This is my elephant… So a year ago, we had the opportunity to purchase a dream come true. Five and half acres of clear land to build a retirement house on. 1/2 mile of township road to a 10-ton axle county road. Five miles from the nearest town (pop 2000) and railroad tracks. 35 miles to the nearest town over 10,000 and Walmart. last fall, I rented a skidsteer and a brush hog to clear the cockle burr off and start getting a feel for what we bought. We do have a Quonset to store our camper in and keep it pretty much out of the weather, At least it’s a place to wash the grit off from working around the place. I can lay down at night and sleep 10-12 hours with no issues here. but it’s pretty far gone and got a bad skeleton and needs to be replaced. Today I worked with our contractor for laying our house out and where to put the septic mound system. Turns out we stacked out our desired location directly on top of the old foundation. Bad in the aspect all of it has to be dug out completely to create a solid foundation base for the new house. The first 18-24” will have to be backfilled in 4-6” lifts and then mechanically compacted and then the top 16-18” can be allowed to have two winters to provide for natural compaction due to freeze thaw cycles. Gotta love Minnesota. read that as being expensive. Where we don’t need to spend money. So we opted for a different location on the property. About 150’ west of where we had selected. We’re negotiating now for me to rent a John Deere 245 with a forestry mulcher head to clear the land. Some of the trees I’ll take for firewood that’s too large to mulch. That’s like 16-18” or bigger. Otherwise it will all get mulched and given back to the land. Part of good wood lot management practices. this will also be where I make my woodyard.
Glasir is a place in Norse Mythology. It is generally regarded as the last place before entering Valhalla for warriors since this is our retirement location, I am a retired vet, the last place I will move to for the rest of my life and a tree grove, it is my “Glasir”. Glasir The John Deere 75G is a 9 ton machine. The 245 is a 28 ton machine. A couple days with something like that will make small work of what needs to be done.
Picture heavy today. I started at 8 am, shut down at 4:30 pm and lost an hour because I had to run 15 miles away to get a 12” crescent wrench. Had a flare fitting come loose on the grapple. We got back and the wife couldn’t understand why I was cranky on having to run for the wrench. She asked me when I was going to fix the hydraulic fitting and go back to work as I handed her the wrenches to put back into the tool box. Told her I already did. She looked at me and said, “ that explains the crankiness….” And for the record… getting a lemonade shake from A&W while making a rather unwanted tool run, makes for a nice drive with your wife. I took down 6 of the 7 trees for the house foot. The #1 tree is the one I left standing for now. #5 is hollow and I let it fall where nature wanted to take it. It was so limb heavy, it was pretty much a given. It was the first time I’d dropped a tree this far gone. #6 and 7, pretty nasty too. 7 I’ll get a lot of wood off of, but 6 is going straight to the burn oil along with 5. I may just take the forestry mulcher to them they are that punky and rotten. 2, 3 and 4 were standing dead, but not too far gone. They are providing well over 5 cord worth of wood for me. 2 was actually an attempt at trying to wedge the tree over against the natural direction. Directly opposite from the face cuts and actually to the back cut. After it fell, I recognized I too way too much hinge wood. as a result it ended up straddling the #1 tree so that prevented me from dropping it. It’s not actually in the footprint of the house, but it’s with in 10’ of it. I was hesitant about posting what is actually a very bad felling but am looking for critique so I can do it better next time. no, I’m not wanting to be a professional logger or arborist, I just want to fall my own stuff. But still, I have a lot more wood on the site to drop. It’s about 70-80% ash and EAB has done its damage. So it’s all got to go. The 773 really made quick work of cleaning up the entire job today. All three saws got used and I have to admit, the MS180 did some phenomenal working limbing the trees out. The 362 was no slouch for doing the trunk work and the G661 did the actual Falling work. I love the Pfanner Protos Helmet too. Saved my noggin a bunch this week as many branches whacked my head and face. The earmuffs being mounted internal made for no wacking the helmet with a branch and knocking the mounting points for the ear muffs or the face shield to try and take the helmet off. Worth EVERY penny for the protection it provided. this is the #7 tree. You can see the rot in the main trunk. I cut up the large branch on the ground and called it a day. I’ll go back memorial weekend and finish up #6 and 7. #5 is the large tree dropped to the left. #6 is the far tree on the left next to 5. 7 is by the skidsteer. #2 is under the saw in the front. Two pieces for the trunk and there were three large branches I got tow 128” pieces off each. (8- 16” logs=128”) this is tree #3. It gave me about a dozen nice 128” logs for bucking. Right at 14-18” diameter. You can see #5 behind it there. I used the 28” bar today. Even the 32” bar would not have had a full cut on it at all. a fly over of the site. Unfortunately, my narrative wasn’t recorded. I may have to download directly off the SD card to see what’s up.
We were playing around on the phones one night and this came across my feed. Something in it lead me to a google search and “Glasir” kept being referenced. we saw it as a sign and went with it.
Between building your dream home for retirement and now the ash comment above, I'd bet this entire site is over your project. Congrats J !
Thank you. the ash project kinda flopped. It was nothing but brush tops and Cottonwood. I was only able to really get two dump trailer loads off of it. So not sure where that’s going to go in the future. but I’m not going to let it stop me either way.
Nice posts - great plan. A couple of thoughts on felling, from someone who wasn’t trained, got bitten, and then trained informally. The hinge is very important. The notch only serves to maintain the hinge, as long as possible. In general, the notch faces directly where you want the tree to land. The notch is sized so the hinge behind it covers 80% of the width of the tree in the direction you are felling. There are rules of thumb of hinge thickness (10% tree diameter). This varies by species, deadness, lean, wind,… The hinge is crucial. Do not undercut from the notch face (re-face the notch as necessary). I prefer to then bore-cut to get my hinge just right. Others don’t. Oh well. I like a wedge to guard against a pinched bar. Often I don’t; sometimes I pay for hurrying in the form of lost productivity. Another reason I like the bore is that once I cut the remaining “trigger”, I get maximum momentum as the tree falls. That’s more important when fighting a surrounding canopy. Great progress already. Stay safe!
Yeah, my plan was to wedge it 90* to the left of where it actually fell. I had planned to wedge it over. As soon as it laid over, I seen I cut the hinge wood completely.
Red is original house foundation and choice. green is what we’ve decided on. Yellow is where the septic mound will go to. we have rural water so a well isn’t a concern.
This statement is throwing me today for some reason. What do you mean by "rural water"? As far as i can tell rural water and a well could be the same thing. So provided you don't have a well.... where does your water come from?
It's like city water, but in the country...not that many places have it, but they are out there for sure. And at least around here, it is random as far as who has it , and who doesn't, they don't supply to everybody, just on roads that happen to have a water line running down them, for one reason or another.
You said you had a lot of dead and dying trees on the property. Will you be replanting trees to maintain the windbreak for the house?
