using my latest motorized acquisition

[wallytoo]

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.

Edited February 22, 2022 by wallytoo

[wallytoo]

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.

Edited February 22, 2022 by wallytoo

[wallytoo]

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.

[wallytoo]

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!

Edited February 22, 2022 by wallytoo

[Dodgeb4ya]

It's a relief to get the tree's dropped safely and where you want them.

Danger of the tree's taken care of.?

Another to buck them up and move/lift thousands of lbs of wood.?

I do my share of that each year too.

Good job and smart to know which ones you can handle and which you cannot.

Better safe than sorry!

 

[Brent B3B]

Anything worth going to the mill Wally? 
no idea what hemlock is worth… just curious 

About 8mo ago my neighbor (also a logger) and I were talking about lumber prices and he said at the time, fir was going for $1000. Per 1000! in my area

 

[wallytoo]

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.

Edited February 22, 2022 by wallytoo

[Tooljunkie]

Nice to have a skidder at your disposal. Buddy bought one and went in on a wood processor with the dream of being a firewood supplier. Skidder hasnt moved in 5 years. Love the sound of the old detroits. 
 

running a skidder in manitoba this winter is pointless. They wont move in the 3 feet of snow. And steady -30’s they dont want to start. My buddy runs a slasher, having a rough go this winter. 

[wallytoo]

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.

 

 

Edited February 23, 2022 by wallytoo

[Dan Hiebert]

Just curious, around here the timber industry is pretty much it, so it's relatively easy to get someone to clear or thin trees on your property and you end up getting paid for the wood, vs. you paying for the service.  Is that an option in your neck of the woods?  (Assuming you're not in Maine.) 

[wallytoo]

On 3/6/2022 at 8:01 AM, Dan Hiebert said:

Just curious, around here the timber industry is pretty much it, so it's relatively easy to get someone to clear or thin trees on your property and you end up getting paid for the wood, vs. you paying for the service.  Is that an option in your neck of the woods?  (Assuming you're not in Maine.) 

 

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.

[Dan Hiebert]

17 hours ago, wallytoo said:

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.

I figured as much, what with getting a skidder for "yard work".  As I wrote, just curious.  My only "forestry" experience is moving to Maine and having to get a chainsaw, splitter, and chipper for yard work.  Up here a lot of the loggers have side gigs clearing and/or thinning small properties that may not even fill one bobtail, especially if you have some desirable trees.  I've got three acres of cedar that a few companies have asked to harvest.  I was initially surprised that they'd do such small jobs, but they said they do it all the time.  No one seems to clean up the limbs, though.

[wallytoo]

17 minutes ago, Dan Hiebert said:

I figured as much, what with getting a skidder for "yard work".  As I wrote, just curious.  My only "forestry" experience is moving to Maine and having to get a chainsaw, splitter, and chipper for yard work.  Up here a lot of the loggers have side gigs clearing and/or thinning small properties that may not even fill one bobtail, especially if you have some desirable trees.  I've got three acres of cedar that a few companies have asked to harvest.  I was initially surprised that they'd do such small jobs, but they said they do it all the time.  No one seems to clean up the limbs, though.

 

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.

Edited March 12, 2022 by wallytoo

[wallytoo]

finally got around to loading and delivering some of the hemlock logs to a friend with a portable mill.  the first load was 4 8-footers, loaded across the dump body (for really easy unloading):

 

next load is a pair of 10-footers ready for delivery:

[wallytoo]

the largest of the 8-footers...