I've posted pics of my stacks and of skidding, but not much of the woods themselves, so today I brought the camera along. No sun, but the temp climbed from 20 up to 32. My woods are mostly hardwood; Red Maple, Sugar Maple, Ash, and Black Cherry predominate on the lower ground, with Northern Red Oak on the top. Lots of other species, too (I think 20-25 species in total, depending how far into the shrubby type I stray. I'm managing for saw logs (lumber) and for a sugar bush (Sugar Maple). A lot of the trees are in the 10"-15" range, and are tall poles. That is a good place to start, but there are way too many trees per acre for ideal growth rates. So I'm burning obvious stuff like this (there is an orange tractor hiding in several of these photos)... In some places I have mostly good trees, so then I look up here... The idea here is to pick the best trees ("crop" trees) and then "release" their crowns on at least three sides. These crowns are all touching - the best trees will grow faster if their crowns are released. Often it is one nice tree amid a bunch of obvious firewood. In this case there are quite a few decent Sugar Maples and only a few obvious candidates for the firewood pile. I spend a lot of time scratching my head in spots like this, and come home with a sore neck. The woods are on a hillside with a two-staged incline. On the first stage I can get around quite well with the tractor. On the second stage you are reaching for handholds when going up. Then the top is relatively easy going, and then down off the backside, less steep than the front. I can't get to about half the woods for logging due to the steepness (I can drive around on the roads and ask a neighbor for access to some of it - I plan to hire a logging crew to work over there eventually).
With the cold weather I've been able to get in to areas that are usually too wet to cross. This spot on the road can be mostly mud, but has been pretty firm, despite an inch of rain last week. It is an all downhill skid to an ex-gravel pit, where I yard the logs and process the firewood. The winch is very hand for skidding, but it is also handy for making trees fall where you want them to. In the pic below, I've got a small Red Maple (behind the main stem) whose top is caught in other trees. I run into this a fair bit with these tall poles. I've got a blue wedge in behind the hinge, but no go, so plan B is the snatch block and winch. The tree came done effortlessly (and safely), falling away from me and the tractor. The tractor has ice chains on, which make the going a lot easier. Here's a stream crossing, before I get to the woods... Before we got the Kubota I had to have a neighbor come pull my Farmall 560 out of here (less ice that day - the Farmall front tires would not have climbed back up out of this today).
I've got some nice White Ash that isn't quite ready to be harvested, and the darned bug is in all three states around us. I'll probably hire a crew to come get these, and to cover some of the ground I don't have time to get to, This tree is in the 12"-14" range - adding more diameter now is all gravy, and it adds up faster each year. I've got a number of rocks to work around. Some were mined from our hill in the early 1800's for stone houses (and note those beautiful young Sugar Maples).
Yes, about 170' of cable, and three sliders plus the end hook, so I usually skid 4 stems at a time. Here is a blow-up of how I was using the winch to pull a hung tree away from the tractor. Red is the snatch block (a pulley on a heavy cargo strap with a loop on the free end), blue shows the blue wedge (the hung tree is behind that main stem), and green is where the cable is attached to the hung tree. The tree came down with a light tug, and hit the stone wall.
Here's the end of the day... And a shot back toward the house, which is just barley showing behind the middle barn. The cows were complaining and the sun was setting, so it was time to call it a day.
Thanks -- I often call my wife over to see your pics (with the dogs - she doesn't quite 'get' the trees).
Have you worked with your county forester at all? I've worked with the forester in Windham county where our property is. Depending on what forest management practices they are looking for in a given year they might give you some funds. A few years back they paid for our forester to update and enhance the management plan, which we had to do anyway for our use value tax appraisal. We've also had the state wildlife biologists out inspecting our practices. You can learn quite a bit from one of them.
Yes, we have a management plan, and I used to be in the same office building as Bill, in Windham, and know him quite well. He used to have to put up with my 'name that tree' questions. In my past job I got to rub shoulders with a lot of the land management type folks. Not so much now, but am still friends with them and able to pick their brain as needed.
Very nice Flamestead! I'm doing the same thing on my woodland, I can certainly relate to too many "stems" per acre.
Thanks from me as well, that was very informative. It's interesting to know that owning many acres of land with trees needs to be managed to be worthy.
Yes, a woodlot should be managed; there are different ways of managing it, just as there are different goals for differing woodlots.
