They had a breakdown on the harvester today, and expect to be down a couple of days. One of the crew will get the rest of the cut wood out tomorrow, and then go up the road a couple of miles to help at a different job (a place where I’ve shown some pictures in the past of me mowing logging roads with my Bush Hog. About 10-15 cord on the firewood pile so far. Sawlogs intermixed with firewood. It looks like he sorts some as he loads, and some as he unloads. This is along the property line, which is stone wall, but also flagged with orange tape. The Mrs and I do an evening inspection. We both wear hardhats- there are a few branches dangling here and there. Two nice Red Oak in the center of the picture, and a leaner on the left, being left to grow some more. I expect the two in the center are veneer quality.
Thanks guys. The woods here sealed the deal for me when we bought the place. I love the feel of the maples and oak, and am really excited to have roads and trails improved, and have a lot of the junk trees removed. Not much to report today, as the harvester is still down for repair and they did not forward any of the wood cut the other day out. I suspect some of that is to avoid leaving the logs in the full sun while waiting to assemble a full truckload.
Service truck doing repair on the forwarder. Word was it was minor. The harvester is waiting on a replacement motor in the head.
Consider the nice Red Oak log, at 15” on the top end, and cut 9’ long to allow generous trim, least it be considered veneer. That means 11 cu of wood, or maybe call it 10% of a cord once split and stacked less densely than this. As firewood stumpage, I get $0.50 for this log. A homeowner will be paying $12, delivered as a log, or as much as $35 if it is CSS and dry. As a sawlog there is about 80 bd ft, depending on trim and the log rule used. At $200/mbf, I get $16 for this log. Now join the dream of veneer - a top price might be $2,000 mbf, and I split this 50:50 with the loggers, or about $80 for me for this log. So firewood is a low value byproduct. Some loggers/landowners leave it in the woods (“cut the best and leave the rest”). We are taking an upfront hit, doing a harvest heavy on firewood plus a lot of fixed costs (the road and landing), with the dream of growing veneer for a much later harvest.
Thanks for the education! Its been interesting following along. Guessing you will try to sell much of the firewood quality wood as is? Cutting and splitting it all first may diminish your chances of seeing the future veneer sale Kidding.
You are spot-on with likelihood of me surviving all the firewood. Just this morning I was putting on my socks and thinking I never imagined feeling like this at this age. I spent many winter evenings pushing a pencil, trying to justify buying a wood processor. With “only” 100 cord to work with, there simply wasn’t enough volume to pay for one. Maybe I need to work backwards, from a hospital bill for my back to rationalize it.
That kind of "grunt" work will take it's toll for sure, I know from experience. You have all the other necessary equipment as do I. I'm really starting to look hard at a processor as well. This is an absolutely outstanding thread btw. Thank you so much for sharing!
We got 1.5” of rain over the weekend. They did a little cutting today, but are going to give the roadways a couple of days to dry out before they haul any more wood out. I did a little shovel work on one road they aren’t using yet, and drained a couple of puddles from another. Note my shovel in the pic below - these two Red Oak get to stay and grow some more.
Word was they were on another job until tomorrow, so I brought the cows over nearby and had waterline and fences in the way when they came to put the chains on the forwarder. They found their way around the obstacles on their own, and are ready to roll, maybe on Thursday.
They were able to haul some wood to the landing today. It is sorted by species and a rough sort by grade. Maple, Red Oak, White Ash, White Pine, and firewood, looking down the roadway. Some of the Red Oak, with a hat thrown in for scale.
Each load that leaves gets a “trip ticket” left in the mailbox at the landing. Only 24 cord of firewood, so far.
Sunlight is a big objective. Note the difference between where I am compared to where they are headed.
I showed 3 pictures of this Red Oak earlier in this thread (Jan 29, 2020). Note how the canopy now has room to grow into. I like growing the Sugar Maples, but I really love seeing these Red Oak.
We enjoy doing a daily inspection. Normally we would be wearing hard hats but forgot to put them in the side-by-side.
Umm no side by side in signature.. I have seen tractor, cows logging roads. What ya got ? Likes and dislikes what would you do differently?
It is a Rhino 450, and the Mrs thinks it is the bee’s knees. Easy to zip out to the far pasture. Fast and easy to pop back and get a tool you forgot. Seldom/ almost never use the dump, but always stuff in the bed. It has an annoying squeak that is well documented online. Beyond that, no complaints.
