My parents had a big old three stem ash in the brush next to their house. No leaves on it this year and tell tale holes from the EAB. You can see the larvae trails. Dad wanted to get it down before it ended up on the house, so today was the day. Put the 394 to work and the maasdam puller for a little direction. The first stem was leaning in the direction we wanted to send them so it went down easy with no assistance. Second stem was leaning and side weighted toward the house so I put the face 45 degrees away from the lean and set the pull line close to that. Stacked wedges and some tension put it right where we wanted. Third stem was leaning toward the road and the power lines about 4’ off center. It was also back weighted directly away from the intended lay. Set the rope and used some wedges to work it over and put it right in the pile. I’m thinking of milling the lower 20’ of all three into boards since they are fairly straight and roughly 20-24” diameter. The rest will be firewood!! Good day for playing. 15 degrees, clear and little wind. Hardest part was having to high stump due to the bottom 3’ being grown together. The arms aren’t what they used to be.....
Nice job J. Dirt , get all the dead Ash you can now. There's still some here, but the hinge is dicey at best once they've stood dead for a while. Ash blanks will be a rare commodity soon.
Great plan and nice execution. Do you have a machine to pull the logs out of there? Those logs will make some nice boards
Well I’m guessing there will be a half cord off these ash if I use the logs to mill. I’ve also got a full cord plus of maple on the ground at home. As far as css ready to burn probably 5-6 cord.
Sure do! The ol farmall M and a cable will make quick work of it. amateur cutter can attest to that....
We lost over 1 million ash trees in Toronto to EAB. not sure when the cutting started but I was getting tons of it when I took on the firewood business on a significant level. Arborists were getting contracts to cut 50, 100 trees kinda thing. Was good wood to eke out the seasoning process. I once filled a 40 yard bin with 6 cords all ash for an order thanks to Davey Tree. One of their drivers blew a tire on the corner of my bucket so the boss stopped sending the trucks there, so I had to pick up from their site. Liability is killing business.
