Attached is a link to Ritchie Brothers. They have a Schmeiser for sale in their upcoming auction.

www.rbauction.com/schmeiser-14-ft?invId=3947120&id=ci

I took these yesterday on my way home.

Has anyone heard from the starter of this thread
I see he hasn't [posted in a long time on the board .
Thanks
JB

Farm Cats do rule ! Looks like some places in Eastern Idaho where cats use to rule!. Thanks for the pics !

Today we started the process of removing a 108 year old orange orchard in Visalia, CA. It was still producing but the quality was sub-par and consumers are demanding mandarins. Sorry for the wrong type of steel tacks, but it could be CAT steel just as easy.

We used to push the trees into a pile and burn with a D7, but the California Air Resource Board has severely restricted our ability to burn. Now we excavate, dry, and drop the entire tree into a grinder. The chips are hauled off to a co-gen plant. These restrictions were put on the ag industry with no scientific data and I would bet large dollars our old system was cleaner and created less pollution.

Artemio from Wilson Ag, Shafter, CA, got the honors today and it is a pleasure to watch a skilled operator at work.

After the chips are removed, we will hire in a D10 at $325/hour to do some deep ripping. It will come with one shank and will struggle to make 4 feet on the first pass. The second pass will be perpendicular to the first and it should get the 5 feet we need. In a few months, I will post some pics of the D10 at work.

The last pic shows some Tango mandarins which we hope to be producing in about 4 years. Tangos are one of the varieties that are used in the branded cartons you may know as Cuties, Halos, or Smiles. G

I hear you on the CARB "no fires" attitude. Same thing up here in WA... A guy from the state told me that a permit to have a big stump/slash fire would be $5,000. So guys just make huge slash piles and leave them... Then we have a 10,000 acre forest fire or two (or a dozen). Who do they bill for those C02 emissions, which dwarf anything a landowner might do?

Hey Gang,

OK, that cracks me up... Push the tree over, let it dry, chip it... because you can't burn it anymore???? Then haul the chips to a burn plant.... hahahaha Our Government

Like the row of trees with the roots still attached to the trunks.. even if we were still allowed to burn I don't think I would go back to pushing the trees over with a bulldozer. In the days of pushing trees over with a blade the roots would break off (at least with 60' Walnut trees ) and you would see a mess of roots sticking up everywhere.

Roots have a great tensile strength but will break relative easily if bent or in shear as what happens when you push them over at a 90 degree angle instead of pulling straight up.

Now days you can rent a hydraulic excavator cheaper than what the labor contractor would charge to have a crew come in there and pick up the now separated mess by hand that just our economic analysis.


I don't think anyone did the full analysis when they banned open burning. Now you need a 500 - 1000 hp diesel powered chipper to chip them, then you need a diesel powered loader to load them into a diesel powered truck to haul them to be burned at a facility. Seems like this green stuff just causes a whole lot more diesel to be burned in the name of being green.. hey but we "created Jobs" The same thing can be said for burning trimmings from pruning. Now you have to chip them but because the grindings don't break down you need to add more Nitrogen.. from petroleum. Growers are having to go from no-till floors and go back to tillage once again especially in the nut crops where anything that is left on the orchard floor will get picked up by the harvester and become industrial waste once it arrives at the plant mixed in with nuts. Once again burning more diesel to help incorporate those chips after they build up after a few years of chipping.

what are the angle steel "boxes" that are on the cats in some of your pictures??? whats their purpose?

If you are asking about the "boxes" in front of the radiators, they are to keep dust and debris from being sucked across the radiator core.

Dust of a period of time cuts through the radiator and fan blades.