Loaded truck pics.

At least now I have my free headache rack.

 

I got the 5105’s out today & cut up a nice load of Honey Locust.

 

Managed to get out and scrounge a bit early this morning before the storms rolled in. Silver maple and white birch.

 

Good haul. Nice

 

Some nice looking splits there. Welcome to the FHC coltbean Great to have you!

 

Loads of silver maple from a recent score. I didnt cut the wood unfortunately as the lengths were off Maybe 20% were close enough to 16"
Still at least another load there.

 

Scrounged again this morning and was pleased to find some decent downed beech. Heck of a difference working today than when I was scrounging last week. 50 degrees and flood watches this morning versus 17 with snow last week. C'mon Mother Nature, get your act together.

Wish I could end up with some of the truck loads I see on the forum however times when I can get those large rounds or being able to drive right up to the tree to load are few and far between. You can almost make out the truck in the one picture (the tree was about 175 feet from the road) and that's the time consuming part of the job, the many trips back and forth. It took thirty-something trips to get all the rounds and logs to the road but heck, it's good exercise. Plus, most of the scrounging competition around here won't put that kind of effort into it so as long as the body holds up, I'll keep at it.

 

Can't say I will put in that kind of effort. I drag some from backyards, but try to avoid that if I can.

 

Yeah, I guess I'm a glutton for punishment. I've drug a lot of timber out the old fashioned way (especially on frozen ground or with snow cover) by simply hooking a strap to a log and providing the manual labor. For example, this stack was brought out last fall by hand (and foot) to a trail where I could process everything. The farthest tree was about 400' upslope.

It works for me but I understand why most wouldn't bother. Some have told me that being in the woods and doing this is some kind of therapy (the docs gave me five years back in 2007). It must be working, you can tell because I'm smiling in the picture.

 

Beech baby!

I've been eyeballing this beech blowdown that the forest service cut up and pushed over an embankment. I'm sure others have looked at it as well however the embankment is a lot steeper than it looks in the picture. The bottom log is about ten feet below the road and about fourteen feet back so no matter what, it would require some effort to get everything back up to the road.

I finally tackled it this morning because I hate to pass up good beech. I used a skidding cone on one log and drug it up to the road and over to the nearest pull off (the road is real narrow where the tree is). The road is still very soft from all the rain we had a couple days ago and after skidding the first log, decided pulling the logs out would tear the road up too much. I ended up bucking the rounds where they were and rolling them up the embankment. I was able to lift most of the rounds into the truck but did use the ramp for the last few. A little bit of punk at the very bottom but the rest is in great shape. A few weird cuts as the forest service crew just whacked the heck out of the tree to get it off the road but it's all BTUs once it's in the wood stove.

 

Looks like a solid load of Beech very little rot. Great BTU's

 

Looks like a dolly would work for you out for you there. If you don't have one. Nice job.

 

Worked up a jag of Cherry, field entrance was getting widened out so I salvaged it from brush pile.

 

Them some big rounds! Hope you had a ramp?

 

Nice bunch of wood for a roadside scrounge! You could use a winch like campinspecter.

 

I've thought about different options to move the timber closer to the road but most just aren't practical due to the terrain. I just need to remember to carry one of the capstan winches in the truck. Kind of a PITA to set up however it would cut down on the number of trips.

 

Yep. It's strapped to the top of the rounds in the second picture.

 

My last truck was a Power Wagon and the winch got a heck of a workout getting logs to the road (pic below for example). There is a lot of good timber downslope that either comes down naturally or is pushed over by the forest service and most scroungers don't bother with it because it's just too much work to drag it back up to the road (it can drop close to 80 feet at some portions of the road). I have a 10K winch and mount for my new truck that I just haven't gotten around to installing yet. You're right in that it will make life much easier (and I was sure wishing I had it today). I also have a couple capstan winches for logging use but would have had to block the road to use one of those and the forest service kind of frowns on that. If I'm going to try and do any winch or rope work, I usually go in right at the crack of dawn so I'm not inconveniencing anyone else if I have to block the road for a few minutes.

 

Very nice indeed. Glad you were able to get it

 

A FULL cord load to be delivered t his morning.