Couple of shagbark hickories I started working on today out at my friend's farm. The first one is a blowdown from a three or four years ago. Judging by the spoor and a hollow section there's an active racoon den in the middle, so I'm cutting around that. I don't want the hollow part anyway. Probably close to 24" DBH. Bar was almost buried in the cut 1/3 of the way up the trunk. Jonsered 2166 with 24" bar was my weapon of choice. Supervisor judging my work. I guess he thinks I did OK. The second one came down last year. It's going to be trickier to get on the ground. There are a couple smaller trees under a lot of tension tangled in that brush. And the break is around 5-6' off the ground. I'm thinking of using straps and my truck to pull it down. Any suggestions? It was dry enough by the trees but way muddier than I thought it would be on the way in, so I'll need to wait a few days to get back there to finish up. But once I'm done this should be a solid year worth of wood for us. Will be for winter 2022/2023.
Always nice to shag a little shag. As for the tricky one,,start at the leafy end and work backwards. It’s great when Mother Nature holds them off the ground for you.
I love SBH. How does the stuff on the ground look? I have found that hickory will turn punky if left alone. A trick for the trees under tension, make a bunch of small relief cuts on the backside and it will start to relieve all the pressure. Love the dog!
For sure I would not try to get it down. Cut as much as you can and by the time you have to stop, then you can just cut it to make the rest fall. If you are smart you will lay a couple short logs to fell it on so that part will also be off the ground. It surely is nice to get hickory!
It has been my experience, when dealing with saplings under tension from a blow over, if it has been a year or more a lot of the tension is gone. The saplings start acclimating to the bent over position. mr.finn is right about cutting those under tension from the back side.
Hope there’s not too much rot. My experience with hickory has t been good when left on the ground in log form for too long.
Not bad so far. I'll report back once I have it all cut up. You can't tell from the pictures but between the root ball, a couple limbs in the middle, and a limb at the top end most of the tree is suspended a few inches off the ground, so I think most of it will be ok.
That's some back breaking wood there. Heck of a score. Love me some hickory but man is it heavy stuff.
Yeah that ones gotta be over 200 pounds. No way I was going to lift these into my truck. I’ll bring a trailer in next time and roll em up the ramp.
Have you tried sectioning them with a maul Prometheus ? Fresh cut it splits somewhat easily IME provided its nor gnarly.
I was thinking about giving that a shot. I do bring my fiskars out when I’m in the woods, but today I was just cutting. I’ll have the trailer out next time so I can go with whatever works best. My splitter goes vertical so heavy rounds won’t be an issue once I’m home.
