I took a walk around the woods yesterday looking for some weekend plans, since we're supposed to have some nice weather. I decided to grab this little ash that came down across one of my trails this spring. This part gets a little swampy but it's nice and dry right now. I took a walk around in there and I found a couple other pieces of ash that I had cut, but forgot to load up last year, and I noticed a few more smaller standing dead. I don't think any of them were beetle kill - they're just getting outcompeted by other bigger trees I think. This ash was a little bigger - little over 50': I had a couple different directions I could have went with it, but it's pretty tight in there and it wasn't likely to make it all the way to the ground in any of them. So I decided to go in the direction of the juvenile trees instead of the mature ones. Pruned a branch off of a good sized red maple on the way down, but it got stuck in an adolescent beech and still needed a little persuasion to get it on the ground. Grand total around 1/2 cord - I'll probably burn this next year. I think maybe I'll work on some more red pine next.
Good job. Weather looks to be cool here this weekend to so it's up early tomorrow to walk out back and pick 4-5 dead standing Red oak to cut and process . Have fun and be safe.
Yep. The bigger ones I have to flip end over end, then stand it up next to the trailer and sort of lean it on.
Well, I can't see the front of the John Deere, but how much weight is hanging off the front of it? That looks to be one h$ll of a load for it to pull. Nice work sir!
Wow Shawn. That is a huge load. Should have taken off at least one saw to lighten it. Nice thing about ash is that if you do forget to pick some up, you can go back even a few years later to get it and it most likely will still be good stuff. Also know what you mean about the wet spots. August is usually a good time to go in there to get what needs to be got out. Hope your back holds up loading those logs like that! But, many of us have done the same thing over and over. Probably will do in the future too.
My Dad blessed me with a strong back when he had me doing hay and firewood from the time I was 13. These days I have a desk job, so this is how I get my workout. I push mow my lawn too - I'm a nut... I took a couple 6" black locust branches and set them up as bunks for my ash, so I could dump my load and grab some more.... (Sorry for the washed out pics..) Didn't grab any more ash though - I cut down and cut up one of the dead red pines this morning, and got most of the top hauled out. 3 6 footers for firewood, 3 8 footers - firewood and lumber, and the stumps from this one and the last one. I made a 7x8 cant out of the best piece, and the other 2 are going to be 2x decking for a new firewood pallet. There's 3 more 8' logs left out in the field that I'm going to have to mill in place. My girlfriend helped me clean out my garage too, so I can make some more space for lumber storage. Productive and fun day!
As usual... AWESOME. That's some extremely high quality BTU's. I only wish I had EAB killed ash on my property (fast drying). Sadly, all I have is gypsy moth killed oaks that take 3 yrs to dry.
