SO tired of dealing with suburbanites....

[labradorguy]

I've been cutting a lot of really high grade logs lately. We've been buried in mud all year and it just isn't worth all the hassle to pull out tie logs. . A lot of the smaller mills are idle and they are paying premiums for WO and Walnut.

Right now, I'm stuck dealing with all of these 10 acre "land barons" who came out of the city. They COME TO ME and ask me if I would be interested in taking a load or two of nice logs off of their property so they could make a few extra bucks and then after looking things over and agreeing to cut some high grade out, they decide they want to watch me do everything and give me their "advice" on how to do things. They all have these SUVs or little trucks that can pull 30k, Home Depot saws that are better than my XPs, 2wd lawn "tractors" that can skid anything, and they all can fell trees any direction they want them to go.  :D :D :D :D Oh, and every log is veneer...

I mean, they are wanting it done RIGHT NOW and it's better than just sitting around or wearing myself out in the mud or rutting everything up in my timber, but geez.... this is getting old. Most of the guys giving advice should really just shut up and watch/listen. Following some of their expert advice would get a man killed....

Am I the only one who puts himself through this??

[Pine Ridge]

No, your not the only one that has noticed this, and its not limited to logging either. I completely understand what your talking about !!!

[Southside]

I think a big part of the problem is people watching YouTube, reality TV, etc. and not being able to filter out of it what is garbage and what is reality.  Maybe the reality is just too booring to make into a video anybody would watch so the garbage gets the views.  

[labradorguy]

That is a really good point. Some of those videos on there...... Good Lord.

I took in a beautiful load of WO the other day. The mill owner was thrilled. He said I was the first guy to bring in a load of logs in SIX weeks! It's a great time to get top dollar around here. These guys remember who keeps them running this time of year too and it pays dividends the rest of the year in better prices and none of that, "a bird took a dump on this butt log in 1982, so I'm going to have to dock you..." stuff.

Still.... these know it all hobbyists will wear a guy out after awhile. I have one guy who is convinced I screwed him over big time because cherry trees are worth at the very least "a couple thousand dollars each".   Starting to wonder if it is worth it....

[wisconsitom]

Have the cherry tree guy come help you stack, sort, sticker, plane, re-saw.....then move finished product 2 more times.....he will begin to develop an appreciation for finished lumber....and the difference between that and a raw log!

tom

[Old Greenhorn]

Get used to it! I got a text an hour ago from my son that said "The house across the road finally sold and Tony is putting in a new well for them." I texted him back "what part of Brooklyn are they from? "
 Out of the 4 houses around me that have sold, 3 were bought by weekenders. Folks who grew up here can't afford to live here anymore, they are being priced right out of town.
 These folks are just folks, and they don't know what they don't know. I have found if you take the time to explain to them how things work, they figure it out pretty well (for the most part). Yes, some of that attitude they had all their lives comes along for the ride, but you can work past that with patience. If you can't, just give them a wide wake and go your own way. That works for me. I work with those I can work with and enjoy, I avoid the others (usually when they get in trouble, they give me a call anyway.) People are just people. My neighbor across the road is from Brooklyn and we are very good friends and I watch his place during the week among other things. If he were a jerk, I would only wave when he went by, maybe.
 Oh, and the new people across the road? Turns out they are from Manhattan. This could be interesting.

[thecfarm]

There is a lot of "talk" out there too. I have a FIL that sits around and believes all that "talk". He actually tried to tell me how to sell my logs!!    As I told him,yep,put it to the sawmill and than when you want to sell more logs to them,they turn you away. Did you ask the "talker" that question?  Show me the scale slips about all this big money.  :  

[Ianab]

Maybe you need one of those charge rate cards. 

Normal $50 hour
If you want to watch $75
If you want to help $100
If you want to give advice $150
If you have already worked on it $200

[Southside]

I see it on the mill side.  Just last week got a call from a guy, who knows a guy, who has a "highly valuable walnut" tree that is in his yard, well it was a tree, it was cut down "about a year ago" and cut into 5' - 8' "logs" but they are all 30"+.  "How much will I pay for it?".  Humm - lets see, yard tree, down for a year or more, cut into all the wrong sizes......  

Then there are the people who call and want a 24" wide, slab, for a table they are going to build.  "What is the cheapest wood you have?"  They don't want to pay for it to be dried because they have seen a video where a big old slab was sawn and finished inside of 15 minutes, don't need no stinking drying....
That usually gets my special "I really don't want this order" pricing metric system to kick in for the quote.      

[low_48]

Business must really be good that you get to complain about what kind of work you are getting!

[Southside]

It's more when they call back 6 months later upset because their wood moved, cracked, and did everything you tried to tell them it would do that is the issue. 

[Peter Drouin]

I just tell them I can't help them and walk. 

[Skeans1]

Private land owners can be interesting, why spend the money on rock for a road? Or if they do have rock it's only good enough for a pickup if that and they wonder why you won't come do the work. Another favorite is they want you there right then and there but no way in heck you can get a PO to do the job or you're booked out with other work.

[dgdrls]

Get used to it! I got a text an hour ago from my son that said "The house across the road finally sold and Tony is putting in a new well for them." I texted him back "what part of Brooklyn are they from? "
Out of the 4 houses around me that have sold, 3 were bought by weekenders. Folks who grew up here can't afford to live here anymore, they are being priced right out of town.
These folks are just folks, and they don't know what they don't know. I have found if you take the time to explain to them how things work, they figure it out pretty well (for the most part). Yes, some of that attitude they had all their lives comes along for the ride, but you can work past that with patience. If you can't, just give them a wide wake and go your own way. That works for me. I work with those I can work with and enjoy, I avoid the others (usually when they get in trouble, they give me a call anyway.) People are just people. My neighbor across the road is from Brooklyn and we are very good friends and I watch his place during the week among other things. If he were a jerk, I would only wave when he went by, maybe.
Oh, and the new people across the road? Turns out they are from Manhattan. This could be interesting.

They've crossed the "Upstate" Bronx/Yonkers Line ;)
Very kind you watch their place,
D

[AZ_builder]

So how many good property owners get a bad wrap because of the bad ones? Is the money not worth the hassle? Questions asked because I'm on the other side of this in ways. I don't have a mill but have wood and have places to cut wood. I've spoke with a mill operator who gave me the run around and attitude about not having the amount of logs needed to be sawn. 

[Skeans1]

That can be another issue is the size 10 acres I won't even hand cut or move a shovel in it's just not worth the moving costs. There good land owners and they are great to work for but most really need to let us do our work without hassling us all the time, myself I put up a cutting gate anymore so that if operations are going they have to contact one of us or they can't enter if they do without contacting us I'll pack up the job on the spot.

[Ianab]

Business must really be good that you get to complain about what kind of work you are getting!

There's some jobs that just ain't worth the aggravation. Ones that make you stuff all $$, then you end up having to fix up the (usually someones elses) mess afterwards. Sometimes it's better to simply say you can't do that job (at least for the $$) 

 I don't have a mill but have wood and have places to cut wood. I've spoke with a mill operator who gave me the run around and attitude about not having the amount of logs needed to be sawn. 

Some jobs don't scale well. There are setup costs for a logging job, or a milling job.  They vary of course, my mill I can roll up to a well prepared site and be sawing in ~20 minutes. But moving heavy machinery to a new site might cost a logger a day and $1,000 in trucking. Other larger mills can cut much faster than mine, but might take up to 1/2 a day to move and set up on a new site. So they have quite substantial minimum charges or setup fees of several hundred $$.  If you have one hours work, but the sawyers minimum charge is $400, neither of you really want to go there. And some sawyers (and loggers) aren't exactly the best at PR, so you don't get a clear explanation of why they don't want the job. 
There may be a niche for smaller operators, but they are less productive. So their logging and sawing services are going to cost more per bd/ft. But if they can roll up to saw 2 or 3 logs, or one truckload of logging, that extra cost is just what you have to pay. 

[BargeMonkey]

 Yrs ago we would saw for other people, custom logs, 80% of the time it was a hassle. 
I've cut alot of these 5-10-20 acre marginal jobs here, yrs ago it was ok, now unless it's good wood the #'s aren't there, let the weekend warriors have at it. Most of my customer base is from NYC, alot of them are pretty good and just dont quite get it, I've dealt with the moron types and anymore I can buy wood from the state or forester usually for less money and 1/10th the aggravation. 
 My phone doesnt stop for firewood, its literally a monster. Had a guy call tonight who I'm not really a fan of, wanted a load of "cheap" loglength, I said unfortunately those 2 words probably wont go together again for a long time, I'm 30ld out not counting myself, this is the price. He starts in about wanting some of his own wood cut, normally I'm open to more work but told the guy I'm 3yrs out, probably more being alone, please find someone else. Anyone who is half way decent in this business has more work than they know what to do with right now. Forget finding help, my oldest is almost 15 and thinks school is a joke, going to work him like a rented monkey here soon 😂 

[Ianab]

On the other side, there ARE actually trees that are worth thousands of dollars.
If you can get a permit to cut a big old growth Rimu here, you might be talking $20,000 of wood. Think tree that's 40 ft to the first branch,  and 5 ft, and ~8$ a bd ft. 

Now this one board I cut last weekend, is worth about $700, green off the mill... Price som e Tasmanian Blackwood if you don't agree.  (It's poor man's Koa) 



It was rescued from a firewood pile. The landowner knew it was a valuable hardwood but couldn't find anyone to saw it for him, or buy the logs.  I've got 3 people interested in the sawn wood just from a FB post that I was sawing some. The owner was rapt to get get a big stack of 150 x 40mm quarter sawn boards that I got from  the rest of the log. And I have ~400bdft of "log run" stacked up drying now. We have maybe 8 more logs to saw next weekend.

So that was a "firewood" log, that can be turned into a couple of thousand $.  But OK, that's a special case. But another contact had ~1,000 Blackwood trees. If they all grow to a decent 2ft dia,  things suddenly get serious.

Now I can't quit my day job of "Stay at home Dad" just yet, but when deals like this come up, I'm into it. 

Now if you have 10 pine trees... Nah, not worth the effort. 

[thecfarm]

BargeMonkey,anyone that does a good job should be busy. Be it a Doctor,plumber,contractor,logger. If a logger,contractor says I will be there in 2 weeks,most time tell them don't bother. There is a reason they are not busy. People cut upset,because they want the job done now and wonder why they have to wait.
Those small jobs don't pay for the big guys. That's where the one chainsaw,skidder guys comes in. I did not think there was many around. But at one time there was 2 small guys cutting within 10 minutes of me.

[labradorguy]

That can be another issue is the size 10 acres I won't even hand cut or move a shovel in it's just not worth the moving costs. There good land owners and they are great to work for but most really need to let us do our work without hassling us all the time, myself I put up a cutting gate anymore so that if operations are going they have to contact one of us or they can't enter if they do without contacting us I'll pack up the job on the spot.

4 thousand feet in stave White Oak and Black Walnut to boot.... believe me, it's worth it. Sometimes you get more off of 10 high quality acres than you do off of 80 overgrown ones with bad soil and too many trees. This is in and out work. Cutting while it's muddy and moving logs early while the ground is frozen. A pickup pulling a dual tandem deckover and a little Cat or tractor. Not gonna bring in three lowboys and a crap ton of iron. Most of these folks would have a brain aneurysm if I did. They think their 25hp John Deere with a belly mower is a "tractor".

Can't complain at all about the firewood calls. Sold over $1,000 today in calls that came in just last night and this morning. I love it. Glad the groundhog messed up this year!!

Old Greenhorn- I don't mind people who don't know and realize they don't know. I'm totally fine with it. It's the folks who are know it alls and act like they have something to prove to me. Most don't know their butt from a hole in the ground and I wouldn't trust them with a sharp stick let alone a 36" bar. That's the ones who get annoying really fast....

[Bruno of NH]

The know it all's is why I got a sawmill and started backing away from the contracting.
They want to hire you then tell you how to do it all.
When they come to the mill and start that I tell them to start packing.

[moodnacreek]

Wow this is interesting. I am 60 mi. north of nyc. and was raised until the age of 9 by my grandparents and great grandmother on a small farm when this was a rural area.  We are surrounded by housing developments now. Suburbanites are not city people [in there minds] and are not country folks either. They are special people who know EVERYTHING.   With them it is right now. Stop what you are doing and take care of them immediately and charge extra or send them away and go back to work. And don't back up the forklift without looking back.

[Satamax]

On the other side, there ARE actually trees that are worth thousands of dollars.


Now if you have 10 pine trees... Nah, not worth the effort.

Well, depends on the "pine",   one good sitka spruce,  in the US or canada, or one good "picea abies" in my neck of the woods, can bring a smidge, cut into guitar violin and cello tops! 

[Old Greenhorn]

I have been reading this thread with interest over the past couple of day. It reminds me of an old down east joke:
 There was this middle aged woman who kept a family summer cottage up in the woods of Maine, and she would stay there each summer for 8 weeks or so. Each time, she would hire a staff to cook and take care of her needs. She hired a new driver this one particular year, a local older gentleman. The first day, he pulled the car around to her door yard and when she came out to leave he greeted her and tipped his hat "Good mornin' to ya Ma'am, fine day today isn't it?" She barley looked his way and said "Sir, I pay you to drive, not to chit-chat!" He only replied "Yes Ma'am." For the rest of the 8 weeks he kept his mouth shut and din't say a word in her presence. At the end of the season, he handed here his bill which included the agreed flat rates and the agreed upon extras, such as fuel and oil. She got to the bottom of the bill and said "What is this other charge you have here marked "MISC"? He replied "Ma'am, that is my charge for sass, I don't often take it, but when I do, I charge."

[azmtnman]

That usually gets my special "I really don't want this order" pricing metric system to kick in for the quote.      

Bid it not to get it!

[Ed_K]

That usually gets my special "I really don't want this order" pricing metric system to kick in for the quote.      

Bid it not to get it!

Trouble with this is sometimes you get it anyway :(.

[Bruno of NH]

Yup the bid it not to get it can bite ya 😐

[sawguy21]

Put it in yer pocket and smile.

[Don P]

We call it hassle tax. Don't apply it often but sometimes you can tell ya gotta figure it in.

[mills]

I've cut for landowners like the ones mentioned above, but what about the other side of the spectrum? 

I've cut for landowners that you know are particular, but they won't tell you what they want. Especially frustrating when you're select cutting an area that can be seen from their house. "Hey, do you want to leave this red oak, or the white oak?"  "Well, I don't know...whatever you think." So I'll drop a few that I think needs to go, and then I go back to them and ask what they think. "Yeah, that looks OK."  "So what do you want to do with that hillside over there?"  "I don't know... I don't want it to look like a bomb went off." "Yeah, well no ....! That's the idea of us having this conversation."  >:( : >:(

[Nemologger]

Yeah I'm 3 years out with jobs I have lined up. A lot of land owners want you there  soon as they sell the timber to you. They need to realize they are not on top of the list. And putting them there is not fair to the guy that's been on the list for 2 years. Like you said...If a logger tells you he can be there tomorrow...RUN!  There is a reason he has no work.

[BargeMonkey]

 95% of the landowners I've worked for have been great, I've had bad apples with both locals and city / weekenders. Yrs ago I wasnt a big fan of buying wood thru a forester, now anymore that's how i want to do it, it's worth the money. Let someone else deal with the crying, it's in black and white what is exactly expected on the job, I've cut alot of wood where the extras and the favors just keep coming.

 Some of you might have seen my post about losing a job a little while ago, well guess what it turned out exactly how I thought, and now the landowner doesnt know what to do. They made a MESS, cut the best and ran, he got 1/2 of the $$$ he was promised and his kid got a whopping 12 cord of wood out of the deal. Unfortunately I view guys like this as a blessing because they keep guys like me employed. 

[luvmexfood]

My buddy lives in North Western North Carolina. He says the people from Florida or moving in and taking over. More money than sense.  

[Cub]

There's a few full time chainsaw single bunk forwarder guys around here that are very well respected pay real good very honest and do a great job. If somebody called them today to cut their land they'd be there in 6 months. These guys are always busy always have work. Rarely not more than 6 months out. 

[moodnacreek]

Cub and Nemo, I have been telling land owners what you are saying for years. Seeking out an honest, quiet, only locally known man is too much trouble for them.      A dairy farmer I used to hay for bought a farm with a wood lot upstate. One day he called saying these loggers where painting trees on his land and talking good money if he let them cut. They had been coming around [with a pretty girl] for a while. The farmer needed the money, not unusual.    So I told him to get names and address of the last 3 jobs they did and get in his truck and find these land owners, probably other farmers he could talk to easily.  When the 'loggers' came back the farmer told them what I said.  They disappeared and he still has the trees.

[Frickman]

Back before I retired I worked almost exclusive on tracts owned by suburbanites.  I loved working for small, family farmers, but there was not enough of that timber to keep me busy.  I ran small little skidders, mostly JD 440s.  They were easy and cheap to haul.  Often I drove the skidder on paved roads from job to job.  If I hung an SMV triangle on the back I could drive 20 miles from home.  It takes a whole different mindset to log little tracts of timber.  You have to plan everything out ahead of time.  I would try to get several tracts in one neighborhood to save on equipment moving expenses.  One time I cut four different tracts in one six day week.  I would cut one small job and move down the road to the next.  I was contracting out the trucking so that did not take require extra time.  Some of the nicest timber I ever cut was on little one to five acre tracts in the suburbs.  They were often tracts my competition refused to even go look at due to the small acreage.  

My timber sale contract had a paragraph written especially for the suburban know-it-alls.  The property owner and all his kin,friends, etc.  had to stay at least 300 feet from me at all times.  That was not just the felling area.  That also included skid trails and the log landing.  It didn't stop all of them, but it helped cover me if I dropped a tree on their tractor(yes, it happens).

One time my skidder driver got back to the felling area and was white as a ghost.  He had almost run over the landowner's kids who were playing in the woods.  I confronted the landowner about it and he said"I know what is going on.  I have a chain saw too".  He owned a little McCulloh Mini Mac he picked up at KMart so that made him an expert.  I always enjoyed the challenge of getting big trees out of small spaces.  It was a lot of fun.   

[labradorguy]

I like that 300 foot clause. I may just string orange tape around the whole woods and put "Danger- Do Not Enter" on it.  :D