Thought I'd start a thread open to all hoarders here. The good, bad and ugly. Here's today's fresh hell for me. This is a group of stump "sucker's " that is trees grown up from a stump from a previous harvest, usually resulting in junk trees that don't amount to anything but firewood. There are 5 of them here, and pretty much expected them to hang up. They did. This is where a logging winch on the tractor is your best friend. I'm thinning in about 20 year regrowth, in the past 2 days I believe only 3 actually hit the ground. Feel free to put your "adventures" here.
Aside from a small hop hornbeam on Sunday, I've not dropped anything for a couple of months. I'll try to keep the thread in mind for my next "adventure"
What makes wood grow twisted? Is it a species thing, I was working with some ash, white birch and red maple and they were all ok. It's my Beech that always seems to have about an 1/8 of a twist in my 26" splits. Makes for some challenging stacking to say the least.
That brings back memories of the first year I began felling on my own I couldn’t get a tree to hit the ground to save my life
That's how a lot of the red maple grow here in the swamp. Sometimes they're rotten in the middle too. Especially the bigger ones. Getting the hung-up ones down and out can be quite a challenge sometimes. Red maple likes to barber chair too. I've never been hit except for a loose splinter or two. Just enough to feel like you're teasing the monster all the time working with them.
Some trees just have a normal twist and beech usually does which makes it hard to split and stack looking good. Still great wood though and hard to turn down. Elm, of course, is a curse to many as it does not like to grow straight unless it is deep in the woods where wind does not hit it big and also if it does not have to fight for sunlight. Of course there are many others. For example, has anyone noticed that cherry is one that loves to grow straight at times but then will just give the darndest bends in the trunk. Sassafras is another tree that rarely grows straight. I'm sure others can come up with more like this.
I have a handful of red maple suckers with 4 or 5 trunks. They will never turn into saw timber, so I cut them like you do when I have the time and inclination. I also went back and sprayed the new growth from the stump with glyphosate or you just grow another one in its place. Red maple sucker trees, sycamores and bigtooth aspens are all on my hit list. Just not enough time to get them all done, however, last year I injected straight undiluted 41% glyphosate into a half dozen large aspens and it killed them dead. I'll do another dozen this year, it's easy and quick and doesn't disturb the forest floor as much as dropping them would. Backwoods Savage is sure right about crooked sasafrass and cherry. Once in a while you find a straight cherry, but I've never seen a very straight sasafrass tree.
How'd you do the injection? I have sumac on my yard that is going to be dealt with soon and I was just going to cut it off and paint the stump. I really like the idea of a injected dose instead of a painted smear.
Yea sure. I drilled a 1/2" hole about 3 or 4 feet up the trunk using a cordless drill and a wood boring bit. Drilled down steeply about 3" deep trying to stay in the sapwood. Used a plastic syringe full of Tractor Supply generic 41% roundup concentrate, 2.5 gal for $29.99 on sale ( I buy lots of this). Inject enough to to fill the hole, maybe an ounce or so... Wait a week and watch the leaves go brown. Effective way to kill a tree if you want to leave it dead standing or cut it down after its dead. I do it because these trees are deeper in the woods and really tall, if I were to cut them down, I can't really harvest the wood and they are likely to do damage to other trees or get hung up. This way they provide habitat to critters and slowly drop over the years minimizing damage to other trees. I've practiced on small sycamores and tulips along the drive that are 3 - 5" around and it kills those in a week. The big 20", 75 foot tall aspens took a few re-fills and 3 months to kill. I wonder if the time of year matters with the big trees as Glyphosate works on the transfer of the product to the roots and sap can be flowing up or down the trunk based on the season? Or maybe the unique common root system of the Aspens slowed down the kill? Not sure.....or maybe it's because they were huge trees... If the tree is medium to small, it will kill it quick regardless.
That one was Exactly a year ago, can't tell but she was in there deep. Took a good 3 or 4 yanks from a diesel duelly to free it. This one was 2 years ago, had to call a wrecker to winch her out of this one. Needless to say, I am VERY careful when loading firewood on uncertain ground anymore.
Another mis-adventure. I was out this evening to work in the woods cutting out Honeysuckle, Multi-floral Rose, Hawthorne, Grapevine, and girdling some of the Honey Locust. I planned on doing a single tank of gas in the 250 since I got kind of a late start. Just last evening we were talking about hitting metal in one of buZZsaw BRAD 's threads. I'm about a 1/4 tank in and I had waded into a pretty big thicket and was gittin after it when started noticing a few sparks here and there as I'm cutting. I'm not sure exactly when I figured it out that not only was I standing on an old fence row that had fallen over, but I was also getting into it while cutting the briars... I didn't notice the old rusty fence in the leaves and briars cuz it was overcast and kinda drizzling on and off. Needless to say, the rest of the tank wasn't all that productive. It still cut, but not very well. I decided to just go ahead and finish the tank of gas since it was a pretty long walk back to the house to touch up the chain. I hadn't driven or rode anything back there tonight cuz the wife was just giving me the dickens for rutting up some of the trails since we're in the middle of mud season here.
Sounds like me.. I have been eradicating all the multi-floral rose, grapevines and whatever vines are on the trees. Making good progress too over the years, I find roundup to be very effective with multi-flora sticker bushes. I resort to the chainsaw or a tree pruner on the rest when needed. Not too terrible much left to deal with this year. Why girldle honey locust?
I got stuck in a yard a year ago. Cut and split a white oak in a guys back yard. Waited a few weeks for it to dry out as yard was rather muddy and the water table was high there as well. Backed in and loaded half a PU full of splits. Proceeded forward and sunk just like your pics. Unloaded the wood and still couldnt get out. Dug and dug, used gravel. Called triple A and they dont winch as it was too far back off his driveway.. Another wrecker wanted $250 to winch it out. Came back the next day and got it out with my friends help. Got stuck five times last year in the mud. My famous last words..."i wont get stuck" Learned my lesson...none this year. I feel your pain Pricey106
I feel your pain MAF143 Sometimes i wonder if they are chain saws or metal detectors! Ive cut with dull rather than sharpen as similar situation.
It stops them from sucking up the nutrients and opens up the canopy for light to get into the Walnut trees and keeps them off the ground till I can get time to run them through the sawmill or turn the crooked ones into firewood.
I called AAA for the deep one in the field, told the dispatcher I was right off the road...lol...I was actually 200 yards onto private property in a backfield. The driver wasn't too thrilled at first until I pulled a 50 out of my wallet and handed it too him, he was all over it like mud on a truck.
Poison ivy score.... This find, or score, or possibly heist punished me for a month with poison ivy. It was on the roadside, not bucked, under a powerline right of way, not a house or posted sign in sight. I got 6 nice loads out in 2 days. Went for a ride a week later to see if they dropped anymore trees there, and the place was peppered with posted signs....oops.
. Taking a 50 out of my wallet causes me too many sleepless nights! Money talks, BS walks. My friend lived next door to where i got stuck. He was laid off at the time and helped me get out. I have a boatload of wood stored at his place and this was getting stacked there too. Pic of the wood i was loading. Barkless white oak. It ended up being wheelbarrowed out to the driveway and my PU loaded. I have the exact same cant/peavey.
