The Forestry Forum

General Forestry => Forestry and Logging => Topic started by: Jeff on June 27, 2008, 10:47:28 PM

Poll
Question: What is the total number of experience you have Logging and working in the woods. (Round to the closest number))
Option 1: 1 year votes: 121
Option 2: 5 years votes: 201
Option 3: 10 years votes: 178
Option 4: 15 years votes: 135
Option 5: 20 years votes: 148
Option 6: 25 years votes: 127
Option 7: 30 years votes: 131
Option 8: 35 years votes: 94
Option 9: 40 years votes: 77
Option 10: 45 years votes: 37
Option 11: 50 years votes: 20
Option 12: 55 years votes: 7
Option 13: 60 years votes: 6
Option 14: 65 years votes: 3
Title: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Jeff on June 27, 2008, 10:47:28 PM
We are trying to figure out how many years of experience and knowledge this forum offers in certain areas. This Poll is for Logging or working in the woods harvesting Forest Products of some kind. Could be you have cut firewood, or you may be a mechanized logger. All that experience comes together on the Forestry Forum and makes up the knowledge that we had a group have to offer.

When answering the poll, round to the nearest number, either up or down, what ever is closest. It would be just to much for the poll if we added an option for every year. What we will come up with by rounding will be a very accurate number for our total.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Wallys World on June 27, 2008, 11:34:12 PM
I got my first chainsaw when I was 14 years old, wow 36 years ago. I have been cutting firewood ever since. Had a good business for some time selling it, now it has been just for family use and trying to sell bundled. In the last 7 years since getting the mill I have been more on logging for the lumber and using the tops for the firewood. It is nice when you can work on your own land and not have to travel to get logs. (100 acres helps too)
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Paul_H on June 27, 2008, 11:36:40 PM
Last week was exactly 30 years full time logging.Started in 1978 and things were still pretty rosy in the logging industry.The early 80's were tight but things picked up again until 1997 then it seems it never really recovered completely.
The woods is still my #1 choice of places to work.The people and the space!
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Woodcarver on June 28, 2008, 12:02:15 AM
I checked 40 years because I started almost that long ago working in the woods with my father hauling logs and whiskey barrel bolts when I wasn't in school. I think I probably accumulated more miles behind the wheel of a truck than a car as a teenager.

Since then it's always been part-time.  Began heating with wood during 70's and more recently have been cutting some pulp. 

Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: zackman1801 on June 28, 2008, 12:13:46 AM
1 year, just a green horn, learning my way into the woods. im only 16 but im getting into the woods more and more. just started cutting for firewood because oil is just do dang expensive.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: sawguy21 on June 28, 2008, 12:33:58 AM
I worked in the woods off and on in the 70's and got hooked. Got into small engine repair and enjoyed working with saws and the loggers. Spent almost five years in heli logging in the late 90's, I loved that but sure hard to make a living in it now.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: breederman on June 28, 2008, 06:49:37 AM
I was probably 10 years old when I started picking up firewood as it came off of the buzz saw.  It took alot of wood to keep the pipes from freezing in that old house! I skidded alot of logs and firewood down off the hill with a JD 50 when I was a teenager, and been cutting mostly firewood for fun every since then.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: deadeye on June 28, 2008, 07:22:51 AM
started in the woods with my dad when i was about five,  we lived on a dairy farm and cut forty cord a year plus all the sawlogs we could get out of the trees we downed.  traded a weeks wages with a neighbour  for a homelite xl 12 at the age of twelve.  from then on i've been cutting firewood and brush lines for  people and for the past ten years have been custom logging and sawing. 
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Sawyerfortyish on June 28, 2008, 07:39:04 AM
I started cutting firewood when I was 17 when I got out of school we put in the sawmill. Seems like it was just last week but it was 1981. Never worked a day for anyone else I worked on the family farm with dad and my brothers and still do. No way could I join the rat race and commute to the city to work. Give me the woods and the farm.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Corley5 on June 28, 2008, 10:58:36 AM
I've been logging on and off both full and parttime for twenty one years and have been cutting firewood for even longer.  I checked 15 years since I haven't always worked in the industry
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Jeff on June 28, 2008, 12:09:42 PM
Were already up to 917 years of experience.  :)
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Frickman on June 28, 2008, 04:38:46 PM
I grew up in a logging and sawmilling family and started felling timber at age twelve. Before that I'd help carry saws and firewood, probably from age five. I consider age twelve though to be when I started.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: thecfarm on June 28, 2008, 06:57:58 PM
This is a nice poll that brings back a few memories of just carrying the wood to the truck.I enjoyed my Father in the woods more than out of the woods.We just seemed to get along better working in the woods.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: maple flats on June 28, 2008, 07:17:15 PM
I started cutting firewood in '73 and my only cutting was firewood til 2003. I cut with dad for his home, our home and my brother's home. We also cut firewood for sale during the winter when business was slow. Starting in 2003 I cut logs to get sawn into lumber for my sugarhouse and the sawyer took sooo looong I bought my own mill. I now do custom sawing on a limited scale, do very little logging (my land only), and I am sawing lumber to build our new (retirement) home. I also have a forest stewardship plan for my woods and do some timberstand improvement, which was new to me in 2003.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Jeff on June 29, 2008, 08:30:42 AM
so far we are at a combined experience of 1294 years. :)
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Don K on June 29, 2008, 11:25:36 AM
I selected 30 yrs as I was 16 when I first got to use the chainsaw to cut firewood  to sell and use at home. I toted it to the truck a lot longer than that! :o My grandaddy was a logger so I have spent my life in the woods. I cut paperwood on the side until that industry fell apart for the small man in the south in the early 90's. I heat my home with wood and love to cut down trees. I used to take my mom's Old Hickory butcher knife when I was about 6 or 7 and hack down small trees. If I had all of them now I could never finish sawing them up.

Don
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Gary_C on June 29, 2008, 09:58:16 PM
Wasn't sure of the years to put down. I have been doing some work with trees since 1964 but not all years. My brother in law and I cut down a large walnut yard tree one Sunday when the Steelers were playing in the Super Bowl with Bradshaw as their QB. The last ten years pretty much full time so I put down 25 years.  ;D
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Jeff on June 29, 2008, 10:06:05 PM
1671 years of combined experience now. :)
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: TeaW on June 30, 2008, 07:40:38 AM
Got my first saw at 17 by falling dead elm at 5 bucks a tree, been selling logs and firewood for over 30 years.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Norm on June 30, 2008, 07:54:31 AM
I was 14 when the dutch elm disease came through our farm. We had many die that needed cleared. We started out with a two man saw but soon went to an ancient chainsaw that weighed a ton and had a pump oiler for the chain. I'm still amazed we survived dropping those monsters but over a couple of summers cleared out the dead ones. Our neighbor used a wood burning furnace that would take huge chunks. He also had a buzz saw mounted on the front of a AC tractor. Since then I've been doing some kind of chainsaw work off and on.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Ed on June 30, 2008, 09:56:10 AM
I started helping my grandfather process firewood with our Ford 9N & cordwood saw when I was around 14. Had my own chainsaw at 16.
It doesn't seem like 30 years...............

Ed
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: BBK on June 30, 2008, 10:23:12 AM
Started off in 1958 carrying the gas and the "story pole" and marking log lenghts. 
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: jim king on June 30, 2008, 10:52:47 AM
This thread brings back a lot of memories.  As any kid on the farm in the 50´s I helped my dad in the woods cutting firewood in the winter and the worst part of that was stacking the basement full for the winter after it dried a year.  At first it was the cross cut saw , ax and wedges and then we hit the bigtime and got a green Homelite that weighed a ton . 

After getting my own farm it was constant maintainence of trees fallen on the roads and fences and as I have not seen the farm in 14 years I hope my son is doing the same.  Then I started working overseas and ended up working with people in various countries in wood products, Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Ghana, Cameroon, Liberia, Abu Dabi, Brazil, Colombia , Peru and of course the US.

It hasn´t always been a bed of roses but it has been fun and I guess there is not much that I would do different the next time.   You can put me down for 30 plus of the serious side of woodworking.  Wood has made for an interesting life for my wife and myself and finally we are here in the Amazon with to much investment , business , freinds and animals to ever leave so from Northern Wisconsin to the Amazon it has been fun.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: cuttsey on July 01, 2008, 03:17:57 AM
I started logging back in 93 and havent looked back yet, still lovin the life ( made easier by Airconditioning and the cd player in my cab).
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Ed_K on July 01, 2008, 09:16:50 PM
 I put 40. if I include pullin wood off the buzz saw its closer to 47. Got a crosscut at 13, that was older than I am now. wow it could cut better than ax, till I run outa steam  ;D .
First chainsaw was a homylite. Now I'm wishin for a tracked processor.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Jeff on July 04, 2008, 04:48:32 PM
Over 2100 years with only around 2% of registered members weighing in yet.  :) 
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: jokers on July 04, 2008, 11:27:42 PM
Quote from: Jeff on July 04, 2008, 04:48:32 PM
Over 2100 years with only around 2% of registered members weighing in yet.  :) 
Oh shoot, if we have to weigh in I can really tip the scales.  :D
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: JUNEBUG 88 on July 08, 2008, 04:10:26 AM
Working on family property in Oceana County, MI since 1972. Started  with a heavy Jonsereds 621 and now have my own saw a much lighter but still powerful Stihl 361.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Rocky_Ranger on July 08, 2008, 12:52:23 PM
I started in 1968 working in road construction, clearing ROW with a chainsaw and muscles - I was still in junior high but had very little brains I reckon (nothing much has changed except my waistline).  Degree in 1976, Masters work in 1977 & 1978, been logging, cruising, scaling,farming, rangering ever since.   I probably should have put this one on the "with the pros" section but I've lived most of my life/career where you measure your days work by the amount of sweat, pitch, diesel, and hydraulic oil you have on your clothes.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Maineloggerkid on July 10, 2008, 07:20:35 PM
Im only 17, but I have been running chainsaw and taking trees down since I was 12. So I can contribute 5 years.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Good Feller on July 12, 2008, 11:58:41 PM
Well I grew up in town so I was a city kid for the first 13 years of my life,,unfortunately.  My parents ended up building a home on 80 acres out in the country and that's when I got into fishing, hunting, and especially trapping.  By the age of 18 I realized I didn't even know how to run a chainsaw...  worthless!  My first saw was a poulan wood shark.  A walmart special.  I had no idea how to maintain it.  I just ran it,, all the time.  I cut a lot of hedge posts with it.  A few years later I went off to Iowa State to major in forestry.  Best decision I ever made!  After I started school I remember walking through our timber and seeing a 22" dbh red oak(with about 20ft of straight log) that had just died.  I thought boy that would be a shame to just let it rot.  So I got out the 14" poulan wood shark.  I used an entire tank of gas cutting it down.  Whittled at it from all sides.  Now that I think back ,,,, how freaking dangerous!!!  Guess that's how you learn though.  Once I got it cut down I had no way to get it out of the steep ravine.  I used a come along to winch both logs inch by inch to the landing LOL....  I got $103 dollars for those logs. 
Today I own a MS 460 and a 455 husky,,,, and oh yeah, I liked that first wood shark so much I bought a second one.  It's good for small stuff and fits in the 4 wheeler.  I love running saws.  Everywhere I go I try to identify trees and also think to myself how I would go about cutting them down!  I took the game of logging course in Missouri last year.    
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: thedeeredude on July 13, 2008, 09:05:25 PM
Well, I've only been running saws for a little over a year.  I helped dad buck a little birch tree and chopped two down with an axe a while while back.  I had no clue what i was doing though.  And now I can't wait to put a saw to wood.  We deal with downed trees and dead limbs at work a lot.  So yeah only one year, and hopefully many many more ahead. 
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Jeff on July 23, 2008, 01:50:29 PM
We are at over 2260 years experience on the poll. :)
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Samuel on July 27, 2008, 12:10:45 PM
1991 is when I started working with the Department of Natural Resources and Energy in New Brunswick as a summer position.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: lancek on July 27, 2008, 07:50:43 PM
I started in 1974 same as the rest of you been in and out of it but could relalisticly saw[ Opps i should of said say]30 years! Seems it gets into your blood you cant get away form it ! lancek
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: hunt_x on August 01, 2008, 12:27:09 PM
Hi there I'm new here and have been lurking in the background for a week or so now seems like a great community you have here I have 25 years milling in a wide variety of mills and 6 logging and worked construction (building gas stations) in the slower times. I live in the pacific coastal region of B.C. and worked primarily in the Fraser valley and on Vancouver island I have a wealth of background and experience in our huge coastal species. I am hoping to be an active participant in this forum and I am planning on building a new mill in the new future to cut a stand of large doug fir and WRC here on my property here on vancouver island
Dave Hunter
Shawnigan lake Vancouver island
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: rgear on August 26, 2008, 11:40:26 PM
I logged in with about 35 years. Grew up on the Olympic Pennisula of Washington State. Most of you all seem to be from the midwest or east coast. My family worked the woods for years in th 50's, 60's and into the 70's. In 1974 my grandfather, who ran things, told me I was being laid off after labor day so I better go find a job that I could make a living at. I became a firefighter, but because of my woods experince I stayed in the wildfire side of firefighting even though I worked for municipal departments. In my younger years I worked chokers behind a cat on right of ways, worked high lead rigging, did about 3 months in a cedar shingle mill, cleaned creeks after high lead logging on my off days from the fire department and most of all ran cat building road and clearing and burning for many loggers on my off days. I still do a lot of western wildfires, sometimes as many as 70 to 100 days per summer on forest fires. However, my real love is my small circular mill and the fuels reduction work I do for my neighbors arounds their homes and cabins. Unfortunately, we waste a HUGE amount of wood in the west! I am a one man band to try and use whatever we can that gets left by loggers or burned. I enjoy reading the posts here by all of you that are way better at using what is on the ground and hope that someday the west coast learns what you have from hundreds of years more of experince!
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: timberfaller390 on August 28, 2008, 11:23:56 PM
I started in the woods with my grandpaw when I was 10 or so and been loving it since. I've been doing the wildland firefighting like rgear since I was 18. I add about 13 years of saw chips and sweat.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: DLMaine01 on August 30, 2008, 07:55:28 PM
I had a cord wood business when I was sixteen down NH way and did that until 19 then joined the US Army for 4 years moved to Maine and logged hardwood and veneer for 10 years or so.
Life has many corners and I wound up close to the Maine Coast cutting Cedar, Pine, Hemlock and Spruce. Of course I cut lots of firewood along the way and still cut enough off our land to provide our winter heat, it is a very good feeling to provide for ourselves.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: dsgsr on September 09, 2008, 05:50:34 PM
I started when I was 10 or 11 piling brush for my older bothers back in the late '60's.  First saw I was handed was a Jonsered 621. I was about 14, skinny and could just barely lift the saw. We started out logging with Horses pulling logs and Ponies pulling a a pulp wagon, did that until late teens. I then got away from home went into the Army and then Law-enforcement and didn't hardly touch a saw until I started burning wood for myself in '87. Bought my very own Husky 154 and played with firewood mostly for myself until about 10-yrs ago. I bought a piece of land closer to my hometown, two more saws and now cut my firewood and pulp to sell in the winters. So I guess I can add a solid 10-yrs to that list.


David
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: york on September 30, 2008, 04:10:39 PM
Hi all,
logged in with 60 yrs....Helped me granddad,in what he called his "sugar bush"
they tapped maple trees...I was 9 or 10...then in 9th grade i volunteered to plant plantation trees.... Then,still in school pruned plantation trees,mostly red pines...

Me granddad also had a small circle mill...Also cut and burned firewood most of my life...

Late 60s,wanted to build a log cabin-cut and skidded out red pine-got my first mill,Meadows #1,from dealer in pa.

Also became interested in tree work-became a partner with "Williams tree" not with him any more...

Now i have a Band mill...never did build my log cabin-the wall logs were easy to sell....

I need to keep going-want to get another chipper-love doing tree work...will be 70 in November-feel good....thanks Bert
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: semologger on September 30, 2008, 10:13:40 PM
Been logging for 12 years now. My darn dad started us out with a old c5c tree farmer. We started out thinning pine stands. Now we have alot more equipment and working just as hard as the first day. Sawmill or logging is in my blood i guess. Grampa was in the business and 2 uncles still in the wood business. I guess i was just meant to be stuck in the business but couldnt be happier.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: chucker on October 20, 2008, 10:45:50 PM
  started working in the woods with my dad when i was 10 . we cut pulp and fire wood for sale and for the neighbors here in centeral minnesota. hauled and loaded pulp in an old 1950 ford ? f1 3/4 ton truck. loaded pulp by hand into rail cars for northwest paper co. in brainerd.dad pulled logs and most of the wood with a team of horses, as well as a jd b in later years .i still have dads orignal homelite saw with the gas tank on top of the motor old blue.28 " beaver tail and around 5 horse power.things sure have changed!
now i use a arctic cat 300 and a home made skidder with a hand winch to pull logs from the woods and a small trailer to keep from damageing the trees on a lot clearing job . when ever pulp is at a fair market value the small unit comes handy for a one man operation and a fair days wage. over the years i have learned a lot from watching the ole man of the northern forest do the best he could to do for a family of 12 kids and mom .
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: thecfarm on October 21, 2008, 04:29:12 AM
chucker,welcome to the forum.Pictures would be great.Go to the top of the page and click on to Help.There is a tutorial that will tell you how to post pictures.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: rockenbman on November 02, 2008, 08:34:04 PM
 I would say I started in my teens but that was off and on over the years and now I part time cut after work .This is my second season for saw logs and fire wood.Working two jobs in cooler weather is hard on a old fat boy like me  :D
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Kodiakmac on November 04, 2008, 01:37:02 PM
Worked in the bush with my Dad and Uncle when they were still using horses...wasn't much help in those days.  Then we used a Fordson Major tractor with 1/2 tracks.  I worked in the Upper Fraser Valley (McBride, Prince George) in the early 70's using , Clarks, a Monashee Timber Toter, old 440 JD and Dozers (HD16 and a HD21).  Got out of it for thirty-odd years and now I'm back into it.  Logging is just like hunting: a good way to get away from it all.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: BW_Williams on November 08, 2008, 05:00:11 PM
I've been runnin' a saw in the woods since i could keep the bar out of the rocks! 31 years, how did that happen.  If'n I'd knowed I was going live this long,. . . . . . :)
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: BrandonTN on November 20, 2008, 12:25:08 AM
Phew!! That's alotta years. That's why this board is so great.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: tw3006 on December 16, 2008, 05:25:54 PM
I started logging full time the day i got out of high school, i got my first chainsaw and started cutting firewood when i was 12, so almost 11 years now, but full time logging and tree service for almost 5, have done other things while in high school but when they say sawdust runs in your blood, its true. Theres no other place or occupation i'd rather be.
Hope to learn something from y'all here
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Cadenhill on December 22, 2008, 07:52:51 PM
Logged in at 45 years, but probably 50. Always have cut firewood, fence posts, did tree work, and helped a good friend in their family sawmill business. Never have got tired of it.
I have a pair of trained mules that I do some skidding with and working with some morgan horses to do the same.
My kids and I team up and do about 50 cord of firewood each year to heat our homes and my shop.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: timber tramp on December 23, 2008, 04:36:59 AM
  Went to work for my Dad when I was 15 settin' chokers, worked my way up a bit since then. :)
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: ontariologger on January 15, 2009, 06:28:40 PM
i started when i was 14 cutting firewood, now i have been logging for 3 years and just love it
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: LE-1 on January 15, 2009, 11:58:25 PM
Howdy , been loggin' for 30 plus years , body feels like its been a 100.. :D
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Banjo picker on January 16, 2009, 07:52:06 PM
I was about 16 when I got my first ride.  A 1953 international pickup.  not long after that dad got hurt.  (cut his foot open with an ax)  I had to cut firewood for us to stay warm.  I promptly cut a semi- small oak on the International.  It didn't ruin it but sure hurt its looks.  I'm glad to say that's been the last bad experince in the woods.  Tim
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: ErikC on January 19, 2009, 11:23:21 AM
  We worked in our woods since I was born it seems like. Mom used to bring me out in the backpack thing and check on dad. I got officially named firewood stacker at about 10. When I was 14 choker setting for a logging job on their place with a grouchy old cat operator, and on we go.
Quote from: Banjo picker on January 16, 2009, 07:52:06 PM
I was about 16 when I got my first ride.  A 1953 international pickup. 
Me Too! Mine was a 4wheel drive flatbed. Actually I think it was mostly a 58. Hauled a lot of wood, mine was ugly when I got it. It was tough though. Of course I am 20 years younger than you so it had more time to wear and tear first.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Banjo picker on January 19, 2009, 01:19:13 PM
Quote from: ErikC on January 19, 2009, 11:23:21 AM
  We worked in our woods since I was born it seems like. Mom used to bring me out in the backpack thing and check on dad. I got officially named firewood stacker at about 10. When I was 14 choker setting for a logging job on their place with a grouchy old cat operator, and on we go.
Quote from: Banjo picker on January 16, 2009, 07:52:06 PM
I was about 16 when I got my first ride.  A 1953 international pickup. 
Me Too! Mine was a 4wheel drive flatbed. Actually I think it was mostly a 58. Hauled a lot of wood, mine was ugly when I got it. It was tough though. Of course I am 20 years younger than you so it had more time to wear and tear first.

I gave mine to a guy about two years ago.  He is supposed to restore it.  I finally realizied I was just not going to ever get around to it.  I hope he didn't crush it when scrap got so high.  Tim
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: mad murdock on January 19, 2009, 07:40:37 PM
started peeling popple at 8 yrs of age.  Worked with a logger who skidded with a horse at 13, peeled and cut and bunched by hand, decked by hand that summer.  First started running a saw at 13.  My older brother and I6 and 14 respectively got our own contract for 300 cords peeled popple, and cut and bunched 296 cords that summer.  I guess that would put me at more like 37 years since I first started working in the woods.  I only put 20 on the poll.  Needed to think about it more I guess.  Own a 40 acre tree farm currently in the North Oregon Coast Range.  Work for a company who directly supports the timber industry via aerial application by helicopter.  There is no place on earth like the woods!
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: capt n cutz on January 19, 2009, 08:11:07 PM
if i only knew then, what I will learn tomorrow.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: mad murdock on January 20, 2009, 05:27:09 PM
I found a pic of a nice tree that we harvested in '06.  There were a few this size, it took the Garrett model 15 pulling in front and a JD 350B pushing from behind to get the first 2 41" logs out, each long scaled in over 800 bd/ft each!
Had I to do it over again I would have cut them shorter, would've gotten a little better scale asw the logs averaged 32" inside the bark.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Warbird on January 29, 2009, 05:59:19 PM
Just added in my 20 years.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Big Stick on February 13, 2009, 10:15:00 AM
Cut my first Old Growth Doug Fir when I was 16 and that's been some time ago.

The Woods have been very good to me..................
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: John Woodworth on February 13, 2009, 11:19:50 PM
31 years running skidders, cats, faller bunchers, loaders. Self employed 28 of those years logging, sawmilling, tree topping and heavy equipment mechanics. Ran my dad's old Corley carriage mill when I was 14 yrs. old, Mobile Deminsion today.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Scuba_Dave on March 02, 2009, 11:05:51 PM
I cut & split wood as a teenager
But for the mots part the past 12 years with owning 2 houses
The last house I heated with wood most of the time
A very nice Soapstone stove, which I took with me to my new house

One of the last big trees on my property is dead - a big Oak  :(
I'll get quite a bit of wood out of it
But now the only bigger trees are on the side along the stream
And none are as big as the Oak
I used it in my Christmas display to make an LED tree & hang Snoopy in his plane



NOTE FROM ADMIN: Images must be in your Forestry forum Gallery. No off site images allowed. You can upload your photo, and edit this message out with the onsite photo.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: 4genlgr on March 28, 2009, 10:02:04 AM
Hi New member. put down 35 grandfather was in the business and usually if you went for ride with him as a kid he was checking on a crew. and being kids full of p&v and having a grandfather tha t belived in hard work was good for you my cousins and i soon had pulp hooks in our hands and the 4foot wood was gooing on the old truck frame trailer behind a crawler tractor. This was usually summer time and grandpa knew that "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy". He would find a swimming hole on the way home and join in the fun. Went to work for him in 76  and except for three years in the 90's i been cutting trees, driving cat, skidder, tractor or truck. if you've never pick up 4ft fir, loaded it on a trailer, unloaded it by hand onto a truck, and unloaded at the mill get down on your knees and thank God for hydulics!
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: madhatte on April 03, 2009, 10:32:43 AM
Put down 15.  Worked for Weyco, Champion Int'l, Simpson, BLM, USFS, and now work for Ft Lewis.  Working in the woods is where it's at. 
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: nhlogga on June 12, 2009, 08:58:25 PM
started out cutting firewood for my grand father at 18. went to college at "grandpa's school of firewood" got a degree in saw dust. I'm a third generation logger. never worked with my dad till last year till he came to work for me on weekends. learned alot from him. especially how to do things the hardway.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Diesel Smoke on July 12, 2009, 11:04:24 AM
I am sitting at ten years!
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: islandlogger on July 23, 2009, 07:55:43 AM
Reckon I started in them thar woods at the tender age of 8, just help my dad out geting in the wood for the winters and general other chores, think I was 10 or maybe eleven when he first let me get my hands on a saw, a Mac Eager Beaver it was lol some funky little thing a neighbor had cursed him with, then it was a ancient old Pioneer, could hear that thing snarling for miles!! There was a gyppo logger cutting Alder on the property bordering ours, I used to love hearing them saws singing and trees crashing and the cat growling along the skid roads, when they would quit for the day I would wander over and check out the days progress and they always parked the Cat where I could sit in it and "pretend", that poor logger went bust, Alder market fell out before he could get his wood to the mill and they faded off to greener pastures. My daddy had bought me a Tin Hat that at the time was ten times to big for my head, I wear that skull bucket to this day, been with me a long time and saved me many a head ache. I finely got into logging at 18, had my new cool breeze Stihl 44 and built my own small business up starting with just me and that saw, alot of hard work over many a year. I have done a bit of construction during slow times, but it's in the woods where I belong, when it's just me and my gear, sittin on a fresh cut stump at lunch time, thats home and I wouldn't have it any other way. The timber industry is tough, it can be done though, it's the big companies that have it tough I think, I manage to make a good living with just me or a very small crew, my Peterson Mill has been a good addition for the past five years. If it's in your blood and you'r willing to go the extra mile, then there is NO place better then being on the business end of a saw out in the middle of the woods knocking a tree dead nuts down the line watching her come to rest just a waitin for ye to knock them limbs off and process her down to size ready for skiddn to the truck and then off to the mill so you can slab off that outer layer and show the world the beuty of fresh cut wood. Git busy livin or get busy dyin!!
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: rickywashere on September 02, 2009, 05:45:36 AM
started when i was 11 working part time splitting mining timbers for my grand father  moved up to running a saw when i could start it at age 12 1/2 pappaw's rules if ya cant start it you can run it ...   did that till i was 19 went into logging mostly timber cutter ran skidder little  and log loader /// but yard work was never my cup of tea ... after that made crib blocks , wedges on a hand mill yes i still have all my fingers  thank god after that went back into logging plus a few tree felling jobs for private peeps  up till last year // been working on the house since then
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: whitepine on September 09, 2009, 02:20:14 PM
Started as a teenager with a homlite xl12 peeling pulp the first job I ever had in the 60's worked on a slasher and some time on skidder for few years than got into buying and selling timber in NE Minnesota made some good money on that. After some health problems I got into selling specialty woods like burls and birch bark for a few years than firewood have heated with wood for 25 years. Tried planting trees what a disaster talked my neighbors into it and than a drought lost it all. Still have a pile of land ( I ranched a cow calf operator) cut firewood if able  and now thinking of building a firewood processor (like the chomper idea but have doubts. Bad back so bending over is a no no think there is a market up here to cut up 10 cd truck loads of 8ft firewood into 16". Think firewood may be worth more than ever the way the economy goes. Built a nova jack type trialer to puts with like the logging with atv idea. Saved a bunch of  old growth ash and now I look at it and am sad wonder what will replace it up here love this site thanks guys.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Wild willy on September 18, 2009, 09:58:59 PM
Been in the logging industry all my life, my uncle hired my dad when he was around 12 years old and he started out with mules. I have been in the lumber/logging since I was 16 running skidders, then when I turned 18 got married and went to work in a sawmill/logging for 3 years then went to work in a diffrent mill for 4 years and then my father retired from a Veneer company and him and I have been in logging together ever since. He just stopped working with me this year the wat the market is he had to get more reliable work we had a great run together
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: beenthere on September 18, 2009, 11:09:57 PM
Wild willy
Welcome to the forum.
That is an interesting history.

Now you are making it ok in the logging business without Dad?

How is it and how do you locate your logs? 

Glad to have you and your experience on board.  8)
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Ken on November 26, 2009, 05:38:09 AM
Approximately 30 years for me.  Started on summer vacations junking tree length wood into logs and pulp on my dads logging sites.  I had to look after 3-4 skidder crews and I remember the first summer was very wet which meant that the wood was always muddy.  Learned how to file that summer.  Since then I have obtained a forestry degree from UNB and have been offering a range of woodlot management services to private woodlot owners for  nearly 20 years.  Over the past 3 years I have been acting as project manager for Nashwaak Valley Wood Energy a newly opened wood pellet plant that is owned primarily by woodlot owners and contractors from our area. 

Love the forum.  Keep up the good work.

Cheers
Ken
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: geohayes7 on December 05, 2009, 06:32:26 PM
I don't know how many cords I've pulled in a plastic dredge pontoon. Logs cut to 6' length then cut it into firewood at our 2 room cabin in the Chugiach mountains, on the Kenai peninsula but I know no running water or eletricity would kill my wife and kids HAHAHA LOL
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: timberjack240 on December 13, 2009, 01:44:46 AM
my pap who has recently passed away started cutting pulp wood with a bowsaw till he got enough saved to buy a homelite lcs26 he countinued to cut pulp w his buddies and eventually bought a 600d direct drive . eventually he bout the only skidder inteh area and started loggin we figured up his years he had 48 years in the prodution loggin indusrty.. approx 32 of which was for the same sawmill doin sub contract work.. ppl my age dont always sho respect liek they should and im giulty sometimes myself.. but its men liek that that my hat is off to. not many can do what he did w a couple old skidders and supply 75% of the wood to the second biggest sawmill in our state. by no means am i braggin but i know theres a few fellas on here thtat would appreciate this
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Ron Scott on December 13, 2009, 09:48:10 AM
Sorry to hear about your pap. Such individuals are among the forest's "vanishing breed."
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: paulpieter on December 13, 2009, 10:18:23 PM
First started cutting and hauling with my Pa in the 60's. He operated a landscaping business and removing dead elms was the order of the day and there were many and they were huge. All I remember is that Pa had a Pioneer saw which weighed a ton, with a manual oiler. Safety gear was unheard of; no hearing protection, no head or eye protection, no chainsaw pants, nothing. That might explain why I can't hear what I don't want to hear.

We took it all home and heated with it. The wiry elm wood is vivid in my mind today as if it was yesterday, and it was my job to split it with an axe and two wedges and a maul. I would drive the wedge clear through and it still wouldn't split. The second wedge was to rescue the first, but I got through it in time.

Then left for school and a life long career that is soon ended.

9 years ago I bought 80 acres of bush -- half wild mostly hardwoods, half reforested farm fields of white spruce and some tamarack and white pine. It is now an FSC certified woodlot - follow a management prescription -- don't cut faster than it grows, biodiversity, clear trails etc. So I figure 10 years of aggregate time is fairly accurate.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: timberjack240 on December 13, 2009, 11:30:36 PM
i myself have ben around this business since i was born .. i started loggin w my pap when i was 15 i started skiddin. i cut my first tree at 17 and started cuttin all the tiem when i was 18 19 and now about all i do is cut down. i have my cdl and haul logs from time to time.. some say i have five years of service .. i say at the most i have 3 1/2 .. i factored in all my no work time  and nov1 was the 3 year mark and ive worked 3 days since then due to no work  ::) . we also cut firewood liek wild .. 4 of us w jsust our tractor becasue the skidder was tied up cut 10 cords and hauled 7 in 8 hrs and took a lunch break and multiple breaks int he 100 deg afternoon  ;D i also worked at a dry kiln stackin and stripping lumber.. im more into the woods work myself   all i kno basically is wood haha
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: IMOWOOD on December 15, 2009, 08:04:46 PM
I I grew up on a dairy farm and we always logged in the winter i can remember setting chokers when i was about 10-12 or so and keeping track of the gas jugs.  But i never thought of it as a career till i went to college for forestry.  I would say I have 5 years of full time logging experience.  I did some buying/selling of timber on and off but i was just never into talking to land owners, always felt like a used car salsmen.  I can remember buyers asking my dad to sell his timber and they would always be making empty promices. So i never wanted to be like that so i just stick to the logging end.   
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: mrnero on December 15, 2009, 08:46:20 PM
What is the total number of experience you have Logging and working in the woods. (Round to the closest number

Hmmmm !  How come there is no "hours" of experience listed for me to pick from on this survey poll.  Oh well!!  Let me see, thats 15 minutes in 2001, 19 minutes in 2006 and 78 minutes last week .  Heck, I'll just round it off to one year experience. thats close enough. ;D ;D ;D ;D


Mrnero

PS. forgot to mention that my experience was cutting down a fresh christmas tree, annually.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Holmes on December 15, 2009, 10:28:03 PM
I grew up with wood heat,started stacking and hauling in wood when I was 10. Dad had a few buck saws ,sledge hammer and wedges then he got a homelite that took at least a hundred pulls to start. I,ve cut firewood most of my life , now I have  swing mill that needs logs logs logs.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: nas on December 18, 2009, 09:10:41 PM
Quote from: mrnero on December 15, 2009, 08:46:20 PM
What is the total number of experience you have Logging and working in the woods. (Round to the closest number

Hmmmm !  How come there is no "hours" of experience listed for me to pick from on this survey poll.  Oh well!!  Let me see, thats 15 minutes in 2001, 19 minutes in 2006 and 78 minutes last week .  Heck, I'll just round it off to one year experience. thats close enough. ;D ;D ;D ;D


Mrnero

PS. forgot to mention that my experience was cutting down a fresh christmas tree, annually.
It took 78 minutes to cut down a Christmas tree ??? ;) :D
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Mooseherder on December 18, 2009, 09:59:48 PM
Quote from: Holmes on December 15, 2009, 10:28:03 PM
I grew up with wood heat,started stacking and hauling in wood when I was 10. Dad had a few buck saws ,sledge hammer and wedges then he got a homelite that took at least a hundred pulls to start. I,ve cut firewood most of my life , now I have  swing mill that needs logs logs logs.

Welcome Holmes!
I've got an old Homelite that takes a hundred pulls to start also.  It didn't use to be that way.
I bet your tired of Fire Wood by now. :D
Tell us about your Swingmill.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Holmes on December 20, 2009, 08:17:52 PM
Thanks for the welcome Mooseherder  I bought a 9 year old Lucas 613 Everything seems in good working order. My first log was a red oak 11' long 22" dia I cut some 2x4 1.5x4 and 4x6s . My second log was a crooked cherry.I set it up wrong and turned it into a 14' long half round tapered wedge, nice grain though. I also cut 2 pines 12' long 22"dia  made some 6x6 and 4x6 to use to set up the mill properly.  Holmes
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: thecfarm on December 21, 2009, 09:09:45 AM
holmes,welcome to the forum.I always like to know,what's the plan for the lumber?
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Holmes on December 21, 2009, 04:30:03 PM
Quote from: thecfarm on December 21, 2009, 09:09:45 AM
holmes,welcome to the forum.I always like to know,what's the plan for the lumber?
In Ma. all lumber must be certified and stamped for  construction to pass a building inspection and everything has to be inspected.I will be building some sheds for my equipment and the mill. Should this be posted under outlaw buildings?
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Virginialogging on December 22, 2009, 06:32:59 PM
Okay, I'm the new kid. I put 20 years in as that's the total for actual full time logging.
Sure, I cut fire wood and cleared some ground before that but as a part timer.

Started out as a Horse logger for about 12 years then went mechanical skidding.
Whilst hunting for some more sources for caulk boots I ran across this site and jined up.

Merry Christmas everyone.


Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: chucker on December 23, 2009, 11:31:56 PM
  im called woodchuck from my family and friends, chucker for short. 52 years wet behind the ears ....  started working in the woods with my dad when i was 10 . we cut pulp and fire wood for sale and for the neighbors here in centeral minnesota. hauled and loaded pulp in an old 1950 ford ? f1 3/4 ton truck. loaded pulp by hand into rail cars for northwest paper co. in brainerd. dad pulled logs and most of the wood with a team of horses, as well as a jd b in later years .i still have dads orignal homelite saw with the gas tank on top of the motor old blue. 28 " beaver tail and around 5 horse power. things sure have changed!
now i use a arctic cat 300 and a home made skidder with a hand winch to pull logs from the woods and a small trailer to keep from damageing the trees on a lot clearing job . when ever pulp is at a fair market value the small unit comes handy for a one man operation and a fair days wage. over the years i have learned a lot from watching the ole man of the northern forest do the best he could to do for a family of 12 kids and mom. any more its do what it takes to stay in the game, without woods in my life and more wood in my veins its a short story!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Quebecnewf on January 08, 2010, 07:36:48 PM
How long have I been in the woods???

I am 50 now if you X that by 365 you get 18250 days  and all the best days out of that were the ones I spent in the woods the other days were just wasted waiting to get in the woods.

Quebecnewf
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: saltydog on January 10, 2010, 10:51:06 AM
my first job was cutting cedar post and tie cuts i cut our 40 before out of highschool carried it all out on our shoulders then moved up to a honda 3004x4 that was in the mid 80s never could understand working for minimum wage i made a weeks wage in 1 or2 days have had up to a 6 man felling crew 311hydroax 3 forwarders now its just me and my tree farmer less stress less wood to buy  im now 42 never bought any state or federal stumpage only private never left the county i live in farthest job from home was 35 miles  im a lucky guy but its getting harder every year 16 to 42 but did have a few trial jobs in there so around 20 or so years
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: forest.c on January 19, 2010, 01:42:02 AM
well I worked in the woods 5yrs before going to the starch plant it closed last june the coldest winter iv ever seen was the winter I lived in a converted school bus in baxter park cutting wood in the expermental forestry area. also worked in haynsvillea coupla years cutting budworm damage
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: quietrangr on January 24, 2010, 12:22:13 PM
39 years this coming spring, and still going. For 15 years I took summers off to do tree service.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: timberjack240 on January 24, 2010, 10:47:08 PM
my pap had aprox 48 years in i jsut talked to his childhood friend a few days ago .. he is 64 or 65 and has been workin int he woods since he was 10 or so... during that time he worked a factory job for about 6 months and the rest was spent cuttin mostly pulpwood and firewood when things got tuff.. you dont find em liek that much anymore
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: poor farmer/logger on January 24, 2010, 10:51:15 PM
I put down 15 years. Been in the bush longer then that but that's roughtly the amount of time I've been actually felling and skiding trees. Was pretty well raised in the bush but unless you count keeping the fire going that's about right.lol..

Ryan
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: treefarmer87 on February 05, 2010, 08:32:52 PM
i started when i was 12 with a homelite the moved up to a sthil, and now i have the jonsered 2171, i didnt start full time till about a year or so ago, i am only 22 but i dont wanna do anything else but cut timber
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Emajsh on February 07, 2010, 09:30:32 AM
I started when i was around 16 with a little echo cutting up and stacking 4ft and 8ft pulp  on the landing. We've always been small scale with small john deere skidders and dozers. Its been 14 or 15 years now and i still use a small john deere skidder,either a 440B or a 340D and do our road work with a 450D. I now use a husky 385XP or  372XP but thats about all that has changed from when i was younger.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: chain on February 08, 2010, 05:16:36 PM
I've actively managed our family forest farm for twenty years or more. I do boundary marking, tree marking for harvest, timber stand improvement, using chainsaw and chemical applications for culling. Owned a band-saw for five years, cut timbers and lumber for farm use, built a solar dry-kiln from lumber as well as a forest cabin.

Also, my pet project is restoring a severely eroding woods-stream to more natural ecology friendly stream. Developed wildlife watering areas and food plots as well as thinning for more diversity in bird species and forest animals. Saw first black bear tracks ever, three years ago, a happy day! All in all, a great winter-time hobby but I'm outta there when tick season arrives! ;)
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: windy hill farm on February 14, 2010, 05:45:30 PM
I checked 30 years mostly cutting firewood. Now that i have a piece of land that i can cut logs on i will cut the tops for stove wood and keep the logs for my future mill. all the slabs can go in the wood furnace. kevin
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: mr T on February 21, 2010, 12:37:20 PM
I started in 1957 peeling pulp for my grand father Back then thats the only way you could rid of polar &hemlock  He was an old horse logger bucksaw &axe 77yrs & still going  I have cut wood off &on since then Sometimes for money sometimes for fun
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: habaneroeater on February 21, 2010, 06:54:12 PM
more years than............................................General Sherman...........lol just kidded
General Sherman is the name of a Giant Sequoia with a height of 275 feet (83.8 metres). As of 2002, the volume of its trunk measured about 1487 cubic meters, making it the largest non-clonal tree by volume.[1] The tree is located in the Giant Forest of Sequoia National Park in the United States, east of Visalia, California. The tree is believed to be between 2,300 and 2,700 years old.
nice fact... stephan
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Blue Sky on February 28, 2010, 06:52:42 AM
I started cutting firewood in 1973-4 during the oil crisis. 35 plus years.  I was full time employed by 1977, doing TSI for firewood.  I am a graduate of Paul Smiths Forestry College('71).  Since' 95, I have been dealing in the Black Locust.   Enchanted Forester
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: mooses on March 30, 2010, 05:08:29 PM
Started back in 81 when wages were not that good and fuel oil cost 300 bucks a month. That's when I bought my first wood stove and a Husky. Been cutting ever since. Now I got 171 acres of woods and a band mill, so I do alot more cutting. I still have that old Husky.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: DirtForester on March 31, 2010, 12:44:47 PM
UNH '95

Technician for 4 years.

Licensed Forester since.

All experience as private, consulting forester.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: VTMapleFarmer on March 31, 2010, 08:46:33 PM
I got my first saw at the age of 14 (142) for cutting up brush around my house. At 15 i got a 346xp to help buck fire wood. I also starting limbing and running cable. Not long after i started feeling smaller trees and running my own hitches. For my graduation present i got a 372xp for logging and 20 cords of wood, i help with.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: pbunyan on April 25, 2010, 12:51:07 AM
  I started going to the woods with my dad when I was 9 years old in 57.He would let me
drive the D2 cat by my self sometimes ,because I could reach the hand clutch.We cut the
small trees with a bucksaw.Our first chainsaw was a titan.It was so heavy and started hard
so we mostly only used it on the big stuff on the landing.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: JamesE. PikeLogging on April 25, 2010, 08:43:17 AM
I got my first saw when I was 10 or 11 and have always worked in the woods with my father since I was little
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: willywood on May 15, 2010, 02:20:38 PM
Im 43 , a conservative number is 30. I was on the end of a chain saw in my early teens at the least. My parents were always pinching pennies and to use what resources we had , we heated with wood. My father was 43 when he had me.By the time I was old enough to get to cuttin,haulin and splitting wood my parents pretty much depended on me to cut the wood. I still while driving state forest ground or through the park and see a dead tree and think what a waste to see such a nice stand of timber go to waste. I've just purchase a new Lt 28 . Have'nt cut the first log through it yet. Would like to set it up with a hour meter before I get  started .
                                            God made wood / wood is Good !
                                                            Wm. 
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: JHBC on May 17, 2010, 11:09:16 PM
Hi

I'm new to the site.  I've been running saws since I was 10? or so, 38 now.  For the last twenty years though,  I've done about Four combined years of firewood cutting/hauling/splitting/selling etc., and maybe two and a half years worth of falling/bucking/choking.  So not a lot, but it has been great work when I've done it.  Not profitable enough.  Love saws, and use them whenever I can.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: arbo71 on May 23, 2010, 06:12:41 AM
I started in the forest in 1988 after I left school. Did some treecare too from time to time too but forestry is still my favorite.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: MI MAX on June 14, 2010, 12:43:32 PM
Started on our farm at about 13 trimming Christmas trees and getting them ready for sale our farm has been part of the national tree farmer asocation back in the 60s
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Autocar on June 29, 2010, 07:53:34 PM
I started in 1977 first with sawmills then onto cutting, skidding and trucking timber. Sawdust in my veins for life !
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Okrafarmer on August 24, 2010, 08:43:04 AM
I started making myself useful while logging with my dad when I was ten years old, did that for six years, back to it a little later, several times after that, then including two years spent in residential tree removal to round up to 10 years.

I started out yarding firewood and pulpwood with the 1948 John Deere B, working the Maine winters (home-schooling is very conducive to child labor!) and later got to use a 1948 D-4 a little bit. Now we save all the logs we can as we are paid to cut them down.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: timberman on August 26, 2010, 02:23:47 PM
I grew up in the lumber business.  Sawed in 10-man hand-set mill with 60" circular.  Felled big white pine in the winter.  I can tell what species a mill is sawing just by the smell at the gate.  Been white-collar now for 25 years, but never forget.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Okrafarmer on August 26, 2010, 11:10:50 PM
Quote from: timberman on August 26, 2010, 02:23:47 PM
I grew up in the lumber business.  Sawed in 10-man hand-set mill with 60" circular.  Felled big white pine in the winter.  I can tell what species a mill is sawing just by the smell at the gate.  Been white-collar now for 25 years, but never forget.

Welcome to the forum, Timberman! Thanks for joining!
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: fuzzybear on August 27, 2010, 01:28:54 PM
   Started 50 years ago at the ripe age of 6. Pop would drop trees and My job was to chain and lead the horses to the landing, of course the horses actually lead me. Been in the bush 90% of my adult life.  Steady at it for the last 30 years. 
   My children are 3yo and are already helping me. They can stack a 3' high pile of firewood as fast as I can cut it. They are fun to watch, especially my daughter, each log must fit exact and be lined up straight or she yells at her brothers to fix it.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: StephenRice on September 05, 2010, 10:50:24 AM
I have been cutting wood off and on, sometimes for a living, sometimes not, for about 30 years now.  As far as experience, though, I only put 5 years.  It is hard to claim more when it was not always full time work.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Randy88 on September 08, 2010, 07:51:03 AM
Put down 30 years but I'm sure its more, I grew up in the woods, my grandpa owned 20 acres of timber along with a farm and had his own sawmill, helped saw many thousands of board feet of lumber as a kid and cut firwood and carry it from the time I was old enough to walk, I now own the farm that my grandpa and dad have owned and still have the same timber, the old blade mill is in need of an update and want to go to a bandmill but just don't have the time or money right now so we have been hiring a custom sawyer to come and saw for us.    My grandpa and dad built all the buildings on the farm and several houses and have always done woodworking, along with myself and my kids, we do our own projects for our houses and land.   

I now own an excavation business and we do a lot of landclearing and cutting firewood and also logging at times, we still cut and split over 50 cords of wood a year for our own use and thats only going to get to be more as my kids get their own places and that means more improvements to be made to more homes.  I guess its a legacy to be able to make things out of wood and see what almost 80 years of work and four generations have done and its getting to be more every year. 
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Rob-IL on September 26, 2010, 08:35:02 AM
I grew up in logging but became a mechanic in high school and followed that profession for about 10 years. In 85 I got back into logging full time and have done this for a "Feast or Phantom" living ever since. I well recall getting to drive a Pettibone skidder (one of the first skidders around here) back and forth about 15' - 20'. This was in 1966 when I was about 8. This was a real treat for a young me as I done it any time my dad would let me. Finally the horrifing day came that I left the parking brake on and the machine caught fire!!!! No fret though, a terrified me was able to put the fire out with dry leaves if that tells you anything!!!
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Frank H. on October 24, 2010, 08:32:29 PM
I have been splitting firewood since I was in 1st grade, Mom and Dad sold it, and I had to split for at least an hour a night.  I loved it.  What other kid my age was able to play with axes, little sledge hammers, and wedges?  I have run a saw and tractor since I was around 10 or so.  After I came back from the army in 1992 I worked full time for a logger for 2 yrs or so, and loved every minute of it.  I've owned my own business for a while now, 6 yrs or so, doing welding and some logging and tree work.  I'm slowly letting myself leave the welding, and working more and more on the logging as I can get it.  I love the woods, and the smell of two stroke, and the smell of the engine bay of my old IH skidder (Detroit Diesel 3-53 leaking onto sawdust).  I plan to be in the bush till I die.  I've got two yrs of a 4 year degree in Envir. Resource Mgmt. under my belt, with a minor in Forestry now.  Plus my full time business.  Plus my lovely (and really understanding) wife.   Plus my 3 wonderful kids.  Whew. 
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: saxon64 on November 09, 2010, 07:42:47 PM
Been dropping trees for just a bit over ten years now.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Doc Hickory on November 22, 2010, 08:08:26 PM
I started out at about age 8 (I'm 57 now)  carrying the 'measurin' stick for my Dad as he cut up pulpwood  in the woodyard. We cut 5' long pulpwood for Westvaco, hauled about 9 ton per load, loaded it by rolling it up skid poles and put it in the rank by sheer muscle power. I couldn't wait until I was big enough to run a chainsaw.  I got to do that and graduated to crawler operator (JD 1010 gas with blade and winch). I'd borrow my brothers pickup and cut up laps in 5' lengths for Owens-Illinois, got paid $10-$12 a load. In 1970 for a high school kid that was big time spending loot! Have heated with wood off and on (mostly on, recently) ever since.  I'm considering the purchase of a portable mill to establish a retirement income and means of staying busy.  Some of the best days I've ever spent were in the woods! ;D
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: snowsquall on November 25, 2010, 10:56:21 AM
My dad used to pay my brother and I to clear land behind the house with an axe and a buck saw starting when we were about 8 years old.  Got my first chainsaw when I was about 13 or 14. Could drive a skidder long before I got a drivers license.  Now I only cut wood to keep the house warm!
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: RynSmith on December 01, 2010, 09:16:49 PM
Welcome John Ray, although I'm sad to hear about the history of your land.   :-\

Can only get better, right!  :)
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: cjfrank on December 11, 2010, 08:18:01 PM
I started working for a friend at the age of 11 running a tower edger and a 48 inch circle mill. that was 27 years ago and I'm still working there. I'm now part owner but also have my own logging equipment. My friend decided to semi retire a few years back now I've bought a woodmizer portable mill and operate them both and log at the same time.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: lemon11 on December 15, 2010, 05:21:23 AM
Barley even started yet hopefully getting some qualifications and then becoming a full time forester really cannot wait  8)
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: sawtasttic on January 07, 2011, 02:15:11 PM
Quote from: Norm on June 30, 2008, 07:54:31 AM
I was 14 when the dutch elm disease came through our farm. We had many die that needed cleared. We started out with a two man saw but soon went to an ancient chainsaw that weighed a ton and had a pump oiler for the chain. I'm still amazed we survived dropping those monsters but over a couple of summers cleared out the dead ones. Our neighbor used a wood burning furnace that would take huge chunks. He also had a buzz saw mounted on the front of a AC tractor. Since then I've been doing some kind of chainsaw work off and on.

- wow thats amazing! I think though that once you get into the chainsaw world and your logging or what not, that its adictive and i dunno if I will ever stop, but I have seen so many horrible accidents. If anyone says that this biz aint hard then they are on something.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: logging22 on January 13, 2011, 10:04:12 PM
Been logging for 15 years this year. Its a way of life. I love it.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: lemon11 on January 15, 2011, 01:56:22 PM
to be honest i think it will be my life  :)
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Dan W on January 19, 2011, 08:30:13 PM
I'm a newcomer on this site.  I peeled popl for a neighbor logger when I was 12.  Cut jackpine with a bowsaw at 14. Have been working full time in the woods since 1959. Contract trucking puilp and logs for over 35 years.  Contract  logging for 15 years.  Now running a 1010 Timberjack forwarder for my son-in-law.  Sure has been great!!  Dan W








Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: oldbones on February 03, 2011, 08:29:03 PM
been cutting firewood on my own woodlot in vt and pulling it out with a small tractor and farmi for 25ish years. cut the occasional load of sawlogs. working with my kid, took out some big ash this year (staying ahead of the ash borer) and some maple, plus a couple of cherry.

the big hardwoods have me thinking i "need" a bigger tractor.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Blue Sky on February 15, 2011, 12:00:10 PM
started cutting firewood for $$ in the winter of '75.  By  '78, and the oil embargo, I was full time with 4-6 other guys hammering out firewood.    Enchanted forester
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: LumberGuy on March 14, 2011, 03:37:58 PM
I should get my father to join, he is over 80 and worked with the Forestry Service in North Georgia when he was a young man.  He is still involved with lumber here in Georgia. My father and grandfather tried to teach me about trees and wood.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: tycoon139977 on March 19, 2011, 10:53:31 PM
i put 15 years cuz i started cutting firewood with my pa when i was 5, i fell my first tree when i was 12, but i dint start logging under a yarder til i was 18, so i have only 5 years of true logging experience, honestly i dont really consider cutting firewood as logging experience.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Wild willy on March 23, 2011, 03:41:13 PM
Hey beenthere, yep little weird without pop but he still can't stay away all the time. He tells me he can't stay away from the screaming 353 lol. I get a lot of my work by hitting the pavement and word of mouth. Had a web site and got nothing and did lots of advertising that helps. But speaking for myself its getting hard to find timber and come peat with larger outfits. Well time to jet Bill
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: jayves922 on April 06, 2011, 10:54:03 AM
Just started almost a year ago. I used to be doing researches and market researches about trees and the tree service industry. Doing the field work is quite the handyman task and I'm enjoying every bit of new learning I gain.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: 1crowfarm on April 12, 2011, 07:13:59 PM
Hello folks I bought my first saw at the age of 12 a little MAC with a 12 inch bar it was the only saw we had on the farm except the old homelites that no one wanted to carry and I couldnt carry then I have been cutting firewood and locust post then timber of and on since then and ready to go back to it again
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Grunex on April 18, 2011, 12:20:08 AM
Quote from: Sawyerfortyish on June 28, 2008, 07:39:04 AM
I started cutting firewood when I was 17 when I got out of school we put in the sawmill. Seems like it was just last week but it was 1981. Never worked a day for anyone else I worked on the family farm with dad and my brothers and still do. No way could I join the rat race and commute to the city to work. Give me the woods and the farm.

Yup totally agree with you on that one,  I don't ever feel that I will ever be rich from logging or clearing, or dairy farming for that matter, but at least I sleep good at night and get plenty of therapy while in the woods.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: HuZzEy on May 17, 2011, 07:20:01 PM
I remember goin in the with my dad around 7 8 years old with my little hand saw in winter cutting off fir lims after he felled them and loading a pulp trailer behind my grand dads 1936 JD modal B tractor that had ring chains on it. So I selected 15 years I didn't start running saws till I was 11 my uncle bought a poulin from walmart behind my mom's back she was just a little upset >:(
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: dnash on May 24, 2011, 11:18:24 AM
I started running a saw at 15 cutting firewood and working the landing during summers and holidays. I started full time after graduating high school. Dad and I opened our own logging business in 2007 and have been growing steady every year.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: shelbycharger400 on August 06, 2011, 06:13:52 PM
i have been involved in haulin the firewood for my parents cince i was 5 , possibly earlier. They usto run a tree trimmin service back in the early 80's,   they cut, i hauled the sticks off,  and i remember pickin up all the polewood, one piece at a time :)   I didnt start runnin the splitter or the saws til about 17 or 18.  I cut for heat,  and soon for flooring, furnature and lumber. 
im puttin in  20 yrs,   due to me rememberin round 10  i was the grunt haulin the chains and cables, chokin the trees and logs to be drug out , while my step dad sat in the truck.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Ohio_Bill on September 18, 2011, 06:45:26 PM
Started working for my neighbor when I was 13 which was 48 years ago.  Old circle mill that was powered by a Huber tractor that we dumped gas in that cost 25 cents a gallon. Loaded log trucks by rolling log up planks with cant hooks. Have had a band saw for 14 years. Things have really changed .
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: jwillett2009 on November 19, 2011, 07:04:08 PM
Starting working in the woods with my dad at around 14 or 15, spent 10 years as a production foreman in a 1000000 bf /week mill and just recently bought a house and woodlot for my return to the industry after almost 10 years away. I am running my small woodlot and fooling around a bit on the weekends with a alaskan csm. I work as a electrical technologist designing and commissioning foresty product type factories.... tissue and paper towel mills, pulp mills, disolved pulp, sawmills, osb and MDF plants.... guess sawdust flows through my veins.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: midwestlogger on November 19, 2011, 10:48:48 PM
My dad sat me on a 450 JD crawler at the age of 8 to pull cottonwood trees out of the mississppi river bottoms when his crew didnt show. 26 years later still in the woods running my own 1 man show .When u do what u love its not hard to get out of bed to go to work. Won't say its not work when the temp is in the upper 90's fumes from the saw not movin and your 150 feet down the side of a bluff. Oh and your water jug is on the skidder at the top of the bluff! Its work but, would'nt trade it for nothing.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Lumber Jack on November 29, 2011, 06:59:10 PM
Started going to the log woods with my dad when i was 4 an been the buisness ever since. 
We have a family owned business an my sawmill comes in pretty handy.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Bearden99 on December 08, 2011, 07:24:02 PM
I started 60 years ago when we took 3 chain saws to the woods so we would have one that would start. Family firewood was it until 2 years ago when I got my Cook Saw Mill.  Lovin' it.
Bearden99
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: thecfarm on December 09, 2011, 05:39:44 AM
Bearden,looks like you have a helper in your avatar. Welcome to the forum.Who's your helper and what have you got for a mill?
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: John Mc on January 04, 2012, 09:40:04 AM
I'm betting our experience numbers are getting skewed a bit over time. I'm thinking I answered this survey several years ago, not long after it first came out. The longer this survey runs, the more it will underestimate the experience of our members.

The thread does make interesting reading, though.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: rfm7fxfox on January 09, 2012, 05:30:16 PM


Id have to say I have about 14 years of being in the woods, but even longer if you count firewood. Started out helping load my fathers old ford around the age of 5 started cutting and splitting firewood around 8 years old to help my father and my grandfather. Started cutting tops and firewood poles around the age of 12-13.  Id follow my father around through the woods and after he'd fell a tree id run out and slash up the tops. About the age of 14-15 I started running a Timberjack 460 and ever since then I had the itch to me in the woods. Ive always wanted to follow in my fathers footsteps and work in the woods. To me he's kinda like my hero, such a hard worker, never complains about the job, doesnt let anything stop him he's a very knowledgeable man and totally at home in the woods. I remember when I was younger it was a very very cold day (below zero), he was wedging a big oak, he hit the wedge with his axe and it broke causing part of it to fly outa the cut and hit him square in the nose, broke his nose bad, grabbed a handfull of snow cleaned the blood off his nose, used some duct tape to make a make shift bandage and back to work he went! (duct tape fixed many broken bones and lacerations) Any ways my dream is finally coming true, we now own a small treefarmer C5 skidder and we go to work as a team every day, he chops and I skid and buck, couldnt ask for anything more! Logging deffinatley takes a rare breed of man its a hard physically demanding job but I couldnt think of another Job id rather do and no other person that id rather work next to and learn from then my father, he's been logging for approx. 40 years and deffinitley knows what he's doing. Hopefully one day I can pass the business onto my children but until then I cherish the days I can spend in the woods with my father, my hero.

So put my old man down for 40 years, he's on this site somewhere, and put me down for around 12 years experience..learning every day!!
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: flyboy16101 on January 30, 2012, 10:46:57 PM
its been 11 years since i got to cut down my first tree with a hand saw (mom wouldn't allow dad to let me use the chainsaw) been cutting for the family and others ever since most recently sawing lumber with my wood-mizer lt28
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: roger 4400 on February 01, 2012, 02:13:10 PM
Bought my first lot in 1993 and started sawing with my Huskie model 61, 19 years ago (still sawing with it). I had no atv so to log and show that to my kids, I was climbing the hill with all the equipment and my 2 youngest kids in a wheel barrow......some souvenirs, they were 2 and 3 years old. Now my son (22 years old) is coming with me using an atv (easier life :D). I would start over. Just bought a mill last week, and will continue till my heart will beat. Roger
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: lumberjack48 on February 02, 2012, 06:11:31 PM
40 yrs. , 30 yrs. on the ground hand felling experience.  My father was a logger, trapper and did some commercial fishing and his father was French Canadian, also a logger. My mothers father was about half French Canadian, also a logger, trapper and commercial fisherman. He also worked on the Alaskan highway.
  I started going to the woods with my father in 1954. I ran measure stick, gassed saw up, threw limbs, any job i could handle and more. I helped feed the horse, water him, and brush him down. I was a get-me when dad trimmed the horses hoofs.
  I peeled Balsam, Birch, Jack pine and Aspen pulpwood by hand. Peeling Season was a big thing every spring. I started peeling in 1954, the last wood i peeled was in 1979. Our goal was 1000 cds, it was a family orientated job. It was a chance for everybody to make money. All 4 of my kids peeled pulp, i pulled tree length to the landing. I payed 40 cents a tree, they make good money. The wife and me could fell and peel 20 cds of tree length Aspen a day.
  I was strip cutting in 1960, saw logs, pulpwood, Basswood,  Ash, Oak, Pith Elm, Norway, Jack pine, White pine, Cedar, Tamarack, Birch pulp & bolts, Black & White Spruce, and White, Silver, Black, and Yellow Aspen. I Strip cut up to 1968, thats when i bought a new C4 Treefarmer [$9500.] from Osker Johnson, Treefarmer Sales, Bemidji, MN.
  Back then you could get out of school to help you father [ Mondays & Fridays] 3 day school week. My father had a couple Finn's and Native Americans strip cutting. I learned from these guys, they didn't know but in a few yrs they'd be working for me. In 1964 minimum wage was $1.25, i was making $25. to $40. a day strip cutting.
  I've skidded with a little Allis model B tractor with wheel trailer [ 14 / 15 yrs old. Then with a Minneapolis Moline model G with a 1 cd dray. What a work horse, you could tell how many cds you skidded by the gallons of gas it used [ 1 gal per cd] I all so skidded with a OC-3 Oliver cat with a Hill Lake dray [knuckle boom] Oliver was a little small, dad got a H-3 Allis, it really worked out nice with the shuttle bar.
  In 1966 i married a little German girl, i had relation out in Montana so off we went. I went to work for J C Neils or Libby Lumber Co. I got as a chocker setter, behind a D8 skid cat. I set chockers about a month, then moved up to rigging slinger. I had so much trouble with chocker setters i told the woods boss i didn't want or need one.  I worked there about 6 months, job was to slow pace for me, same-o same-o everyday. I had ran in to a Gypo logger who needed help, chocker setter, cat skinner, and a feller.  I did all 3 for him, he taught me a lot about working in the mountains. I came back to Minn. in the fall of 68, thats when i bought the Treefarmer. I got a big Aspen sale and put a crew together. I hired a feller and a landing man. At the time there was only one other rubber tire skidder in the area. The spring of 66 i had worked with a Timberjack up at International Falls, Mn. The guy i hired to fall for me was the father to the guy i worked with the TJ, and the bucker was his uncle. So my crew was ready to go with a tree length skidder. I got $11. a cd for pulpwood loaded on railroad car, $18. for saw bolts.   
  The fall of 1970 i took a job up on the Voyage National Park. I had to barge my skidder across Lake Kaptogama. We barged it up to the Locator lake trail, thats where camp was set up. The wife and 3 kids spent the winter there with me. A time you don't forget, we all enjoyed it. [ i was 22, wife 19]
  The next summer my father and me went partner ship, he had a C5D. We stated piling wood up with 2 skidders. It wasn't long we bought a Mack tandem and put a Barko 60 loader on it to haul our logs and saw bolts with. We were still having trouble moving pulpwood, so i went bought an Emeryvill IH Tractor, 1674 Cat. I ran the Emeryvill about 6 months, it was under powered. Then i bought a Autocar tractor, 250 Cummings, this was a equipment mover, the front steering wheels were set back. It made a good log truck because the turn radius was so sharp.  Wood was selling so i went bought a new 450 JD with shear head. About a month later i bought a new S8 IH pole skidder, this is when the wife was running skidder. We had 4 to 6 men working. Make a long story short, 1980 the bottom dropped right out of logging. I lost my equipment, my new house and later on my first family. I always said that I'd never go to work for the Co. If we wanted a full time logging job thats where we had to go. Went to work for them in 1981, bought another S8 IH and later on a C5-D TF. The Co didn't like me because i knew to much about buying and selling timber. And we pulled way to much wood, they said they could put two more crews to work. But i got my neck broke in 89 on a cold windy day, -57 wing chill, 35 mph wind. I should have never been out there. We had a job that had to be done in x days because we were to close to a Eagle nest.  The accident left me a Quadriplegic, the wife took over until 96. She got me up and dressed me and loaded me in the pickup everyday. We couldn't get good help so she quit.                                 
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: roquevalente on February 09, 2012, 06:27:22 PM
12 years tropical hardwood sweat and tears

 (https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/28501/shovel.JPG)
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: DeerMeadowFarm on February 15, 2012, 02:32:40 PM
I've been processing firewood with my dad since the 70's "gas-crisis" but for my actual time working in the woods I'd say 25 years is about right.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: woodchuck812 on February 18, 2012, 07:30:27 PM
I have been around cutting firewood and felling trees since I was old enough to load firewood on the trailer. I remember dad buying a new McCulough and paid for it by cutting 172 Pin Oak tie logs. Tie logs brought 1 dollar each at the time (1965). My first and second saws were Poulans, then moved to Stihls about 10 years ago. I currently own a 210 and 361. I cut and saw my own logs for oak buildings and recently attended a Timber Framing class in Paris Tenn. My grandfather owned a Tie Yard in the 40's and I have a photo of him holding a switch tie on each shoulder. Logging and Sawing has always been more of a passion it has never been a profession. 
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: MJD on February 24, 2012, 02:49:29 PM
After 23 years in woodworking I had enough and wanted to work outside, I already had my sawmill and skidder and started buying timber. I would keep a few logs for my mill and sell the rest, then also picked up some contracts that foresters from other sawmills needed cut, did that until 2 years ago when things started to really slow down here. Sold my skidder a year ago and miss logging bad. So logged from 1998-2011.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: SJM66 on March 16, 2012, 11:33:32 AM
Been around the woods since I was a boy loading firewood and driving my uncle old yellow and white farmall cub with a trailer behind. When I was 14 and a stout young lad my dad and uncle thought I needed more to do and so they cut 100 cord in Happy Valley that was on some sort of lottery. Did this every summer till last year of high school. They sure got their money's worth out of me... Got around farming in 1991 and have been on my own farm and heating only with wood, no backup, since 1996.Worked running skidder for a while. For one guy it was running a JD440 behind my brother in law who was a long time cutter and a god one. We would have two loads of logs out by lunch without making a huge mess. Also cut firewood on these jobs which for me meant bucking up piled firewood logs with an 066 with a 16" bar and the rakes filled low enough to make it fun. You can cut a lot of would in a hurry but you better have the skills and the strength to stay in control and not get tired or ... Ran a 540g for a guy also. That was behind a Bell feller. That outfit left a huge mess, boss was a less than stellar individual,and I hated it so I left at the first chance.Wife and I decided to build a dairy farm so we did that for twelve years and decided it was time to quit making martyrs of ourselves. Been two years with no cows now and would like to grow the forestry side of our farm. Have about 150 acres of woods in various stages.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Okrafarmer on March 19, 2012, 12:06:41 AM
Where is Oswego county? Is it near Syracuse? I have friends that are dairy farmers near Marietta.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: markd on March 19, 2012, 01:58:06 AM
Add another 45 yrs for me, here's hopin for another 45.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: AdkStihl on April 17, 2012, 04:56:27 PM
I can remember hauling brush for my grandfather at the age of 8yrs old.
I'll be 33 in July

CAD started a few years ago.
I had (1) chainsaw......an MS250.
My father gave me his Mac EB 2.0......of course I had to do a MM and stuff... ;D

I know own...
STIHL 08
STIHL 044/440 Hybrid
STIHL MS270 WB
STIHL 021 (MM'd)
Husqvarna 346XP NE (MM'd)
Homelite XL-12
Homelite Super 2
Homelite 330 (x3)
Lombard Comango


Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Tramp Bushler on April 18, 2012, 11:27:50 PM
Quote from: 4genlgr on March 28, 2009, 10:02:04 AM
Hi New member. put down 35 grandfather was in the business and usually if you went for ride with him as a kid he was checking on a crew. and being kids full of p&v and having a grandfather tha t belived in hard work was good for you my cousins and i soon had pulp hooks in our hands and the 4foot wood was gooing on the old truck frame trailer behind a crawler tractor. This was usually summer time and grandpa knew that "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy". He would find a swimming hole on the way home and join in the fun. Went to work for him in 76  and except for three years in the 90's i been cutting trees, driving cat, skidder, tractor or truck. if you've never pick up 4ft fir, loaded it on a trailer, unloaded it by hand onto a truck, and unloaded at the mill get down on your knees and thank God for hydulics!


AMEN TO THAT ! Grew up doing that . Started workin in the woods with my dad at 11 . Started cutting , workin alone at 12 . Went in the service at 18 and out at 22  . Hqd a pre cimmercial thinning sub contract before I went on twrminal leave . Signed out in Ketchikan . Started settin chockers in 83 . Tower loggin , raftin+ boomin+ tug boatin till 89 when I started breakin fallin+ buckin  . Started bushlin in 91 . Now I'm in the Interior operating my 1 man show in the winter . And Union constructuin laborer in the summers mostly .
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Okrafarmer on April 21, 2012, 03:34:40 PM
Tramp, I've never been to Copper Valley, but I know where it is. Is that stump you're standing on in CV, or more like Ketchikan?
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Tramp Bushler on April 27, 2012, 08:14:13 PM
It's on Chichagof Is. Southeast Alaska . As I remember it had more than 5,000 board feet in it . Took me , around 4 minutes to fall the tree . 372 Husky . Stock . 32" Oregon. Stihl semi skip chisel ground 3/8,63ga . 8 tooth about 30 k joint . [img width=144 --Photos MUST be in the Forestry Forum gallery!!!!!--.com/albums/j464/gumboot4581/083000_131600-2.jpg[/img]
This is another simular size one going on the truk. [img width=144 --Photos MUST be in the Forestry Forum gallery!!!!!--.com/albums/j464/gumboot4581/083000_131900-1.jpg[/img]
This is me . Chichagof Is. Has the densest brown bear population in Alaska . Adds a bit more of a challenge wandering around selective cutting and logging
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: chainspinrunner on May 07, 2012, 06:28:20 PM
10 years of experience and I am carrying the knowledge left behind from  a great man who practiced forestry and logging for 35 years. A man who's love for the woods and nature will be carried on through my work and pride.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: ilog4u2 on June 09, 2012, 03:53:04 AM
I started cutting firewood with my Dad, like many of you. We heated with wood for as long as I can remember but really got serious in 1996 when bought a woodlot to build a house on. My wife's houseplan was way too big and expensive so I had this great idea to buy a bandsaw to make my own dimensional lumber. I started scrounging logs from other building sites , talking to people and cutting basswood and Aspen logs.sawing them up on my Nowood bandsaw. I made many friends and connections and pretty soon people were asking me to cut their tree's. It turned into a small job,select cutting logging company. Recently I was able to quit my real job and peruse my real passion, and loving every minute ,although ,I can't work as hard or long as I used to. I am definately Blessed.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Chris S on June 27, 2012, 04:41:43 PM
12 years so far.  Started in the woods at 18 and was 30 last week.  Mainly hand felling to skidder but more and more recently shortwooding and forwarding from stump.

In the UK we don't tend to have much in the way of big trees so most of our kit is fairly small, but we currently run some really small kit including a 40hp 4wd Kubota tractor pulling a 4t Weimer self loading forwarding trailer.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: loggah on July 25, 2012, 07:07:36 PM
45 years, i started working in the woods when i was 15 years old working with my father who had started logging with horses  in the late 40,s when i was 15 i was running the 310 case crawler with gearmatic winch we had ,and also a 1010 john deere.  he finaly bought a new timberjack 208 and we thought we really had something !!!!my first skidder was a 79 timberjack 230 after a few years of listening to a detroit diesel,i bought a 86 tree farmer c6d with a duetz diesel,nice quiet machine. as i got older and slower i bought a 1990 Franklin model 660 with a 5.9 cummims, winch and  dual arch m66 grapple, i also had a 653 john deere fellerbuncher, a brush bandit 1850 chipper, a stripper delimber. i was working with another logger that had an old 518 cat and a hood  loader and slasher. A few years ago i sold off most all of my logging equipment,now i just have a few small tractors,a belsaw sawmill,and a chase shingle mill. I still cut logs on my land for my two mills. Don
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: logger t on August 05, 2012, 12:39:05 PM
i been at it on my own for 24 years and i hope till i die started when i was about 6 or so us to go in with my gramp and dad and would run the 4ft stick gramp had a c4b and a c5b tree farmers and a j5 bombadier and trailor and a oldramey log loader and a old chevy truck with dollie wheels and a case 310 crawler i have one of his old saws a parter p100 and my dads old saw a johnsred 70 cant amagine limding or lugging the all daynow  me and my son sit on our butts and log my dad still comes out to help makes roads for us and runs our old 743-a wheeled buncher he ran 1 back in 82 and love the old girl got a roto saw on it still has the delimbing unit on it and he uses it we dont .
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Krieger91 on September 08, 2012, 06:11:36 PM
I've got very minimal experience in the woods for cutting.  All my experience is in chainsaw felling, limbing/bucking, and splitting. I've been working for a farmer every winter for the last 3 or 4 years cutting wood for him to heat with, and I occasionally have people ask me to come trim a tree or bring it down.  All together. I'd say I have maybe 1-2 years experience.  But. I've learned I love it and am contemplating going to school for something in forestry as opposed to HVAC(R).
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Okrafarmer on September 08, 2012, 10:41:56 PM
Welcome to the forum, Krieger! I would have to agree with your assessment, anything forestry related is more fun or interesting than HVAC.  ;D
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Magicman on September 09, 2012, 02:08:22 PM
Welcome to the Forestry Forum,    Krieger91.

Now how about starting an intro thread and giving us a rundown on your location and sawing/timber interest.   :)
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Krieger91 on September 13, 2012, 10:56:51 PM
Thanks for the nudge, Magicman, I'll get right on that. I can ask a question that way, too!
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Blue Sky on October 05, 2012, 06:19:21 AM
I started out at Paul Smiths Forestry College in 1969.  Been doing forestry related work since then.  Now have milling business and arborist service.  Got my trusty Franklin Fowarder of 1973.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: treefaller on November 18, 2012, 09:08:58 PM
At ten years old i started hand piling brush behind my dad and his old homelite.We spent the next 7 summers thinnig our 80 acres.Bought my first saw at 16.Dad bought a mobile demension mill about 1975 and we started cutting lumber and building barns. After grad from Central Wash Univ I bought a new saw and started falling trees for a living.Did that full time until i bought a fruit orchard.We have always heated with wood.Dad and I go though about 20 cord a year.Dad still lives on the 80 and I just bought a garrett 21A skidder and we are going to start doing some light logging and lots of firewood
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Okrafarmer on November 18, 2012, 09:15:18 PM
Welcome to the Forum, treefaller!
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: thecfarm on November 18, 2012, 09:16:01 PM
treefaller,welcome to the forum. There are a few threads on garrets on here. Do a search on the top. Still have the mill?
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: treefaller on November 18, 2012, 10:03:14 PM
we do still have the mill.I have read all the theads on the garretts.I had a long talk with Adam Garrett and he even found the bill of sale for my skidder from 1978.It was a one owner skidder so it was not to hard.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: CCC4 on November 24, 2012, 12:33:15 PM
Hello, just a little bio I reckon... I am 39 yrs old, been logging and sawmilling since 21 yrs old. Started out same as most probably...at the bottom! Went from stacker to full time log turner behind an "ol' groundhog mill". Turned red cedar for 7 years, logging in the evenings and weekends, toting cedar out on my shoulder. Logged full time in the cedar for a couple years with a Belgian horse. Started sawing on a short ground hog mill then went to a Woodmiser mill for a bit. Started sawing on the big ground hog mill for 6mnths then went to a Meadows #1 full auto air/hydro mill and stayed in the box as solo sawyer for 9 years. All this time logging in evenings and mostly weekends, also was sawing special order cedar orders on woodmiser LT50 SuperHydro and put 900 hours on that rig over the years. Left that mill after 18 years and now currently employed for a logging/sawmill operation...98% logging as a chainsaw hand falling and trimming. Sorry so long  smiley_beertoast
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Okrafarmer on November 24, 2012, 07:35:25 PM
Welcome to the Forum, Triple-C-4!
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: thecfarm on November 24, 2012, 10:07:54 PM
Welcome CCC4.Sounds like you have been around a bit. I like to give the new guy something to look at.
https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,13313.0.html
Take a few pictures and post them.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: CCC4 on November 25, 2012, 12:59:45 PM
Thanks men! I'm leaving back out this evening, no WiFi hotspot so I won't be on here till Friday night, I will take some pics this week of our thinning job we are on and equipment I guess and post them Friday night. Thank you for the "Hello", talk to ya later, I'm out!
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: WindyAcres on December 16, 2012, 06:01:16 PM
Hello everybody,

I have studied forestry in Germany. I have always been interested in forestry and saw a lot of beautiful, very productive forests that have been managed for many centuries.
I have also worked as a forest technician on Vancouver Island (doing surveys..).

I am now living in Nova Scotia and dont understand the way that the forest is treated. I wanted to buy (mature) hardwoods but one year and 45 properties later, I gave up. I ended up with 100 acres: 35 acres pasture, 65 acre wooded. However, it is in terrible shape and I dont know what to do with it. The majority has been clearcut (it used to be a really nice mixed forest dominated by big hemlock with nice ash, sugar maple,..) about 15 years ago and now its garbage (mostly grey birch and choke cherry). The rest is pretty much 25 year old "pasture spruce" (used to be pasture and the spruce took over). The are some ugly trees. Pretty short with thousands of branches.. So the woodlot makes me sad and angry quite often, but I am trying to make the best of it (Other than that, we are very pleased with the property itself..).

Ok, have to put some ugly spruce in the woodstove again  >:(  :)
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Okrafarmer on December 16, 2012, 06:07:18 PM
Sounds like you need Swamp Donkey to look at it. Or at least talk to you.  :)
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: WindyAcres on December 16, 2012, 07:08:34 PM
Yes, I am always asking other people how they would do it, but nothing so far. I might describe the situation better in a new post, maybe we can find something to make it worth it. There is always a way, but I cant see it..
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: mesquite buckeye on January 04, 2013, 04:57:04 PM
Just do the opposite of what has been done for the last couple hundred years and it will get better.

Cut the worst for firewood, find the best trees and give them room to grow. prune up the trees that will add diameter of clear wood afterwords.

You would be surprised how fast things get better when you help out the woods.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: ST Ranch on January 08, 2013, 08:06:32 PM
Hello all
I am a new member so I will give you a little background. I am just shy of 55 yrs and have worked in the bush for 35 + years.
My home place [about 80 acres] is located in the South eastern part of British Columbia where I play with a few horses and have a woodmizer mill and I also have a couple crown leases with about 600 hectares [1500 acres] of timberland. Started on the ranch, then onto a forestry degree in early 80's, worked for 10 years for Forestry Dept and then last 25 for myself as a logger and consultant.
Now I'm going try a bit of semi-retirement.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: harrymontana on January 08, 2013, 08:31:49 PM
to maintain the forest as it is, you should
- at least leave 15% of total amount of trees
- not cut trees with an inferiour diameter
- if there are any branches, leave 1 or 2 (additional to the 15%)
- and last but not least, don't come back for the next 20 years.

This is how we have to work, this is not FSC, this is just ordinary practice in Bolivia nowadays.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: coxy on January 09, 2013, 08:53:22 PM
its been alittle longer then 30 years i was my dads gofer 4 along time then he let me drive his old 1010 john deere at about 6 and the old pettybone master 12front wheel steer what a dinosaur atabout 9 did not have to many muscles to turn the wheel be 4 that
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: justallan1 on January 28, 2013, 06:06:54 PM
I started when I was 8 years old helping my father clear and flatten about 10 acres for a house, pasture and parking around the shops. I've cut firewood off and on most of my life. Played in the log woods, log mills, planer mills and a spool and pallet mill. I'm in the proccess of getting ready to use my new mill and still cut firewood. Late spring every year I take my 4-wheeler and saw and clear fire roads and then fight fires if need be.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: JuniperBoss on February 10, 2013, 08:48:22 PM
About two years ago, when I was 14 I went to my dad and asked him if he would buy me a chainsaw to start cutting trees. He said yes and so we went to the shop and bought a little ms 170 and I started knocking down trees and clearing land. It was trial and error for a while and I knew absolutely nothing about chainsaw work. This resulted in a deep cut on my leg, among many scary situations where trees have nearly fell on me and seriously hurt me. I got better though and now I have an ms 290 and I cut firewood. I have had some offers regarding cutting trees into logs, then to be sold for 25$ a ton green and cut into fenceposts. However, firewood I have found is the way to make the most money, as juniper wood is nasty stuff, and it's hard cutting enough straight logs. So, as of the current time I cut up to 1 cord a day and sell it for 90$ green and so on. I get to deliver it myself very soon when I turn 16 ;D.

And this is the story of my logging life.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: thecfarm on February 10, 2013, 09:48:19 PM
Do tell us you went and brought a pair of chaps.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: JuniperBoss on February 10, 2013, 10:13:02 PM
Yes, absolutely. I now wear chaps and a helmet with all the gear---ear/eye protection. I would never go without them now and the helmet is so easy to throw on and you're ready to go.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: thecfarm on February 10, 2013, 10:16:24 PM
That is good to hear. Thank you. I will sleep better tonight.  ;D
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: JuniperBoss on February 10, 2013, 10:22:45 PM
Thank you for caring whether or not I die :). Like you I value life. I don't plan to die any time soon, but hey, I'm prepared.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: farmer9 on March 08, 2013, 04:25:27 PM
Im 69 yr old and cut timber almost everyday. I started with my uncle when i was 12 yrs old. There is nothing like being in the woods, cutting firewood, brush, doing crop tree release, cuttting undesireables, etc, just improving my timber. I dont work on the hillsides anymore, too dangerous for this oldtimer. My son and grandson also cut and sell firewood here in central Illinois, makes some extra $ for them. I am fortunate that i had a decent job and could afford to buy a farm, including 150 acres of woods. Im retired now but still active, working everyday, year round, at the farm. God Bless America!
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: JuniperBoss on March 08, 2013, 09:54:48 PM
That is really great. God bless America's old-timers!
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: ryguy777 on March 11, 2013, 09:41:56 PM
well, i started going into the woods with my dad and grandpa loading up the trailers of fire wood they cut when i was atleast 5, maybe younger. started learning to run chainsaws when i was about 10 or 11 (i was a pretty big 10 year old haha) im 16 now and cutting firewood is still something i look forward to every year
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: SAnVA on March 21, 2013, 08:35:14 PM
Hello, I'm 56 and I was piling brush with my brother & daddy clearing land when I was no more than 6, so I'll say 50yrs. Helped load many a load of pine pulpwood when I was a kid growing up and right up till around 80-81 when the paper mill quit taking short wood. My shoulder used to stay bruised from carrying sticks of pulpwood to the truck, that was work, we didn't have any loaders or such, all manual labor. The first chainsaw I ever used was my daddy's old big blue Homelite Zip, now that was a horse to lug around. Bought my first new saw in 1979 a Husqvarna 65, that was the best 343.00 that I ever spent, used it to cut a few logs and a bunch of firewood also cleaning up farmland up untill about 7-8 yrs. ago then bought a new Husky 359, it's fast but not the saw that the old 65 was. Have a Wood-Mizer LT-40 mill and play around with it a little now, and still cut my firewood every yr. right now I'm at least 2-3 yrs. ahead on the firewood but I love to cut it!!
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: scottmphoto on March 30, 2013, 10:31:07 PM
  I grew up in a chainsaw and small engine shop. My mom had me in a playpen next to her bench in the shop when I was about 2 weeks old. I started working on saws when I was 5 or 6 years old and started running a chainsaw when I was 7. That's 36 years ago now. I have cut firewood ever since. In the last 2 years or so, I have been starting to thin the timber on the property that my dad left me when he passed away. He started working it as a tree farm and I am trying to continue that. I cut my logs, haul them out of the woods (using a 1943 Ford 9N tractor), load and haul them to the mill myself (with the help of my 16 year old son).
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Tmac47 on April 04, 2013, 06:07:21 PM
I started helping my neighbor with his urban forestry business when I was in high school.  He was a retired director of forest management with the Georgia Forestry Commission and spent much of his time educating me on proper timber management.

About a year ago I started getting involved with my dad's timber outfit and started a website to help educate landowners on the industry and connect them to timber companies.

I'm 28 now and have been around timber, in the hands-on sense, for about 10 years.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: minn firewood cutter on April 10, 2013, 08:12:10 PM
Started in sawmill 38 years ago then went into woods as skidder driver and timber buyer still timberbuyer and still drive skidder. Like one old timer said once you get saw dust in your blood ya never get it out.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: RobertJoseph on April 11, 2013, 04:42:38 PM
Been working in the woods as long as I can remember, but not a "logger" by any stretch of the imagination. Been cutting, processing and delivering about 40-60 cords of firewood off my land for over 20 years. Mostly lurk, but found a lot of good info on this forum.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: mesquite buckeye on April 11, 2013, 04:44:58 PM
Welcome :)
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Nemologger on April 28, 2013, 10:19:30 PM
When we were kids, about 1967, instead of going to a babysitter in the summer we would go to the woods with Dad. My older brother and I would wait at a distance while Dad would cut whiteoak, After it hit the ground we would come on up with the wedges and mauls and he would start busting it into stave bolts. We would keep them out of his way by flipping them end for end over into a loading area. After he thought we had enough for a load he would go bring the truck over and my brother and I would flip them over and stand them on end for Dad to reach down off the bed and lift them up and load. If any skidding was to be done it was with a mule or in later years a winch truck. When school started again there was no other kids that would mess with us. Later in years got a used John Deere skidder, a 440 gas, man we thought it was a big machine...I was 13 then and skidding was my job in the summer.  Out of school in 1979 and went logging full time...Lost dad in a logging accident in 1986...here it is 2013 and Im still doing it...but there is not anything else in the world Id rather do.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: timbercutter85 on May 24, 2013, 11:09:45 PM
I started logging at the age of 12 with my father and grandfather when i was out of school for the summer. my job was  pulling cable and setting chokers behind our 440B skidder and 450C dozer. as i got older i got to skid more logs when the skid roads were not to steep or narrow.  started cutting timber on and off at the age of 18. cut and split more firewood than i care to mention, and still doing it to this day since we sell grade logs,pallet stock logs,and cut tops and defect logs into firewood. and lets not forget the handset frick mill that we run on days when its to wet to log in the woods. my grand father started at the age of 12 and is now 78 (retired/sort of) my father started at about the same age and is now 55, and myself started at 13 and now 28 years old (its a family affair) :D
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Woodsavage on June 13, 2013, 05:47:22 PM
I've been a 'professional' logger for 41 years. Finally getting to the point where I know enough to make a living at it, just too old to do it now:) All those years of a type of freedom most will never know.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: beenthere on June 13, 2013, 06:18:27 PM
Woodsavage
Welcome to the Forestry Forum.
We'll look forward to hearing more about your years of experience and learning in the woods.

No logging now, or just less than before?
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: mesquite buckeye on June 13, 2013, 06:41:26 PM
Welcome. ;D 8)
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: krazykioti on August 24, 2013, 07:14:12 PM
I remember going out in the woods when I was 13 years old. It was in January, Dad was trying to teach me a good work ethic. I remember freezing on the way to the woods ,and sweating coming home. Dad had a Ford 641 Workmaster with a Freeman trip loader with an old woods trailer. We got heat benefits from dropping the trees, sawing them, splitting them, loading firewood on trailer, unloading trailer in the shed, carrying firewood inside the house ,and burning it. That is seven times you are warmed up by a cord of wood. I  miss my Dad and those days long ago. But hopefully I create memories for my children & future grand children.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: chainsaw on October 30, 2013, 09:25:37 PM
15 years in south central Oregon.Started off skidding burnt logs with a 518.Skidded to a Timber Jack C90.5 loads a day was doing good with that old pile of bolts.Been running delimbers mostly since then.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: ehp on November 08, 2013, 09:54:32 PM
I cut my first tree at the age of 6 and have been running saws ever sense , I drove the skidders lots around the yard and stuff at 5 or 6 but started skidding from a cutter at the age of 9 during the summers when not in school or on Saturdays the rest of the year , first skidder I drove was a johndeere 440 , dam thing had  1 wheel on the ground more than it had 4 most of the time , last year of high school I only went 6 months but I had high enough marks I still passed with honors and went and got my log scaling ticket which ended 1 day sooner than high school that year , got that weekend off but on Monday morning I got put in charge of 37 man logging crew as my Dad had alot of men working for him , some would call my Dad mean or what the hell was he thinking but I can tell you he taught me to work your ass off and do the best job you can no matter what the job is and I think him for that
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Maine logger88 on November 12, 2013, 10:51:53 PM
First started cutting firewood when I was 15 started cutting professionally when I was 19 with a farm tractor bought my first skidder two years later a John Deere 540b I am now 25 and have added a 225 timberjack and a couple of guys
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: thecfarm on November 13, 2013, 08:07:06 AM
Maine logger88,welcome to the forum.
Check out this thread. It will keep you out of trouble for a while.  :D   You will like it. Add some pictures of your equipment working or your landing with some wood.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Stinny on November 13, 2013, 02:01:59 PM
40 years of cutting trees for firewood, starting at the old family farm with my dad. I can remember the first old McCulloch (not sure of the spelling) that was so big and heavy, I could hardly lift it. Many hours in the woods, and many brands & sizes of saws later, and I still love doing the work... even though it hurts like hell afterward. A good hurt. My favorite b&w photo of dad cutting firewood though, didn't have a chainsaw within a couple decades in it. Hand cutting wood on an old sawbuck. I still have the saw on my shop wall. Dad left us in 1990. I miss him a lot. 
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: thecfarm on November 13, 2013, 06:52:10 PM
Stinny,farm in Turner,which one? It is still going?
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Maine logger88 on November 13, 2013, 07:23:46 PM
Thanks thecfarm I'll try  take some pics and upload them soon!
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Stinny on November 14, 2013, 08:38:06 PM
Cfarm... no, the old family farm was in Avon. We just moved here to Turner last fall.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: thecfarm on November 14, 2013, 08:44:40 PM
Moved closer to The Big City,as I call Auburn,Lewiston.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Offthebeatenpath on November 30, 2013, 03:34:09 PM
Stinny- my history is kind of opposite yours.  My family's been in Turner for well over 200 years, but I just starting cutting wood seasonally for income a few years ago... might be nice to meet up sometime.  Message me if you're interested.
CFarm- I'm back in town for the winter. Sorry I dropped our communication back in the springtime.  The offer still stands for a cup of joe and some stories if you're driving past my way again anytime...
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: thecfarm on November 30, 2013, 03:47:12 PM
Glad to see you are alive!!! Probably spring time is better. Would enjoy seing your garlic and any projects you have going.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Offthebeatenpath on November 30, 2013, 04:02:17 PM
Sounds good Ray. There's plenty of garlic still hanging in the house if you need any... I'll be cutting behind my house all winter which will keep me close to home.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: lynde37avery on December 05, 2013, 12:54:31 PM
started going to the woods when I was a small boy 7 or 8. riding in the 230 TJ with my uncle. out of high school in 2004 I had no direction. after 3 or 4 years of working odd jobs and grocery he brings me to the landing and put me to work. day after day of learning use of saw and brush piling. he then brought me on the skidder "familiar ride" to where the trees are cut. he let me delimb one. and hitch it up and pull it with the skidder. instantly I was hooked. I have basically taken after him in the family business. got established company name with the town, my timber license and am on my 4th contract logging job after past 5 years. god bless the timber that pays our meals and shelters us and stay safe and alert.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Big timber little dozer on December 17, 2013, 07:08:30 PM
If you in turner than you probably saw my oc3 but it was green. i bought it from a guy on the river last fall
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: treechopper40 on January 18, 2014, 10:10:53 PM
its in my blood started going to the woods with my dad when I was 5 yrs old I would gas the saws up help dad and my uncle do whatever I was told to by them started bucking 4ft on the landing at 8 yrs old and bunching pulp my dad worked 7 days a week so I would go to the woods on the weekends and every day in the summer with him did that till I got out of high school bout that time dad retired and sold out I should have bought the 240 super e he had anyway went to work for a few different logging companys from the area and stayed with the last company almost 20 yrs then bought my first skidder then a truck then a loader and now another skidder so I just turned 40 ive  seen a lot over the years ive ran cable skidders grapple skidders loader and slasher stroke delimber pull through delimber feller buncher cut by hand forwarder short hauled wood with tractor trailers chipper and built roads its a tuff living and only the strong can do it day in and day out now my son an I work together we cut and skid our own hitches with 2 cable skidders and a loader we hand cut every thing on the landing I haul our logs and log length firewood and the pulp is hauled by a hired truck we work 6 days a week and move a lot of wood for 2 guys I love the woods wouldn't trade it for the world
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Hawthorne Properties LLC on January 19, 2014, 12:57:43 PM
 I come from a farming and construction back ground, which then became real-estate development (spec houses) then buying and selling farms. Then I sub-out some logging. I was bit by the timber bug. I fell in love with it right away. I now own and operate a full blown logging company and am totally addicted to forestry. This is my first time to ever post so go easy boys   
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: mesquite buckeye on January 19, 2014, 01:38:54 PM
Welcome. ;D 8) 8) 8)
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: clww on January 19, 2014, 07:54:00 PM
Welcome to the Forestry Forum. :)
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: danabg on January 27, 2014, 05:59:34 PM
I just discovered this forum,find it very interesting.Started going to the woods with my father when I was 4 or 5 I think,could run a skidder at 12,started piling pulpwood at 14 in the summers and days off of school.Finally allowed to run my own saw at 16 and at age 17 quit school and went to the woods fulltime.Started running a forwarder at 18,the same time we got our first harvester.I made a lot of mistakes when I was younger but sure have learned a lot since then.Have run many different types of forwarders,harvesters skidders and a buncher and worked on all of them.Worked with some great guys over the years,we did a lot of work but we had some fun too.I'm 42 now so I guess I have 25 years or more in.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: IcePick on March 02, 2014, 02:10:39 PM
Just started cutting hardwoods last year.  Been a tree climber for 15+.  I sub-contract for a guy in Wisconsin who runs a forwarder-hand cutting operation.  With all the experience I've had dropping trees and running a saw, trying to make money falling hardwoods is quite difficult and quite different work from tree work.  It will take time for me to find a rhythm.  With all the struggles I've had so far, I enjoy it immensely.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Magicman on March 02, 2014, 04:12:49 PM
Welcome to the Forestry Forum, IcePick.   8)
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Pine Ridge on April 30, 2014, 09:06:46 PM
New member here,Hi everybody! Been cutting firewood since 10 years old, started cutting sawlogs about 17 years old,been cutting both off and on since then. I am now 45, and cut sawlogs on weekends.I work monday thru thursday, 10 hours a day for a county road department,that gives me friday and saturday to cut and skid. I don't get in a hurry, and I enjoy every minute of my woods time! First post here,I also enjoy reading about and seeing what everyone else is doing in the log woods,equipment and methods used by different loggers.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: cutbank on May 13, 2014, 06:45:46 PM
new poster here , i registered on this forum quite a while ago . Great forum heres my bio I am a foresty tech grad (88) from Lakehead University. I have worked in the forest industry for 20 years as a forestry tech then as a logging contractor  , I left the forest ind in 2003 and now work as a millwright. I own a 200 acre Jackpine plantation . My toys are a 664c line skidder and a 24000 hood slasher.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: lamimartin on June 13, 2014, 05:59:02 AM
There is no ZERO on this poll, so I voted 1 for 1st year seriously using a chainsaw, 1st year using a tractor and logging winch, simply because 1st year I own a maple bush with a few pines and spruce.

I pruned and removed quite a few trees that were incompatible with residential setup in the past 40 years, but nothing compared to what I am doing now. I'm sort of returning to my family roots, logging, but with modern tools that are far safer and efficient than axes, handsaws and horses.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: thecfarm on June 13, 2014, 09:07:32 AM
Taking care of a forest is alot of fun. Enjoy it. I do hope you are wearing the proper safety gear. There is alot to being safe in the woods. I have a hard hat and when my wife comes in the woods to see me,she wears one too.  Have fun.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: lopet on August 31, 2014, 10:10:07 PM
I think I can contribute 40 more years.  Been working in the woods with my Dad since being ten years old.  Cut my first tree at 14.  Now I am 54 and still loving it, but sometimes think I am not quite right in my head , when I am wrestling  with a winch cable. ;D

Too bad , a lot of members on this thread aren't posting anymore. :(   
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Stroover on September 23, 2014, 04:58:20 PM
I'm a newbie. Though I've cut firewood for my dad when I was a teenager, I've never done it "professionally" until now. I've started working in the woods this month for a friend of mine who was short on woodsmen, so I told him I'd work weekends for him (my days off). He's paying me $45/cord, so instead of going to the gym, I get a MUCH better workout, PLUS I'm getting paid to do it instead of paying for a gym membership!   8) I was using a friend's chainsaw, but just bought my own Stihl MS 261 yesterday after conversing with some of the woodsmen on site, plus after browsing on this site.  Looking forward to making some "she" money (She doesn't need to know about it).
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: dtody on September 25, 2014, 08:32:39 AM
Started on this site back in 2002 while recovering from by-pass surgery.  Have 40 acres and son now has 80 acres.  Had  woods, a chainsaw and a Oscar 18 from Hud-Son. Cut top dead trees from the woods and about 2500 board feet of lumber. Did a bit of a career change from teacher to administrator so additional classes were needed = time off from woods and water/fishing.  Then another by-pass, and then in 2012 a heart transplant.  Mostly recovered, so son upgraded to Oscar330Pro last month and we're planning on going as well as we can.  I do some wood turning now, selling bowls and stuff, half an old log for $100.  Getting bowl blanks ready for sale and will continue to cut boards at a log or three per day.  I see many of the familiar names still on the site, looking good and hope to gain more info.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: wyorancher on September 29, 2014, 10:10:57 AM
Cut oak firewood in high school. After .graduation went to the woods and started as a choker setter behind D6 parking cats, hooked yarder and finally got a seat on the parkin cats. Always wanted to be a feller, an opening came up, and took the task. During spring break they put me on cat or the new rubber tired machines. fell large ponderosa in the Black Hills and over to the Rockies for a stench felling spruce, fir, lodge pole, sugar pine and ponderosa. Cut logs under the high lead and did some "in for your money and out for your life" (hookin for the high lead) Very steep grades at my age and the forest economy forced a change. Now back to Cutting and skidding on the ranch at my own leisure using 064 Stihls (24" bar) and me ole 664B and happy as a lark. Loggin is a life to me and not a occupation. Wonder if I'll get to loggers heaven?
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: wyorancher on September 29, 2014, 10:20:21 AM
Originally put down 35 years didn't count the years of fire woodin.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: vinc5d on October 12, 2014, 09:45:45 AM
I chose 5 because I have helped my dad over the last few years but, this is my first year cutting. and hopefully my first year processing on my own !
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: 350 cummins on December 05, 2014, 09:42:06 PM
as far back as i can remember we hauled firewood, skidding trees out with a team of percherons to build dads log house, an old P.A. foundry circular mill powered by our 4020 JD, then a C5D treefarmer and a lumbermate band mill, and now my youngest son (4 years old) stacks firewood until i am tired of cutting it.
three generations that are still enjoying working with wood
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: 350 cummins on December 07, 2014, 08:14:53 PM
ok
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: so il logger on January 14, 2015, 04:17:15 PM
I put 10 years. I think its going on 12 years as my sole employment. My dad logged all his life from 16 up til his health failed. He still helps on a daily basis just cant run a saw. I started out skidding for him and when he was hospitalized I picked up a saw. I have been the primary feller for 9 or 10 years. theres nothing like it. Once sawdust gets in your blood I think your hooked. 
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: jdeere540a on January 14, 2015, 06:16:43 PM
 i put 15 years i got my first saw when i was 11. it was a used mccoulloch i cut cordwood ever since and bought my first skidder the year after high school 2006.  it was a very wore out timberjack 230d.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: reubenT on January 28, 2015, 08:38:31 PM
I put in 30 because that's about when I started actually harvesting timber,   but started using my dads chainsaw about 5 years before that to cut firewood and whatever I wanted to cut.  A Mac 10-10.    First big tree I cut was a widermaker,   I didn't know it as such at the time but I did recognize the danger.   I did it very cautiously,  making sure not to let it move before I was outa the way.    It was in free space.   I won't touch one with dead branches that has interference with other trees unless I'm inside a steel cage,  Like a dozer cab.   When I got serious about sawin trees down I got me a new sacks dolmar,   wore it out. Then went through several used steels and huskys,  I liked the old 051 I had,  it was getting pretty worn and then swollowed a steel nut which finished it off.   finally got an almost new steel.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Straightgrain on March 20, 2015, 09:55:45 PM
I selected 10 years; not counting the years I "logged" (and cut steel and moved earth) with explosives.... ;D

Abatis: a rampart made of felled trees placed so that their bent or sharpened branches face out toward the enemy.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: tmbrcruiser on April 06, 2015, 09:40:35 PM
Started working in the woods topping log when I was fifteen. When I turned sixteen and started driving I was able to get out of school at 11:00 to go logging. There was an agriculture teacher who would check up on the guys that got out of school early to work. That was in 1973.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Logger003 on April 27, 2015, 12:25:53 AM
My dad had a sawmill when I was growing up I decided on thirty years cause I was 16 when I actually started working in the bush falling timber I ran power saw for 5 years then started running skidder and took over the logging part of the business when I was 25. I didn't have much to do with the sawmill part of the business. Sure wish I would have learned that part now I'm teaching myself that part
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: jrose1970 on June 22, 2015, 11:03:18 AM
Hey,   I put five years. I've cut firewood and cleaned brush all my life. I've never not lived on a farm.
Very little of that has been with logging or sawmill, but i just thought my experience with a chainsaw would give me about five years.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Scott Garrett on June 25, 2015, 10:45:44 PM
I put 20 years. I would carry saws and gas for my dad and brother back in 1980. After I got out of the military I worked as an free lance diver for 16 years and when I was not diving I was cutting right of way or pulling timber. Just got some new stihl 660's and old timberjack 230. My dad passed 8 years ago and when I'm in the woods I feel he is there with me.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: 62oliver on July 19, 2015, 07:36:29 AM
I put 5 years, have never been a "logger", but have cut my own firewood for several years, cut trails on my land, I got my husqvarna 266 in 1984, and just got a 240 TJ to make life a little easier.   8) 8) 8)
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: huntdibbs on July 19, 2015, 08:12:13 PM
I have 24 years cutting and skidding logs in the woods of Pa. Hope to do at least another 10 - 15.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: tj240 on October 04, 2015, 08:14:57 PM
I started early, about 1985 cutting firewood up. First saw was a 410 used homelite, wasn't lite. Went full time around 1992.  I loved it it, logging. Hurt real bad in 93. LIke it was said before, once the saw dust is in your blood, there is no going back.  I still love it and am alot better at it. Jwilly is my dad and we are partners in Williams Timber Harvesting.  We work weekends, He is 68, I'm 47. I log full time 5 days for a friend, then log with dad on weekends, my son helps when he is home. Dad is the header man with a old 160 barko.  I cut and skid with a 1986 timberjack 240A.  I used to be a jd man but that 240 is so easy to run i love it!! Run a real nice 540b, during the week.  Good luck to all loggers and wood people. STAY SAFE!!! I f you dont love it dont do it!!!
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Cutter/Climber on October 21, 2015, 06:55:03 PM
I put 10 because I did a little time cutting firewood when I was 16 for a farmer that I worked for. Then worked for my dad doing electrical before started climbing. Started into the logging business 6 years ago.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Brandon1986 on October 23, 2015, 01:46:49 PM
I put down 20. I was 18 mos. old in a carseat in dads old 75 w900a Kenworth self loading log truck, one of my first memories is sitting in his lap with that massive steering wheel in my hand steering down a frozen logging road, must have been somewhere in the ballpark of 1988-89. He bought me a toy chainsaw in 88 2 1/2  years later I wore it out and he threw it away.. I was deveststed so at about 5 he bought me the smallest saw Jonsered had at the time and let me run it under close supervison. I started running our blockbuster firewood proscessor at between 6&7 pretty steady and been in the woods most of the time since then. Now I am just about 30. Some of my best times and memories are in the woods and I wouldn't trade it for anything. Now my 5 year old is learning how to swing an ax in hopes of raising a 6th generation logger
Brandon
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Oldman47 on November 14, 2015, 06:26:57 PM
I have owned a saw for well over 30 years but it would be misleading to say I have much experience. I doubt that my Stihl 026 has had more than a dozen tanks of fuel put through it and my Husky 555 is new just this year.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: D2 Cody on November 25, 2015, 12:05:33 AM
I guess this probably sounds like the way most of us began with our dad's cutting fire wood in the fall and winter.I remember I was around ten years old or so and having to follow dad around in the timber carrying chunked up ash and hackberry and stacking it in the dodge then as a few more years went by I got to run the hydraulic splitter..talk about one happy 12 or 13 year old lol.I always hated that chore because dad has been in the excavating business my whole life taking trees out so it was always a chore keeping up with the piles and seemed never ending and pointless but I guess the house was always warm.I went on my own and bought an old cat d6c and an echo 590 and stihl in 2012 and decided to go into the landclearing and logging business..I know funny for a kid from Nebraska..and now I love the woods  that I'm older and wouldn't trade my job for anything.I am still learning everyday and still trying to get established with knowing all there is to logging and marketing the wood and etc so if anybody ever has any good advice please don't be afraid to share I promise you won't hurt my feelings lol
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: geoffy on December 01, 2015, 10:02:09 AM
Too many years on and off!
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: CP1991 on December 14, 2015, 09:20:48 PM
I marked 10 years when I was thirteen I was cutting firewood by myself to sell had been in the woods with dad as long as I can remember but at thirteen I had a 254 husky and a dodge pickup dad still has the 254 I still have the dodge.  Then we got 372 h uskys  and a ford f 700 we were in tall cotton then after that he didn't need to cut firewood for extra money and I was falling logs for other people. I got my own logging equipment bout 2 years ago still got the 372's and the f 700 is a loader truck dad is a welder and don't work with me but he comes out and I drag him out tops for firewood for his pot belly stove. He still thinks his 372's are better than my 390's I just let him think so
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: supertrucker on January 03, 2016, 08:55:47 AM
10 years or so in total, mostly with whole tree and tree length, started in a grapple skidder at 17, ran buncher for a wile, spent a couple years going between a craine loading trucks and feeding a chipper and a propac limber, ben mostly driving truck for the last few years. ben on my own for a year and a half, started with trucking now I'm getting in to the CTL side of it.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Slasherguy on January 12, 2016, 07:28:05 PM
New to the forum world but just wanted to try and show a little video of how I spend most of my time in the woods. http://youtu.be/82jPUXeyptg
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: beenthere on January 12, 2016, 07:48:43 PM
Welcome to the Forestry Forum. You are the "other" operator in an earlier video of a new member. Welcome to you both. Looks like you have some good equip. running to process wood.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Slasherguy on January 12, 2016, 08:04:44 PM
Yes I am the "other" operator in the video and thanks for welcoming us. We are very eager to see and hear about all the other wood tics and how everyone is doing it.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: beenthere on January 12, 2016, 08:31:19 PM
You guys came to the right place.  8)
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Logger RK on January 12, 2016, 11:10:16 PM
I put 40 years Logging. 55 now started getting a little money doing it around 15. Actually cut trees much younger. Dad was clearing some land 2 make hay fields when I was in grade school & when me & my older brother got tired of riding on the TD14 Dozer he give us a ax & said go cut a tree down. That'll keep u busy. So we found about a 30 inch pine on the river bank. By the end of summer it finally made a big splash. Ma never heard about that one or pa would've got a ear full. After that dad still clearing land a few years later the brother heard them aspens might b worth cutting the root ball off & skidding out with dads ford major tractor & 8 footing. It b less 2 burn 2 finish the land clearing job all so. Brother used dads Sears or Wards chain saw( not sure which brand now)4 cutting. Till he went Big Time & bought a Brand New Homlite XL12. Then after land clearing was done dad had standing aspen we could cut. Brother buy a new Johnsred 621. I believe first tree he cut(and it had 2 b a big one)the tree comes back on the saw. I run over & help. The 2 of us could keep it from falling on the saw but if one would try 2 get the tractor it would start 2 go. In the end it did go over & break cover & fin's off head & jug. But still ran. Dad was a farmer/truck driver& didn't have much advise about logging so it was learn as u go kind of. Worked 4 brother till 20 years ago or so & he went trucking & farming. Bought my Hahn from brother & hired out 2 others till getting my own Skidder then shear. Worked alone 4 a good amount of years. Was kind of nice that I'd b running different machines.Told The Boys they should go get them high payin jobs. They did then started buying Eq so they could work out in the woods.Now 3 of my sons work with me. Oldest after getting out of The Marines Assaultman Weapons Platton bought a chipper & middle son bought a Hahn a Drott feller buncher & Drott with Denis Stroke Delimber.(now he wants me 2 park Hahn's & get a big slasher)& youngest bought a cable Skidder last year. I still do most of saw felling,if there's any over 20-22 inch the big shear can't do I'll fire up The Sthil O66 with 32 inch bar. I tell The Boys if somebody's got 2 go it might as well b the oldest. It's good working with The Boys as I always say, but sometimes they get in 2 big of a hurry. As dad used 2 say about The Old Bull & The Young Bull standing on the hill looking at the herd of heifers. Young bull say lets run down there & breed one of them heifers,Old Bull say,let's walk down there & breed them all. Same job 40 years & same Bride 35,Life's Good. As dad also used 2 say,if ur job is ur vacation u got I made. 👍
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Mountaynman on January 13, 2016, 07:14:34 PM
Started at 8 or 10 helping gramp in the farm woodlot did TSI on the 160 acres to come up with 60 plus cord every year to heat 5 houses back then we twitched with a horse or a team to a main trail then bucked and loaded with a old cable contraption he had later on had a 540 skidder and 350 dozer still loaded on his old trip bunk wagon  then tractor ride to the farm the original cut to length set up I guess work now with dozer and forwarder on mostly sloping regened farmland round here taking out ash sawtimber and pulp to release 10 - 12 inch maples really fast growing timber on some of this ground round here had some 40 yr old ash this summer that were 16 " logs always liked farmin the woods thanks to gramp been gone 25 yrs now and still see him almost every day in the woods pointing to a tree to take down and tellin me not to hurt them little maples

Who will go in the woods and do our work when we are to old to do it there doesn't seem to be many young fellas with much interest?
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: jrose1970 on January 19, 2016, 01:33:36 PM
I know what you mean about young fellas not having much interest. I have a nine year old step-son who loves to help me.  I told Aileen, I'm planning on him being my prodigy. He's a fine little feller. I'm really careful when he is around though. There are so many ways to get hurt bad. Welcome to the forum.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: NorthMaineLogger on February 29, 2016, 03:05:53 PM
I just recently became a forester after graduating from University of Maine. Spent 3 out of 4 years timber harvesting: operating skidders and forwarders. So a total of about 5 years.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: danbuendgen on June 07, 2016, 08:57:15 PM
Just checked 10 years for professional logging. I am very surprised that 5 to 10 years has the highest percent on this survey. The average logger in Vermont is 50! I guess this is because a lot of people say they just cut there own firewood and are no logging for a living...
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Norway Pine on July 25, 2016, 09:45:07 AM
I'm 19, a sapling I guess to most of you folks out there  :D  but I first got into logging and milling when I was 13 or maybe 14, slabbing up logs with the old man for tabletops and bars and things. I suppose though that there is a lack of young folks in the forestry area and we could sure use a hell of a lot less lawyers and business majors.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: moonmanmort on September 12, 2016, 11:34:35 PM
Hey all, new forum member here. I don't have much experience, but I wanted to be included in the data.

1 summer arborist/tree removal work
2 summers forestry tech work
3 years BS Forestry degree - cumulative field labs total: about 1 summer


Total field experience: 4 summers, or 1 full year.


Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: jcmc on February 22, 2017, 04:39:20 PM
Started cutting firewood to sell when I was 16 with dads Mac250. Worked for a municipality for many years cut lots of roadside trees.
Still cutting firewood for self and enjoy being out in the woods.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: TreesLogan on April 19, 2017, 02:11:29 PM
Started cutting trees with a neighbor when I was only 16. I worked with him through high school and part way into community college. Then the rat race caught on and I thought I was going to make it big so I neglected my trade for some time. I still did a little work on the side but not enough to satisfy me. This year I quit my job and I am going full force to pursue my own tree service company. Glad to be here with like minded members Im probably going to learn a thing or two.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: allaboutsawdust on April 19, 2017, 08:46:13 PM
First picked up a saw when I was 14 cutting firewood and have been cutting anything and everything i can ever since. It's surprising for me to see how high a percentage of people checked of 5 to ten years knowing how the majority of the industry (at least in our area) is over the age of 50.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: woodmaker on June 10, 2017, 09:29:22 PM
I have never been a "real " logger. I bought a used McCulloch in 1975(i think it is a 250,but I looked the other day and couldn't find numbers on it) and cut cord wood to sell for extra spending money while in college,and since then,have cut firewood for my father and myself,maybe a week total each year. Call it one year,total
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: win38mag on August 24, 2017, 01:36:05 PM
  I started back in 67 by going to Paul Smiths College, for an associates Degree in Forestry, in Paul Smith , New York, just west of Saranac, Lake NY....I was 18 and thought I knew it all !!  LOL...Dropped out in Nov 68 and was in the US NAVY SEABEES ,for the next 3 years active and 7 reserve. Got off active in 73 and finally finished the degree in 77 at UMASS Amherst,Mass.   summers were spent working with the Father-in-law logging in Western Mass. chopping,skidding, trucking, cutting firewood, taking the camp meat when it  showed, ......come deer season we'd scrap cars for spending money in the hunting camp.....  T'was.a long time ago ,pretty much lasted  into the mid 80's , when I then went railroading. The mechanical experience from the CB'S and fixing broken equipment in the woods  shoehorned into a mechanic's job on the Boston and Maine RR and then Central Vermont RR.
   I still to this day cut firewood and split it  for seasoning and sale , the wife got tired of wood heat 25 years ago ! LOL....and she didn't even do any of the hard parts !!!  Go Figure !!
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: firefighter ontheside on November 19, 2017, 01:31:59 PM
I'm 43 and I've been working in the woods since I was a little kid with my dad.  18 years ago I built my log home with red pine from Minnesota.  In the more recent years I've been harvesting logs to take to several different mills.  A few months ago I got a mill, but I haven't gotten it set up yet.  Still working on a site with a concrete pad and roof overhead.  I've been a firefighter for 25 years and used to be a wild land firefighter, but when kids came along I gave that up.  Here's a few pictures of my favorite logs.  My house logs are up to 43' long and about 24" at the butt end.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/36921/8CC3D340-B1E2-4228-8FD0-2EEB99A5D7C2.jpeg?easyrotate_cache=1511116237)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/36921/CBE35F38-8B30-4D34-AEA1-D803137AA764.jpeg?easyrotate_cache=1511116238)
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: olcowhand on December 28, 2017, 08:07:23 AM
I started cutting firewood for extra money in the winter of '74.
I've been cutting firewood almost every year since then. I've never worked in the woods as a "Pro", so I put 1 Year in my entry. Some of my neighbors are Pros, and I wouldn't want to sully their good names by considering myself as anything other than a novice.
In the short time I've been reading on this site, I've learned a ton.
Keep up the good work of sharing wisdom.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Nashranch on February 17, 2018, 09:23:36 AM
I grew up on a farm in Alaska. We were clearing land and sawing lumber for our own buildings. I also spent a lot of winters cutting and selling firewood. So we weren't logging on a big scale, but I pretty much grew up around it. I moved to Colorado about eight years ago and have a ranch with a lot of ponderosa pine. Right now I have a forest thinning contract and I'm cutting firewood and saw logs. I have a wood mizer LT 15.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Old logger on March 30, 2018, 01:01:17 AM
I am 60 now and I started juvenile tree spacing at 16, then got into highlead logging on the west coast of Vancouver Island at age of 18 in Zeballos. Worked there till I was 24 or so, made it up the rank of hooker. Then got into heavy duty school but made my way back into highlead logging when I got married at 26. I was offered a bucking contract up north of Bella Coola in a logging camp 21 days in 10 out with a big logging company until I was about 45 years old. I ran loaders, worked on the booms, drove off highway logging trucks during that time. Made lots of money. We worked from April to Nov because of snow. In the off season (winter) I worked at logging sort yards and booming grounds on a contract basis. Then I worked for a company at the head of Knights inlet driving "fat trucks" or off hyway log trucks as well as monkey wrenched on all sorts of equipment. I learned to weld out of nescesty so I was kept busy most of the time. In the winter months when we were shut down we sent our equipment to town and rebuilt what was needed. Steepest road I drove down was 36% for about 5 truck lengths with a total of about 200 tons all told. Trucks weighed 50 ton with the trailers on their back empty. Exciting it was! They were 850 Kenworths, Pacific P10 and Hayes HDX. 16' across bunks and 10' stakes. Quit logging about 3 years ago , now just wrenching 3 days a week on trucks and my own stuff. Loved most everyday logging, taught me that there's no free lunch, if you want something go to work till you have the money to buy. Be polite and most of all be honest. I just ordered a woodland hm130, I have 5 acres of 100 year old Douglas fir and I plan to cut up some. Alaskan mill is great but these old hands and knees are getting too tired!
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: teakwood on June 09, 2018, 10:49:12 AM
nice story. You will love the bandsaw mill, compared to the alaskan mill it's like day and night. I sold my 088 after i got the bandsaw mill, just had no need for such a big saw after that.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Barry S on October 25, 2018, 06:48:06 PM
Got my first chainsaw when I was 8 been moving forward ever since
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: morflail on November 03, 2018, 05:50:13 PM
worked with pulpwood cutter at age 17 in 1959 he cut i trimed and loaded the pull out truck than unloaded out on hardtop on the trailer . been in the woods since retired in 2015.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: ~smokey~ on November 22, 2018, 06:24:02 AM
My family have been in the forestry world for generations.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Northern hills on November 28, 2018, 07:01:40 AM
I marked 40 years, but I can't really remember a winter that I didn't get to follow my dad & brother around in the bush, they mostly cut 4' softwood pulp & firewood with horses. I'll never forget falling off the back of the sleigh & waking up in the back seat of the car just as we were getting home, we'd (yes ok, they) were working at our 2nd farm at the time, so after I fell, my brother would have had to unhitch the horses and put them away, then drive home, about 15 minutes, so must have been out a while. Was put on the couch to "recuperate". 

 My grandfather in the 1910's,  father and uncle in late 40's and early 50's, all went to northern Ontario bush camps in the winter, so there were always stories growing up, my uncle wrote a book about it.

Now it's just a bit of firewood and the odd load of poplar to the local rayon mill and whatelogs we need to have sawn for our own use, how times have changed.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Doomsday on December 19, 2018, 07:18:23 PM
I've worked as a forester in MT, ID, and WA. That includes cruising, timber management, forest management, forest health research and monitoring, wildland firefighting, and timber sale planning. Only 29 now and still hungry for more!
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: thecfarm on December 19, 2018, 09:46:16 PM
Doomsday,welcome to the forum. You will fit right in.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: labradorguy on January 10, 2019, 11:23:12 AM
Marked down time since I was doing things on my own. Started cutting timber and making mine timbers with the old man when I was 8.

Started thinking.... is this total experience productively "working" in forestry? If we aren't counting time spent fixing broken (ADMIN LANGUAGE EDIT), getting unstuck, kicking and cussing, or looking for lost axes and wedges, then I need to cut my number in half.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: John Mc on January 11, 2019, 07:44:10 AM
Quote from: labradorguy on January 10, 2019, 11:23:12 AMIf we aren't counting time spent fixing broken (ADMIN LANGUAGE EDIT), getting unstuck, kicking and cussing, or looking for lost axes and wedges, then I need to cut my number in half.


I resemble that remark! I'm convinced that many of my forest tools simply ceased to exist once I was done with the immediate task at hand. Adding various holsters to my tool belt has helped (the Grizzly Peak axe scabbard (https://grizzlypeakenterprises.com/t/axe-scabbards) was the last addition)
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: John Mc on January 11, 2019, 07:49:45 AM
I'm guessing this poll underestimates the experience on here. I've been on this forum 11 years now. I don't know when I actually responded to the poll, but it has been a while.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: sidehill6 on February 22, 2019, 12:50:46 PM
hi all, been lurking here for a while, seemed like a good time to introduce myself. been doing this thing with a chainsaw since I was twelve sometimes part time sometimes full time but cant seem to get away from it! 50 years was the closest number that fit. tremendous amount of info available here. keep it up!
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: TACOMATODD on May 08, 2019, 06:08:29 AM
Off and on since about 96, mostly off so I said 5. I've had a good time doing every bit of it. Like the brushcutter thread says, it sure is fun being "the chainsaw guy". It DOES get you lots of interesting and fun jobs. Now that I'm about to be 48 and I have all of medical conditions I do, I should have started this life years ago.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: thecfarm on May 08, 2019, 06:10:15 AM
I enjoy making the woods better every time I work in the woods. This is on my own land.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: TimberCutter773 on July 06, 2019, 05:34:54 PM
I started in the woods 4 years before my oldest son was born. He will b 20 years old in September. Those years sure have flown by! Lol I just turned 44 years old a couple weeks ago, and it seems like yesterday I was just learning how to run a log skidder. First thing I was allowed to do. I actually got the logging bug in my blood from my exfather-in-law. He talked me into helping him while I was laid off from construction. All these years later, and here I am, still plugging along! Lol I got injured badly in 2006 and do not need anymore accidents! Witch it was, a freak accident. I tell every young guy I meet that is cutting, it's not a question of if u will get hurt, it is when will it happen, and how bad will it be when it does happen. I also tell them, keep your eyes up, not out! Do not watch the tree fall, watch the sky for what is coming down! Anyway, I love logging, and wouldn't give it up! Lol 
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: thecfarm on July 07, 2019, 12:30:25 PM
Welcome to the forum. You will like it here!!
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: WWright on October 27, 2019, 08:22:33 AM
 Worked in woods with my father as long as I can remember. I got my first saw when I was 12 worked in the landing bucking logs and cutting firewood. I would also fill in on skidder if somebody didn't show up. I worked all weekends and school vacations I could not get enough I'm 52 now still love the woods !
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: cashman234 on March 02, 2020, 11:42:03 PM
Quote from: TimberCutter773 on July 06, 2019, 05:34:54 PM
I started in the woods 4 years before my oldest son was born. He will b 20 years old in September. Those years sure have flown by! Lol I just turned 44 years old a couple weeks ago, and it seems like yesterday I was just learning how to run a log skidder. First thing I was allowed to do. I actually got the logging bug in my blood from my exfather-in-law. He talked me into helping him while I was laid off from construction. All these years later, and here I am, still plugging along! Lol I got injured badly in 2006 and do not need anymore accidents! Witch it was, a freak accident. I tell every young guy I meet that is cutting, it's not a question of if u will get hurt, it is when will it happen, and how bad will it be when it does happen. I also tell them, keep your eyes up, not out! Do not watch the tree fall, watch the sky for what is coming down! Anyway, I love logging, and wouldn't give it up! Lol
I feel you, I started logging maybe 5 years ago and will 20 soon. Started with a small chainsaw and cutting down cedar, I got the bug lol.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: JRHill on July 05, 2020, 05:07:25 PM
This is a confusing poll. I answered it according to when I started REAL forestry work and milling. Then I realized my work harvesting firewood for heating my house while in college could also qualify - about 40 years ago. Heck, I earned the money for my mini-bike working summers with a guy cutting trees in the metro area - 60 years back.

So based upon the question what use are the results worth?
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: Olgeirs5j on March 08, 2021, 07:25:44 AM
1 year, just a greenhorn, learning my way into the woods. I'm only 16 but I'm getting into the woods more and more for Mazuee marine equipments suppliers in Dubai (https://www.mazuzee.com/index.php?route=product/category&path=90). just started cutting for firewood because oil just does dang expensively.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: HammerMech on March 25, 2021, 01:44:29 PM
new here, but replied as overall I have a lot of years, 99.9% would be firewood, but had a lot of friends that are loggers, occasionally spend a day out with them. I worked in the pulpmill using up their hard labour, but last year bought an old TJ skidder for firewood and odd jobs
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: NonSequiturFarm on October 11, 2023, 02:07:11 PM
New here on these forums but a head of white hair so not really new. Been heating with wood exclusively since 2010. Learned how to use an axe and a chainsaw in 1979. No mill... yet. But I have 25+ acres of mixed hardwoods on the farm, a 130 year old wooden barn needing repairs, a 130 year old cottage and 24 weeks until official retirement. So I am here to learn from all of you.
Title: Re: Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods
Post by: oldgraysawyer on March 22, 2024, 01:12:33 PM
Quote from: NonSequiturFarm on October 11, 2023, 02:07:11 PMNew here on these forums but a head of white hair so not really new. Been heating with wood exclusively since 2010. Learned how to use an axe and a chainsaw in 1979. No mill... yet. But I have 25+ acres of mixed hardwoods on the farm, a 130 year old wooden barn needing repairs, a 130 year old cottage and 24 weeks until official retirement. So I am here to learn from all of you.
That hits home. In 2003 I put in a firewood furnace and my gas bill dropped from $369/mo to $27 because I was still using a gas cook stove and water heater. The gas company thought I was stealing gas somehow and they went from reading my meter to estimating and changed my meter three times in 8 months. I never paid any of the bogus bills and kept track of all the readings and total usage. I filed a complaint with the PSC and they tried to blame new billing software. Funny thing is when it first happened they called me and asked if I had made any changes to my hvac and I said yes I no longer use a gas hvac system.

After the PSC they came and changed my meter one more time and said I didn't have to pay the past due "fony" bills. I told them they were bogus and I have pics of all the meters they pulled and the proof of what I used and to remove the past due from my credit history or I was going to take legal action because they wrecked my credit report. And yes they cleaned it up because I also filed a report with the state attorney general and two days later it was all gone.