Wait a sec.... 14040 - is that Darien Center? That's not too far from me! You got any Hickory or Oak?
600,000 board feet on 20 trailer loads? That would be 30,000 feet a load. At about 1,000 feet weighing 5 tons , that is 150 tons on each load. Wow!
And on the other end, 500 cords would be 50-60 grapple truck loads at 8-10 cords per, hard to believe there is that much left to rot if they only took 20 trailer loads to the mill.
I'm basing how much wood is there by what the logger told me it's tuff to tell there is 70 acres cut pretty heavily plus hollow logs that got left my plan was to go in and cut it in 10' sections load into dump trailer and haul it to where it's going to be cut and stacked have access to skid steer, mini excavator with a thumb, and bucket tractor there is some good info here thanks them more info the better have cut wood but never to this magnitude Sure have my work cut out for me
If it's oak and they only took multiples of 8 to 10 foot lengths from just the trunks they left a lot of tops behind. You could probably go in and just pull crooked logs from the tops and get quite a bit of log loads good for not much but firewood. That's a lot of work for firewood if you have crooked logs that won't go thru a processor.
Any thoughts of having people cut and load their own? $40-50 a pickup truck full? You could offer to help them and get cash in hand quickly as well as get help working your way through the job. If there is any concern about liability, you could run the saw and they'd load the truck. I imagine you could load 10-12 trucks a day. If the skid trails are good enough to drive a 4x4 truck along, you could start working the accessible areas and start moving it quickly. No need to worry about handling the wood multiple times or seasoning it if you can sell it for a decent price..
This is a good idea! And dont forget in our resourses, we do have printable liability papers you could have them sign.
Sadly I agree. I don't care what liability form they sign. But friends and family that you know could do a 50/50 you take half of however much they want.
One tool that's very useful in getting tops down on the ground- a polesaw. Helps a lot to minimize footwork amid lots of trippy poo. Some gas polesaws can run much longer bars than OEM. E.g. mine came with 10", but has no prob w/16" in oak. Can save lots of headaches.
I can see it, well 500 anyway, if woods were heavily forrested, maples here got 20 to 30 feet straight up so the took the trunk and left the crown or top. this summer dad had loggers cut anything above 16 inch on his woods (about 23 acres.. logs out were 1 and half foot ball in size 8 to 10 foot high on average just on flat spot 3 to 4 acres easily 30 cord of firewood.. unfortunately it will rot before we can process half Yeah that big of a job if you want to do it you need equipment and crew.. minimum good tractor with winch and 3 men then it will be most of a winter...
OP, you did not mention what the terrain look like. Often around here due to slopes, some wood is very hard to recover. As others have said, much of this may be jackstrawed which will also hamper recovery efforts. Personally I would recommend at a minimum a 4 WD tractor in excess of 50 HP with a logging winch. I would cut off all brush smaller than 6" and leave it in the woods. OP you said the area was recently logged, is there a lot of log cut offs pushed off in the woods. If so that is where I would start as the wood is much larger and more productive albeit harder to handle.
I'd start by assessing the ground and terrain, setting up some access roads and several processing landings or areas, tackle the easier stuff first and go from there. My .02 cents....
One thing to be very watchful for (depending on your site conditions), is seemingly bottomless skidder ruts. I cleaned up one area that was muddy and the rut had filled in with silt and did not seem bad. Once I drove into it (luckily with my fourwheeler), I quickly found that the rut was at least two feet deep and I had to carve a road around it. If you run into these without a winch or front loader on the tractor, you will need come alongs or another piece of equipment to pull you out. If pulling a trailer that is loaded, you may have hours of fun getting unstuck depending on what you have to get you out. Not trying to be negative, but skidder trails can be interesting and full of surprises.
