You and my hubby would be DANGEROUS together. He is certain that we should dam up the river.. Years ago there were two sawmills run by dams within 500 feet of each other -one on either side of Route 1. I remember both of them, my father worked for years at one, just a half mile from where we live now. Sadly both the mills and the dams are gone now. He is also determined to have a small windmill on our hill as the wind zips by here nearly continuously. The Bushes at Walkers Point have switched their large windmill to a smaller one. Don’t know the reason but hubby would sure like to know why the change.
He insists upon sawing our wood with an old steam engine, hooked with a leather belt to the flywheel on the saw. I’m scared to death of that saw and maintain that he could do it just as fast with his chain saw, but BOYS get such satisfaction out of devising intricate ways of doing simple chores, DON’T THEY?
>>>BOYS get such satisfaction out of devising intricate ways of doing simple chores, DON’T THEY?<<<
LOL Of course we do... That is what keeps us young...
Hmmm, are you insinuating we have a bit of Rube Goldberg in us? ;^)
Wonder how many of the thread readers remember those cartoons.
>>>Years ago there were two sawmills run by dams within 500 feet of each other -one on either side of Route 1.<<<
Most of our dammed mill ponds were used for grinding grain. I only remember one that was a sawmill. The sawmill that I could never get enough of was run by a Mennonite who had a Fairbanks Morse Diesel engine - He could saw from sunup to sundown on 5 gallons of fuel. It was what they call a hit-or-miss type and had an 8’ flywheel. It too ran on a belt that drove it. Once or twice a day they would put some pitch on it to dress the belt and keep it from slipping. It was really fascinating to see it blow perfect smoke rings each time it fired...
I used to love listening to him talk about his earlier years when he worked sawing timber in Oregon. I remember him telling me about one stump that they cut flat and it was so big they held square dances on it.