This morning I went over to my friends house and we used his toolcat to haul wood out. It was a nice day today, probably low 20's and basically no wind. We also had to use the toolcat to yank 2 trees that cut stuck in the tree canopy. Part of select cutting in an existing forest is getting hung trees. Pretty much mostly ash, because it's pretty much all dead here, and cutting these trees helps get their trails they are cutting in the 50 acres that they purchased behind there house. It helps us both because he wants the takes cleared and any dangerous trees that can fall taken out. He's got 2 young teenage sons as well that like to send the in the woods. They started tapping maple trees last spring, and they really enjoyed that. I walked around with my buddy Matt out of the cab of the toolcat and I pointed out all the nice mature sugar maples that they should tap. They tapped some box elders last year because they weren't certain what trees were sugar maples. Let's just say I found them way more than enough sugar maples that they will be able to get a lot more syrup this year. His wife went and got us cousins subs for lunch, so we went back to the house with the trailer mostly full, and had lunch inside. After lunch we went back out into the woods, leaving the trailer at the shed, and just used the bucket on the toolcat figuring that if we filled the bucket, that should top off the trailer. Yep. That worked. It's a big bucket. Here's the haul brenndatomu notice the rounds in the truck? There's a couple elm, red maple, and cherry rounds in the trailer, but mostly ash After I took the rounds in the bed and stacked them on the trailer... I'll get the splitter brought up and split this load and haul it to my pile that will go into the wood shed bay that I'm pulling from for this heating season after it's been emptied. This wood lot essentially could keep me and others supplied indefinitely with firewood. We're just trying to get as much ash as we can, while it's still good. This is great news since it's only about 10 miles from my house. All in all, a great day.
Nice work and thanks for sharing. Looks like a perfect day in the woods Although I’m off for most of this week, I won’t be out cutting anytime soon. I’ll have to settle for living vicariously through the rest of you guys
Great work and a nice load of wood there Hork! Ash is still around but getting scarce to find decent quality around here.
Nice haul Tom! Those Toolcats are a nice machine for firewooding. Sounds like you got a good mutually beneficial gig going there for sure. Nice work!
Yes, absolutely easy to work with wood. A lot of 1 and 2 splitters. I'm going to unload the rounds from the trailer, right into the splitter, then into the agrifab yard trailer I'll bring my buddy a couple of those IBC totes from work as well. They have some recycling guy just pick them up for free. I should've remembered to bring them this time. He wants a couple for inside his shed. If I were to camo paint a couple of these totes, I bet my wife wouldn't even think twice. That bright nearly shiny metal that they are made of is off putting to her. I just see these and think of how easy it would be to put uglys and shorts in them.
I worked on splitting the wood from this haul today. I got 4 yard carts full split and hauled. The snow drift by where I needed to pile it was a bit extra work. Only 2wd and lawn tires doesn't help. Neither does not having the chains on the rear tires, but I'm not bothering with those. I have the path packed down now and I used some ashes from the fireplace because I was having traction issues. I also lost the pin clip for the wedge on the splitter and that allowed the pin to back out and I didn't catch that the pin caught on the"stuck log remover" wings on the splitter. So that pin got bent. I used a hammer and bent the pin straight enough to get reused. I couldn't find a pin clip at home, so I used the wire from an office binder clip. It worked. Here's what I started with First load... Then I got stuck. I tossed the splits onto the pile and put ashes to get unstuck. So I played with Hayden and then split more wood. You can see the new splits on top of the pile. Load 2 Load 3 And load 4.. Oops last one was blurry. There's still another 2-3 cart loads in the trailer. That'll be tomorrow's work. I'll need to get in this earlier in the day than I started today. We're going out to dinner with friends tomorrow late afternoon.
Yeah, trying to keep on hoarding for future seasons. Also, I'm not working out this week with my trainer, so a couple days of firewood work should make up for it. Not by intensity, but at least in duration.
