We did a hog of an ash tree last weekend, was around 38" diameter at the base, 20' trunk split into three long leaders out over power, phone and cable lines...... Thankfully, we got three nice saw logs out of this beast, and gave several loads of firewood from it away to a good friend. Spent a few busy hours in the bucket.....ended up rigging quite a bit out. It's crazy the amount of suckers that the tree pushed out over the past two years... Using the one leader as our rigging mast... Bird's-eye view of the most troublesome leader.....spent over an hour on this one alone. You can see the proximity of the power line..... Piles and piles of suckers.... Horribly sad how a tiny little bug can devastate an entire species into near-extinction..... blacksmith knocking the butt log into sections
The butt log was approx. 2-3k lbs.....here they are loaded up on my redneck rig. Grappling them off at the mill..... Tony is going to mill these up to use for his kitchen cabinets!! More pics later once we get them milled......
Beautiful work and most impressive, a lot of heat in that tree, the ash borers are providing a lot of firewood but at the expense of diverse woodlands, the game commission will have to release a bird to eat the borers, then a snake to eat the birds, and then a weasel to eat the snake, and then... and then....
It's unbelievable what that little bug has done all over the US. It's good for us wood hoarders supply
Thanks everyone. I learn new stuff everyday, it's an evolving craft. I don't show the pics for accolades, I just figure you guys enjoy this stuff as much as I do......
Sad to see the ash dying off, but seeing your pics making me drool it'll make great cabinets and great firewood!
Nice work, Scotty! Seems like I've been seeing similar winding tunnels under the bark of various trees for years...probably wasn't EAB back then, I don't think. I'm trying to remember what species I saw the tunnels on...White Ash and Hickory, maybe?
Lots of different borers, for different species. What makes the EAB so bad is each grub literally makes a maze, when you combine all those thousands of mazes, it literally divorces the tree canopy from the root. And the tree cannot bounce back.