A project if mine is cutting a road around my property. A goal of mine was to get through the swamp this winter . Today I made it! It's normally water up to 2 feet deep but I'm able to walk on the ice shelf since December. Not much for pics but I figure I got about 2 cords of hardwood, ( hauled out on foot with a sled) plus countless cedars that the deer have been devouring.
That looks like a fun place to cut. Really nice when it is windy because in there you won't feel it much. Deer appreciate it too! Getting a road or trail around the property is nice.
That my friend is a lot of work seems like you are having fun doing it. The deer look like they are glad you are cutting too Yum browse!! Then there is the satisfaction you get when you see what you have accomplished and all the BTU's you'll be using in the years ahead.
Building a road around a property is a really great idea. I was going to do that myself as it really shows people they may be cutting on your neighbor "Here is the line!" I got a place like you are cutting and I call it the "Bottom's" because of the black water that it has. Filled with Fir and Cedar for sure! I was never worried about logging it because with my bulldozer and log trailer, the combination practically walks on water, but now that I have sold my bulldozer, I am thinking about modifying my log trailer to be a tracked power trailer. But I admire your resolve. It is impressive how much wood can be begotten with a sled or scoot huh? Good for you!
I use a sled or wheelbarrow to get black locust out of a grove deep in my parents wood. It is hard work, but fun also. Snow and a sled is easier than a wheel barrow. Good work, and exercise.
I heard of a guy that made a monorail of sorts for his wheel barrow. He was an avid gardener and had a huge garden and wanted an easier way to transport stuff. His answer was conduit pipe and a non-rubber-tired wheel barrow running on that pipe. In that way...like railroads with steel wheel on steel rail, the friction was small that he could get what he needed easier. I would think if you got firewood with a wheel barrow you could set up the same thing. With a little creativity you could probably draw bigger loads out with less effort. The guy had a video of his monorail system on YouTube. I would be interested in what people think of this idea??? (not really my own, but in terms of using it to gather firewood).
I was wondering if; instead of buying steel bars and lots of welding and fabrication, if a person could not make a wooden pole monorail? The easiest method would be to use what we call strapping here, which is just 1x3 boards. These would be set on edge (1 inch side turned up), and connected on each side by screwing pieces of plywood on each side to make the connections. These can be bought in 8', 12' and 16 foot lengths and typically come in bundles of 10 and are really cheap. Then for sleepers , 2x4's could be screwed to the strapping, the rail centered of course, every two feet or so. If they were 1 foot long, it would really allow the monorail system to "float" over wet or rough terrain. Then if just the rim of the wheel barrow wheel was used on this rail, heavier loads could be moved with ease from the deep in the woods I would think. While using dimension lumber would be easier to to use, it would not be out of the realm of possibility to use hardwood saplings 2-3 inches in diameter too. These would be laid end to end, sneaking down the path to your firewood grove. Nailed to these would be sapling sleepers every 2 feet or so, in which they kept the sapling pole rail up as well. Of course if a person wanted to go mechanical, but stay small, I see why these same cheap wooden rails could not be used, but instead of a monorail system with a wheel barrow, a self-propelled rototiller was used to pull a sulky, the rails obviously spaced the same width as the gauge on the rototiller. (A two wheel tractor could be substituted here). Wooden Pole Railroads were VERY common in the early 1900's, so I see no reason why it would not work! Here is proof! It is bigger in scope, but the premise is the same...wheel barrow rim rolling over saplings like this photo is showing.
Another idea I had in logging my very wet area out was stealing a method of logging they use out west...cable yarding! Cable is cheap and so are battery powered atv winches and such now. It would not be that hard to set up a cable winch system where a cable is secured to a tree on the other end of the swamp, then on the carrier a winch is set up to a battery pack. Then another winch hauls in the tree to the edge of the swamps once it is lifted up by the first winch. (I am not saying anyone has to do any of these, or that their current methods are wrong...they are not, I am just trying to brain-storm non-traditional ways to get wood out of the woods without resorting to expensive equipment. Bulldozers, skidders and farm tractors are NOT required!
Here is quite the Mini-Yarder that I thought about making. The guy that built it was pretty smart to devise this I thought. The Mini-Skyline | Backwoods Home Magazine
I forgot that you made the decision to have the woods clearcut by a logging outfit. Makes more sense now.
We own land in more than one town/and in two states so it is a full time job just keeping up with what taxes are due and when. This one town used to have taxes due in February, then changed it to September to take advantage of low paving prices, then changed it back to February. I thought I had to September to pay it, so it was a shock for Katie and I when we learned it was due now, and has really sent us scrambling. My cousin is having his woodlot logged in the Spring, so we planned on logging our woodlot then, as the logger could just come across the property line and snag two woodlots with one move, but when we learned we had to pay by February, we had to change plans. Another logger can get on it now, so that is what we are doing. As with any business, with farming you take what assets you have and shuffle them around, equipment, woodlot, livestock, etc... I put my bulldozer up for sale and was rather surprised when a guy bought it. I was not expecting for another logger to need a skidder to replace his broken one either at the same time my broke, so being in much shape and easier to fix, my skidder hit a flatbed as well. I'll use that money to pay for my property taxes now, then use the logging money to save up for an excavator. Katie has a good paying job now too, so that will help. But I'll always log; we are only clearing 70 acres to make way for new fields, so the rest of our woodlot I can mess with. I won't have my dozer to do it, but then there is no pressing need to log either. Maybe with a little creativity I can log with my Kubota. Building a Mini-Yarder, pole railroad, etc is not beyond me either. Whatever it takes to get wood out of the woods, and when there is no pressing need to get a load out in x amount of days or hours, a lot is possible. We still plan on selling our house too and moving into our other home, dumping $20,000 in that to make it better suited for us, then building up our sheep farm: the goal from the beginning. Ultimately I'll need an excavator to remove the stumps the logging contractor leaves behind to make those fields, as it makes little sense to have more sheep with no fields to feed them. Stumping was just something my Little 350D could not do anyway. I'll miss its small size, and ability to go anywhere and do a lot of stuff, but just a part of farming. As my signature says, everything I got is God's anyway, and we are told to pay our taxes.
The really hard part of property taxes now is, with the new Tax Laws in place, a landowner can only deduct $10,000 in property taxes. For large landowners, especially in high property tax states like Maine and others; it means we can no longer deduct all of our annual property taxes. That kind of sucks. We do make up for it on the other end by having lower self-employment taxes, BUT that only applies if the farm is having a profitable year. With farming, especially with small farms, where profitability is always on the low side...if at all; having to pay property taxes every year, and not being able to deduct it, might mean the new tax laws hurt us more than help us...and all this is on only one change of the tax law. I am not saying it was good or bad, I am just trying to figure out (like the rest of America) how it is going to affect my family and I.
