Yep, pretty close. 16.5 - 17". For a 17 year old saw, that's never been rebuilt, it goes well. I saw no appreciable difference between this saw and a brand new pro ms362. That was my 029super with a safety chain, and the ms362 with safety chain. Granted the 362 was still breaking in, but still.
OK, I got out this AM, last day off for a while before I go back to work tomorrow. I had to be back for the Badger cotton bowl game, which was nice to watch since they won. Here's the pics in about 3 hours of work. Overloading the rear rack. It worked, but I had very poor steering. 6, 12" or so rounds of cherry 17" long get kinda heavy. Yes, there was a ratchet strap involved. Those were some of the remaining rounds of cherry that I ran out of daylight to bring up to the staging area the last time I was in the woods. I think there was about 10 rounds like that. Then I went on to dropping some beech. I started on the smallest one. It's all bucked up in the pic below to the left in front. Then the next one behind it that was bigger. I got that all bucked up. Next I looked to handle the bottom of the big beech widowmaker that was hung up for a year. Here it is. It's the ones with all the rounds at the base. I literally barely got all of the tree in this pic. You can see the jagged top just a little. The rounds are from the widowmaker top that I bucked up last time I was in the woods. Nevermind that crappy pic. Here's the result. The top flew and broke in two pieces when it thudded to the ground. It was a tremendous thud too. Then bucked up. A lil stumpin' stumpin' That tree was very solid until about right where the top broke. It was hollowed out as a squirrel home, but nobody was home. Then a quick shot of my work before I headed home. To be continued...
Solid looking wood. There isn't much in the way of underbrush in your woods. Is it always like that? Here it would be thick with salal, salmonberry and thimbleberry or blackberry.
Lol horkn your ATV looks like mine all the time overstacked on the front and back rack. I use bundgy cords but I should really switch to Ratchet straps.
It's always been like that, well since 1981, so 35+ years. In spring there's a ton of may apples, trillium, jack in the pulpit, etc. The canopy from the mature trees really blocks all that stuff from growing. There's red oak, white oak, ironwood, shagbark hickory, sugar maple, poplar, cherry, ash, elm, and basswood. There's no chance for the invasive buckthorn to move in. The open area allows me to drive the quad easily, although we have a couple of main trails. The cherry was completely off of the ground, so I wasn't worried about it rotting. The beech is actually quite solid, the big widowmaker one at least. The w smaller beech had some punk, but there's easily enough btu's to make it worthwhile to get that in the stacks. When the to of that widowmaker was solid. I've got another even bigger dead standing beech that will be cut down soon, as well as a 10" dbh dead stander beech that should be very solid too. I can only hope the big one is as good and no rot like that one in pics above. If it is it's going to be a lot of wood for the future. I'm actually going to pass on 2 or 3 nice elms for now that are dead standing as I know they do just fine and really don't rot quickly at all. I've gotten most everything that was salvageable that was on the ground already. There's more to do, even with this small woods. I know I'm blessed to have a wood like this to cut on. I just keep at it. I'll be stacking either at the land, or at my buddy's house until I can get my wood shed built at my house.
I guess at this time of year, it looks so open because the canopy is gone. The small flower ground cover sounds like it would look gorgeous in the Spring. If the evergreens here are really thick and heavy overhead, there will be nothing under the trees but as soon as you get to the edges, it is a jungle to get through.
Yeah the trilliums are spectacular, our state flower actually. The jack in the pulpit is amazing too. On the edges of the woods, there's sticker plants, and assorted stuff. Oh yeah, wild morel mushrooms too. Oh yeah, that's the best part of spring.
OK here's today's work. 30° sunny and very light winds. Maybe 5mph at most. Here's a dead sugar maple ( center) that appears to be solid. I took a nice face notch and the the back cut is all set. I just didn't feel comfortable with this thing. There's a dead branch just barely hanging on at the top. It could fall at any moment and it's even on the same side as the back cut. It started creaking and I tried giving it a push. The gap from the kerf widens with the tree swaying. If I had wedges, I might have worked out down to ground. I'll let mother nature finish it off. It will come down once it gets a little windy. After I walked away from that I went a ways away to this smallish dead standing beech. All bucked up Up next I went looking for shagbark. This one was dead, not a lot of wood but it adds up. The smallish shag on the right center is going down. It's a live healthy tree, but it's too crowded where it's at. Plus this shag should be just right for a trade for a fellow hoarder that wants to try shag for smoking. It's down I got that all bucked up, and hauled up to the staging area of my land. Not a big tree, but solid, and should be the right amount. I saved all branches down to about 1.5" as well. I also cut up a bunch of branches that were on the ground and stacked them. Gooder stuff like shag, and sugar maple. I'll see how I feel tomorrow AM. If I'm able to, I'll get out and split a bit. I've got plenty to split.
I've got a lot of beech even this year. Much more for next year and beyond. I've got this big guy to drop too. It's bigger than the big beech that was a widowmaker earlier in this thread. I'm waiting for my buddy to help me. I'll need his bigger saw and it's just a job that you need a second set of eyes to ensure it goes well and everyone stays safe.
Before the Packers game, I did get out to my land to split wood. I had to redo the recoil rope on the splitter. It broke off right after the knot in the recoil. That took a few minutes, but I got out good enough. Then the splitter didn't want to start in under freezing temps in typical Briggs fashion. I got it going and ran it for a few minutes to hopefully make it a simple single pull when at the wood lot. Once I got to the land, the muffler pipe unscrewed from the head. I screwed it in as well as I could. Then I attempted to start it. Uggg. It was being bitchy. Got it going. I split all of this beech, the trunk of the ex widowmaker that I fell and bucked the other weekend. Of course, the exhaust pipe came out again in the process of splitting this. I went to try to put the pipe back in after a few minutes of unmuffled splitting. Even though it was laying on the snow, it was still blazing hot, and I nearly burned myself. Thank God I had gloves on. I still dropped it like it was hot, because it was. I kicked it into deeper snow to cool it off. Once cool, I got the muffler pipe back on again. Here's the end result. That's a solid amount of wood that will really start drying now. There was a lot of wasted time screwing with fixing stuff though. I wouldn't gotten a lot more done before the Packers game had all of those issues cropped up. Next Saturday I think will be a day of maintenance and upgrades on the ATV, and the splitter. It's supposed to rain anyways. A garage day will be a good thing. That way I can work as hard as I typically do and make the most of my time.
