Going to have to make the best of an unfortunate situation.

Sounds like you can stay on the 3yr oak rotation for a while, once you're on it! silver lining

 

Too windy today to fell any more trees however the logger dropped off one of his big guns, a 1964 Timberjack skidsteer. He wants the 20-ton winch to help with a couple of the oaks that are leaning the wrong way when he (hopefully) gets back to dropping trees tomorrow. Man, if that thing could talk. It's crawled up and down plenty of the mountains around here doing everything from logging to pulling 1" cable to the top of a mountain for one of the ski resorts. It took a 1600-foot tumble off one mountain years ago when the micro lock brake failed. Broke in half when it came to rest with parts everywhere, but it was still running. They winched everything back up the mountain and between some new parts and a lot of welding, got it back up and running and finished the job. Timberjack ended up doing a recall on the brake (a bit late) and came out to his shop to fix the issue. Timberjack has since been bought out by John Deere. Impressive piece of equipment.

 

So was one of my ex-GF's!!!

 

Skidder. But who’s keeping score? That thing is awesome no matter what we call it!!!

 

Doh! My tired brain not making the connection to my fingers when I was typing. Spent the whole day hauling branches and other slash that have been piling up to a pile out front for future feeding of the logger's chipper. Logged over ten miles walking just doing that. (I came to the realization that there is no way I am going to ever feed all that into my own small chipper.)

 

Definitely looking forward to having all that oak CSS and in my hoard, especially since I fell way behind due to not being able to get out and process any firewood for 2+ years and need to rebuild my inventory. I don't feel as bad now about not having access to my primary scrounge site (road washed out in December of last year and the forest service did not repair it this year; not sure if/when it will be reopened). With over 55 trees that will have to come down on my property, I won't have to go far to scrounge for a while.

I will be burning some of the red oak from this 2021 scrounge this winter and I'm glad I have it since I don't have much beech left.

 

You should see what I type sometimes and correct before posting. I'm like WTH did I type?

 

Another minor delay today as the logger got called out this morning for an emergency the next town over (tree down at a residence thanks to yesterday's high winds). He hopes to be back by this afternoon. Not complaining at all, as he is helping me out big time and obviously emergencies are the priority; just hope to get these trees down before the winter weather arrives and Mother Nature hasn't been playing nice this week. We had the first plowable snow of the season about 15-20 minutes from me and the bottom picture is about 12 miles away as the crow flies.

 

That second picture looks like a view from the planet Hoth.

 

LOL. Might as well be with some of the weather they have had up there over the years. This was a few days ago.

 

Wow! Now that’s a heck of a history on that machine! Any idea what engine it’s running? Seems a bunch of skidders from that timeframe run Detroits and they have rather unique sound!

 

And a slight elevation change

 

Slight

 

Asked him today when he was here and it's running a Detroit 353 engine.

 

Three more down this afternoon and a huge slash pile chipped. Hopefully finish up the big stuff tomorrow (felling one more oak and possibly 2-3 dead hemlocks), stacking the logs, and getting rid of the rest of the brush. He's also going to price out the timber. While waiting for them to get here this afternoon I was working on one of the tree tops. First time I've fired up the 500 in over two years. Felt good to run it again.

 

Them are sum beeeg trees

 

I think the largest was around 28" in diameter. I have 29 more dead oaks that will have to come down eventually and some are even larger in size.

 

What are the moisture levels on them?

 

Haven't even checked yet. Since they have only been dead for less than two years, I still plan on drying for three. Once I get them CSS, I'll check after the first year, but looking at the cuts, they are still very green (aside from some of the limb wood).

 

Just a drop in the bucket but considering how much of a stressor these trees near the house have been over the last couple years, it felt good to get the first load of limb wood bucked. First time I've been able to park in the driveway in a long time without worrying about something crashing down on the truck. Some of the small limb wood will be ready to burn in a relatively short amount of time but some limbs are close to a foot in diameter so those will go into the long-term stacks.