wallytoo

generally, only 1 or 2. there are about 5 trees in the orchard with 3 taps. the rest are split pretty evenly between 1 or 2 taps. somewhere around 110 to 125 taps right now. i had another orchard that ran about the same number, but i haven't tapped it for about 5 years.

and a short vid of making some steam in the sap house...

added another 35 gallons to the total here just under 250 gallons total

hop in for a short drive up to the next barrel

a look at the short line next to the road that feeds the tank... and a look at the larger mainline feeding the tank one of the lateral lines feeding the mainline

then it was time to move a few hundred feet up the road to the tank (200 gallon).. had about 175 gallons in it. little honda trash pump works great for this..

ended up collecting 250 gallons of sap today, and got started boiling. first, had to take down a tree that broke and was hanging over the driveway...fortunately, i had the correct tool for the job... then it was time to go collect the sap..first stop - a 55 gallon barrel with a small number of taps feeding it - about 30 gallons today

sap season has arrived again. got the "mobile" tank loaded onto the truck. tomorrow i will collect around 200 to 250 gallons of sap from the woods tanks/barrels, and fire up the evaporator for the first time this spring....pics to follow...

yeah. so i have averaged just under 5 mpg since 2007, with just over 11K miles put on. most of those miles with the original 237, about 2000 miles with the 251. it's also a 13,500 lb gvw dodge dump truck...thank goodness for the 2-speed rear, or it would be worse.

for the bed, i prefer the slightly rougher side up. helps prevent stuff from sliding, if you ever use the bed to haul anything besides air.

for the later pilothouse trucks ('48 to '53), that would be incorrect. the panel lights come on independently via the dash switch. i don't know for your earlier truck what the factory disposition was.

yeah, the clean-up is usually left to the homeowner, and is often a source of disappointment to the homeowner, as most have little experience with just how much brush/limbs/tops are created from felling a single tree. they assume that clean-up is part of normal logging, and thus would be part of felling trees around the home/yard etc.; it isn't in most cases. cedar is one of the few species i almost never see down in central NH that is common in central/northern ME. some specialty uses for it, especially shakes & shingles, that probably pay OK for stumpage. also, as you pointed out, logging up north is one of the few solid jobs. hard work, but enough operators to do small jobs at a profit. those jobs add up over the year, especially if the logger has a few "big jobs" to do each year, too. one thing to consider, as a homeowner, is whether the logger carries liability insurance specific to "arborist" work, which is work around buildings, wires, landscaping, driveways, etc. most timber harvesting insurance policies do not include coverage for that; it is a different risk and premium. it would suck to find out that the contractor cutting trees from near your house had one do significant damage to your house (etc) and wasn't covered.

that can be true when there's enough wood to fill a triaxle or two, but not generally for a few trees that might make a 1/4 load. that, and with the proximity to buildings and the highway, these are not as simple as just drop the tree wherever, each tree really had only one place that it could go, and in each case, that one place wasn't the direction that it wanted to go. i'm very familiar with how logging works, and the timber industry. i've been employed as a consulting forester for 30 years, self-employed for the last 24.

interesting that several changes have been made to it, primarily from a '53: the D_O_D_G_E on the dash, the wiper knob, and the rear fenders in particular.

just as brent notes, the glass bowl filter attaches to that fitting, and the fuel line attaches to the filter inlet.

ebay is hit or miss, although i've usually hit. a miss was buying a set of rod bearings from an ebay vendor (rhymes with kim larpenter @ martslouseblearance) who sent 3 of the 6 but took my money for all 6, trying to give some BS about making sure they were the correct parts first. fortunately, ebay refunded most of my money. the joke was that i couldn't leave negative feedback, because ebay "cancelled" the transaction, so he gets to continue to fleece unsuspecting buyers. also, said seller did not send the package via the method he specified (UPS), and instead sent it via USPS, which doesn't work, because i have different addresses for the two, so that further delayed receiving the 3 that he did send.

the detroit doesn't like the cold for starting, but once it is started, it runs just fine in cold weather. this one has hookups to mate with a cooling system on, say, a pickup truck. works pretty well to help these start in frigid weather. i haven't set up any of my trucks yet for the hookup, but if i keep the skidder next winter, i'll probably do so. this one originally had an allison automatic transmission, but was changed to a 4-speed manual by a previous owner. i like old equipment. not too expensive to run periodically. 10 years ago i had a deere 350b with a six-way hydraulic blade and reverser, rops and limb risers. if it had a winch/arch, i probably would have kept it, as it started excellent in -20*F conditions without ether. alas, with just the blade, i really couldn't justify keeping it around.

the ash logs, and a few of the hemlock logs are going to another friend with a portable band mill. i’m giving them to him. hoping to transport with the dodge - if i do, there will be pictures. if there were a lot more of the logs, they’d be worth a bit more, but the ones i cut wouldn’t fill a triaxle log truck. eastern hemlock stumpage is about $70 per MBF, white ash stumpage is about $600 per MBF. the trees would have cost me about $8k to have them taken down by a tree service. instead, i bought a skidder for that, got the trees down, and still have the skidder.

the last tree was the biggest. 27" dbh, over 36" at the stump. and about 85' tall. at least it was standing straight, and on flat ground. too big for the bar on my saw without boring the face of the notch, and i wasn't comfortable doing that with the proximity of the state highway, the shed, and the house. called on a friend who is a professional logger to help bring it down. tree is directly behind the skidder. youtube link of video dropping the big hemlock https://youtu.be/mu-7Y6lCxrg the butt end. plenty of decay and rot in the center. been worried about this tree for 20 years. no more worry. stump dwarfs my 353 with an 18" bar. some of the visible logs are from the big tree, some are from the 1st hemlock i felled. pretty big logs. the winch piled them nicely after pulling them up the bank. more daylight, and no more big hazards!

lopping the dead tree up to facilitate pulling the hemlock up to the top of the bank. stump is visible middle-left. cut the first log off, and tried to bring it and the rest of the tree up the hill. no go, too much weight, and too sharp a slope. disconnected the rest of the tree from the bill hooks. right after i took the photo, the upper log (butt log), rolled down the hill into the stream. luckily it was still attached to the winch cable/choker. the wet log, safely up on the flat ground behind the shed. limbs and slash, steep bank. tree #2 to take down is just visible at the right edge of the photo. this one was part-way down the slope.

still had several more trees to get down. a bunch of hemlocks to the west of the house (the ash was to the east of the house and garage). about to drop one of the hemlocks. it is to the right, not visible in the picture. yeah, this bank is even steeper than the one that the ash tree was on, and longer. it drops a good 25' down to the stream at more than a 50% slope. the shed is right next to the skidder, and the house is about 40' beyond the camera. this is the 1st tree to be dropped. it leaned hard into the bank, and thus over the shed and toward the house. i anchored the cable to a tree at the base of the slope, and used a sheave to run the cable back to the tree to pull it away from the shed/skidder. used a stepladder to attach the choker about 10' up the trunk (leverage). would have been very difficult to get the tree to fall against the lean using only wedges. close-up of the sheave, which is chained to the anchor tree at the base of the slope. in position ready to pull the tree over pulled over and down. the other dead tree was lodged in the yellow birch about 15' above ground, and felling the hemlock in the direction it went brought the old dead tree down (the one with the end in the water now). the hemlock i felled is under that, and the rest is visible straight away. in fact, the upper end of the dead tree, out of sight to the left, used to be over the other side of the stream, and you can still see parts of it over in the snow across the stream.

purchased it in april, put a new head on the 353, and got it delivered to my house in june. started using it this winter to take down large trees within striking distance of my house and garage. that forked tree just behind it is one of the hazards. it was a large white ash, fully infested with emerald ash borer. it leaned pretty hard towards the back of where the skidder is, and the garage is in that direction, easily within striking distance. the base of the tree is about 6 feet below what you see here. the bank is steep, and the tree is tall. my initial plan was to back the skidder and push the tree over once i made the cuts. because of the lean, and the steep bank, when i pushed against the tree, the rear wheels just lifted off the ground. plan B was to use the winch to pull the tree over. used a ladder to wrap a choker around the trunk about 14' above the ground, and needed to use a ratchet strap to lift the winch cable/bill hooks up to reach the choker (75' of cable is damn heavy when you are trying to hoist it). skidder is out to the top right in the picture. if you look carefully, you can see the cable leading from the middle of the trunk out toward the skidder. location from where the skidder sat to winch the tree over. the two logs from the tree. the butt log is an 8', the 2nd log is a 10'. the small end diameter of the butt log was 25", and the small end of the 10' was 23". that's plenty big. the rest of the tree i processed into cordwood.

good progress. you'll be driving it in no time. i sourced 4 oem wheel cylinders for mine, although one is from a later non-stepped bore 1.5-ton (right rear). i kept the originals, and if i ever need to replace a wheel cylinder again, i'll send out the appropriate one for a sleeve. i have kept all of the old parts that are rebuildable, as they are generally better than anything aftermarket. i've got two spare oil pumps, a generator, distributor, and a starter, too. i am lucky, too. a local place that relines shoes was able to reline my parking brake band correctly.

all jokes aside, no chance of going through the ice. it was 18" thick. we put about 6 to 8 of the blocks under the ice where they are being loaded, which helps with buoyancy around the "opening" and the loaded truck or trailer.

a bit later in the year, but today was the first drive of 2022 for my truck