We had some Tulip Poplar blowdowns in one of the storms that came through. I got some time today to cut some of the logs up into lengths needed for siding one of the steer sheds. Skidded them out to the upper meadow and I'll get them on pallets till I can get them over to the sawmill to slice. even bigger two, these will be about all our mill can handle. These had all fallen in a poison ivy patch and I was pretty much swimming in PI so as soon as I got them skidded out to the meadow, I washed my clothes and took a shower. Scrub brushed my hands and used 3 washcloths and LOTs of soap. Tossed my gloves in the burn barrel... Later in the day I skidded some Honey Locust tops out to the firewood area that were from trees I harvested for lumber a couple years ago. I have several HL that are girdled throughout the woods that I need to bring down and process into boards and firewood. They are kind of hit and miss with some internal rot around some of the knots. Some logs look great till you cut them and make almost no lumber and others make boards just fine. Part of the afternoon got wasted. After showering off the PI, as I stepped out the front door, a Sheriffs deputy and a State Trooper were walking through our front yard. They were looking for a woman that wrecked her car down at the corner about 1,000 feet from the house and told the couple she hit that she lived here and walked through our Pine trees and up into our woods. They said she was un-hurt, but totally wasted. We cleared our house and locked up then the neighbor took the Deputy around the woods trails in the SxS, the rest of us on quads and tractors. We never found her. I asked them to let us know when she shows up at home but they said they didn't have a good address. She's on parole from serious drug issues and lived with various people till she gets thrown out. Great!!! Now casing my place out. We'll stay locked and loaded for a few days. Later in the day a strange van did come up our drive and when the wife opened the door (we have a driveway alarm), they took off, coincidence???
ding! ding! ding! Steer shed siding wins the prize. 3/4" x 8" vertical siding with a small gap between them screwed to the skirt & girts just in the middle so as it dries it won't split. 3/4" x 2" Battens will cover the gaps. I'll spray some stain on it in the fall once they dry out good in the sun. Steers don't care how fancy it is. Matter of fact they don't really care about having a shed as long as they have some shade trees in the pasture, good healthy grass, and a couple buckets of grain twice a day!!! They'll be pushing 1,400 lbs. by butcher time in October... This years burger boys, 3 Black Angus and 3 Herefords. We rotate them through 9 paddocks so they always have fresh solar irrigated grass. If the suns shining, the sprinkler is running... Can we say RUMP ROAST? We have two of these to side. Roofs are already on. Just needing siding. The far side will remain open. The ultimate goal. Well marbled steaks, tasty roasts, and juicy burgers... These will get trimmed for Strip steaks. sorry for the graphic picture of well marbled DELICIOUS STEAKS!!!
I haven't sold any wood off the sawmill, yet... We really got it to use for our needs but my neighbor has done a couple cutting jobs for others with it. We let some of our buddies come over and cut some of their stuff on it occasionally, but they have to do the 3 beer training course first...
Skidded out another big storm downed Tulip Poplar. Got three 9-1/2 foot saw logs for siding out of the straight part of the trunk. Above that was getting knotty and a little crooked... The 357 got the call for this trip into the woods. There's also a large Honey Locust down nearby that I'll skid out later today. Hoping for a saw log out of it for deck boards at the house. The top will be primo firewood. No pix on that yet.
I'll have to look closer in that area. There are tons of TP but I've never paid close attention in that particular area of the woods cuz there wasn't much in there that I considered viable timber so I've ignored it. I've never been around Aspen much and I'll have to look closer. I just assumed!!! I do know the 357 blasts through it in a heartbeat. Hero wood for a chainsaw...
I need to harvest a couple of TP trees for some boards and batten strips. I've already milled about 50 -60 boards 10"-12".
You're correct. I swung by that area today on the quad after feeding the T-bones to look at those trees today. There is a grove of Aspen right next to the grove of Tulip Poplar where all the blow downs were. I didn't even know we had any here on the farm. I should start a chart with all the species I find here. I've tramped through most of the woods here, but there are a few areas that I "looked at" but didn't really observe well...
I'm needing some 4x4 posts for sheds so I dropped a double Honey Locust tree that had been girdled a few years ago. I cleared out some smaller Sugar Maples from the landing zone so they wouldn't get all splintered up when this HL took them down. I ran out of light so I'll have to get back there to finish up over the weekend. In clearing the landing zone I used the MS250 for everything as the largest tree removed was a 7" SM. I tried a double gill open face hinge to allow more flex in the hinge just to see how it works. I've had a couple instances of leaners that I want pull hard 90* to the lean and I want hinge control all the way to the ground. This hinge flexed so well that I had to actually finish cutting the stem off of the stump after it was on the ground. I wish I had taken more pix while doing it. I'm sure different species will react somewhat differently based on their hardness. I used the G288 with the 32" bar to drop the Honey Locust. It was 30" diameter at the stump and a little irregular shaped since it was a grown together double. It was leaning some towards the landing zone, but I used the big shot to put a bull rope 55' up in a crotch in the larger stem. The pic is the toss line and I'm zoomed in all the way. There was a large widow-maker hanging in a lower crotch that I was able to knock out safely before working under it. I prefer to just set the hinge on dead trees with a wedge in to keep them from setting back. Then nudge them over with the bull rope so there's no chance of limbs snapping off when it starts moving through other tree tops with me still at the stump. This one was leaning just enough that by the time the felling cut started opening, she was going on over and it was time to get away from the stump. https://youtube.com/shorts/tNT5Xvx68Ag? I was able to cut a nice straight 14' log out of the bigger stem and I should be able to get some decent posts and boards out of that. the butt end is 22" diameter and the top end is 20". I'm sure I can get some more smaller logs for lumber out of the stems and lots of firewood out of the rest. This was one of the nicer HL logs I've harvested out of our woods so far. I'll skid this up to the mill this weekend and see what other saw logs I can get out of this tree.
I got the 3 Honey Locust saw logs skidded out to the upper pasture where we can use the loader to put them on the sawmill. Logs this big and heavy get 3 chain links to the skidder attachment. The red chain link provides the lift to get it off the ground and the blue links on each side give a below the axle connection point to pull the log so it keeps the front end of the tractor on the ground. The tractor still wants to rotate up some but is limited and much safer with those lower links. I got everything off the trail back there at the landing zone, but I'll finish processing the firewood later. neighbor's house in the background.
A "double gill face cut". Learning about stuff here every day! Nice job felling and explaining it! How long ago was it girdled? The hinge flex is interesting, in that the dead wood didn't snap. Still enough moisture to flex.
The double gill bore cut hinge was used on a smaller maple tree that was alive just to try it out. The big Locust was dropped with a conventional face cut / felling cut. The Honey Locust had been girdled 3 or 4 years ago when our state forester wanted us to cull them out as they aren't a commercially viable production lumber species. HL retain a high moisture content and are somewhat flexible even after being girdled for years. They don't dry out and snap off like Ash for instance. Species all act somewhat differently. I had dropped a few of the HL at that time but there were so many that I didn't want them all on the ground at once and he agreed that girdling them would still open the canopy and stop them from taking nutrients from the more commercially desirable species. I still have a 20 acre area in the back that I haven't touched any of the HL so I have a stash of them for many years into the future. I like them as firewood and they work well for rot resistant needs also (fence posts, woodshed posts, steer shelter posts, etc...). I like experimenting with hinge and cutting techniques back in the woods. That way, when I need to cut trees around buildings and other stuff I have the knowledge and confidence in knowing what I can do and more importantly, what I can't do safely.
