more like a maple. So, they're probably a maple. They're definitely not an ash. Uh, anyway, where am I going with that? This trail is beautiful. I think this trail is going to be one of the nicer trails just because we have I love driving up next to these, riding up, walking up next to these huge, huge old growth trees. And I've got the camera set to wide angle, so they're not going to look that big, but these are these are some really, really big trees. Um, and it's all hardwoods on this side. this in the middle. There's very few pines in in this little circle that we're doing. Very few pines. Most of this is all to be honest with you, most of it sweet gum. Um, but there's a lot of lot of fun interesting stuff scattered throughout. Like there's a golden popppler around here. A yellow popppler. I forget what what it's really called. Commonly called a tulip popppler. Uh, because the leaves look like tulip leaves. One of these over here is is the that popppler tree. Um, but this is pretty far away from the road, pretty far away from any houses. So, you come out here and it's man, it's just so quiet, peaceful. Uh, there are some stretches that have ridiculous amounts of um, mosquitoes, but right where I'm at right now, ironically enough, cuz there's a puddle of goo right there. Come on, pups. Good way to find snakes. Come on. Um, yeah, that's that's a good 20 ft down to that little water hole. Uh, the mosquitoes aren't that bad right here, which is nice, but it's quiet. It's super quiet. Now, I don't know if you can see it, but you see that sunny spot over there? That's the bank on the other side of the creek. So you see the sunny spot, then there's a creek, then of course it comes back up to here, and then it comes into this this ditch or goalie. This one wraps around a little bit and then funnels off back into the creek. And then it wraps around this way and goes back into the creek uh that way as well. Um, man, these old trees are just they're just wicked looking. I love coming out here and just exploring visually. That's a big one. That's off in the distance and it looks huge and it's straight up. So when that tree falls, I mean, there's like awesome log, awesome log, awesome log, awesome log. All right, let's get back on the trail. It's uh I don't know if I said this or not, but it's 4th of July when I'm recording this, and I've got about 45 minutes before I have to fire up the smoker. for having a bunch of ribs and Oh, don't walk into that. Can you see that spider right there? Just chilling on your web, huh? Anyway, bunch of ribs, smoked baked potatoes. We're doing some chicken uh chicken thighs. It's going to be a good old day. Good day all around. Here we go. Heat. Heat. [Laughter] Looks like I went a little bit too far. Trail actually goes over here to the right. All right. So, we're approaching the elephant tree. This is the end of the trail that I've already cut. So, this tree right in front of us. I'll move the camera. We call this the elephant tree because does that not look like an elephant trunk right there? That is the elephant tree. Pretty cool tree. Now, from here, uh, that tree is actually not on our property by just a couple feet. The property, uh, so the elephant tree is right there. The property line is like right here. You ready, Grace? Let's go. Let's go. So, this is the where we stopped cutting the last time I was on this area. uh with the tractor anyway. And it's also where we began the trail. Right about where Grace is right there, if I turn right is where I entered the trail. So, we just made a full loop. Now, let's go back home. You guys want to run? Let's go. Let's go puppies. I just lost part of my audio system. I guess I got to slow down just a little bit. I like to let him run at that stretch we just did in the stretch right here. We'll go one more time. You guys ready? Let's go. Let's go. Run. Heat. Heat. heat. Let's see if they go for a swim. You guys going to go for a swim? Yeah. Oh, Mr. Nali cooling off, buddy. Buddy, good boy. Got to wait for Gracie. She just chased a squirrel. All right, here comes Grace. Does she getting wet? Oh, she's getting wet for sure. She doesn't like to lay down in it like Molly does. I'll let him chill out for a second. Oh, I'm not going in. I'm not going in. I'm just getting where the camera's on you. All right, that was pretty fun. So, this little station up front, I think I like it. I want to redo this, make it look nice. Um, my audio fell out. It bounced out and fell out down. So, I got to mount both of these uh on the vertical side going up. Uh, our driveway alarm just went off, but not the second one. So, maybe that was just a deer or something. Anyway, pretty cool. Pretty cool. Let's see how everything did inside of here. See if anything fell out or fell out of its holder or whatever. And yes, so this bar I had it in a nail right there held up in place so it wouldn't slide left and right. That did not last. I did take the machete and put it on a little uh Velcro loop right here so it's not flopping around on down there. Everything else everything else is where it's supposed to be. So, the only thing that didn't work is isolating this from sliding left and right. But to be honest with you, I don't think that matters. Cool. Cool. Cool. And my tripod didn't move at all. [Music] [Music] [Music] holding on to the hand of selfdestruction. [Music] And I'm back to a place that I left a long time ago. Jimmy say smoke this cigarette. [Music] Making body feels better. [Music] What do you do when you just pick up my guitar and too much on your plate when I need to escape? Everything will be better when I find find way [Music] people leave. Do they ever think about you? what I'd say if I ever came back again. Well, I still wonder and I miss you. I know I'll ask you when to see you in my face. What do you do when you get just pick up my guitar? [Music] Too much on your plate when you need to escape. Everything will be better when I find a way. [Applause] [Music]