A maple down in the swamp. A group of dead standing pine. The first one I dropped I was off just a tiny bit and of course it got hung up. Right across the trail to get the maple. I'll push it out of the way with the tractor. Loading up some of the maple. Of course the stump from the pine earlier now wants to stop me from driving over it going back. Will get back tomorrow to get the rest of the maple and get some of that pine cut up.
I hate when that happens but it makes it a whole lot easier to deal with when you have a tractor and loader and a backhoe, good job gettin er done.
Nice work there neighbor " billb3 "was a good day to be in the woods around here. Today and tomorrow look to be dry and warm also hope to drop a few more oaks.
That head is going to give me nightmares. billb3 Can you describe to me in extreme detail how awesome it is owning your own back hoe, I want to live vicariously through you.
Had an hour this afternoon before it got dark to get some pine. Down hill. Lots of dead grey birch. Too far gone and soft to bother with. Should get the ones that are still alive as grey birch is better than pine. These two pines fell in a storm a few years ago. Getting soft and probably shouldn't have bothered but there are several dozen more I got snag. This pine died Last Winter or Spring. Must have been done in by the gypsy moths. Maybe the drought here too. There's no signs of pine borers or anything else. Group of five trees. Nice and so much easier/faster to cut at waist height. That was quick. Small tree I could push over with the BH: and cut in a neat pile also. Small tree, small pile. Small effort, but kinda fun. That was it for late this afternoon.
A pine tree was uprooted a couple of years ago in a Winter Noreaster. It's ben hanging over my hill trail. I pulled a couple of the trees that were hanging it up out of the way and pulled it down to chest height. Snapped all the small branches off of it for kindling. Filled a garbage barrel. Sliced that up right quick hanging there at chest height. Also right there was a grey birch I had pushed out of the way with the tractor roots and all. Seems still pretty solid despite the huge fungi so I sliced it up. Another small grey birch. Kinda small but it will burn decent. Kind of a sad small pile. It'll be a warm afternoon anyway. A poplar. I usually don't bother with these. Meant to stick the saw in it and see how hard it still was. Next time. Three bucket fulls. One plus about 5 rounds was pine. Two were grey birch.
Those trees were all around that hung up pine in that one spot over the trail. Also got further back and knocked over two dead pines to cut up tomorrow. While I had the bucket on the tractor. Also dug some gravel and filled a couple of sink holes on the trail that have been getting bigger. Tomorrow I'll be back with the forks to hold up trees to cut. Hauling the heat home. A bucket is two or three days of stove fire. Not bad for 3 - 4:30 PM
A little here and a little there adds up in a hurry! Great pics, love working in the woods this time of year!
Hemlock tree down in mom's back yard. Nice weather so got to it this afternoon. No leaves, it's dead. Sometimes it's easier to dig and cut as many roots as you can and then use the tree itself as a lever to snap the rest of the roots, knock the tree over and have the stump out all at the same time. Easy-peasy with a BH/tractor. Sure beats cutting the tree down and then trying to get the stump out. Just push the whole thing over. It's fun. Works with shallow root trees like pines and hemlocks that aren't too big. Hemlocks have a LOT of branches. Started limbing but it started raining. This thing is loaded with gypsy moth egg smears. Like 5 on every branch . All the way to the top. Every branch. Did I mention hemlocks have lots of branches ? I'm thinking of getting a burn permit ( gotta do that here now ) and burn all the branches to kill them.
