How many times have any of you had to walk away from a job, or wish you had, due to the land owner not having a spot flat enough to even load a truck, much less, room for equipment or log staging? What tricks do use when you do take one of these jobs? How about throwing some ideas out there for some of us visionary challenged suckers. :)
I just agreed to do a job for a friend that's had several strokes. He's barely getting around and now they're drowning in a sea of medical bills. He and his wife won't take hand outs from the government or anyone else so they're looking to see what they can do on their own. They have some decent timber on their eighteen acres, but it's going to be a nightmare from the front gate to the back corner. Logs won't cover what they need, but they'll help. I pretty much spent all Saturday afternoon walking from one end of their place to the other trying to come up with a game plan. I think I changed my little pea brain on every trip. Dang it.
Is this a Clear Cut or a thin? We normally use the ditches as much as possible with the forwarder when thinning, clear cuts we'll use a cut bank.
You trucking with a straight job or a trailer?
The guy that cuts for me went back to a straight job. Requires smaller landing.
Also, we usually need to work with and get permits from the State Highway Departments and County Road Commissions as to where we can locate and access landings/decking areas within their road rights of way. They have gotten much more restrictive than they use to be.
On 18 acres I'd say you could surely skid to the road.
Probably already been discussed.
If the harvested trees are not going to clear the medical bills, is harvesting the mature trees going to make the property look like a clearcut bald badger and potentially devalue the property in a possible future sale?
i.e sell the place with the trees standing and the place looking pretty and clear all the medical bills.
Short logs knocked vertically into the ground to hold the log stack up the hill (depending on rules in your area etc)
Forwarder taking logs down the track to a truck and trailer unit to an extended area around the entrance gate adjacent to the county road. Trucks staying on the country road while being loaded.
Quote from: Riwaka on April 30, 2018, 12:00:51 AM
Probably already been discussed.
If the harvested trees are not going to clear the medical bills, is harvesting the mature trees going to make the property look like a clearcut bald badger and potentially devalue the property in a possible future sale?
i.e sell the place with the trees standing and the place looking pretty and clear all the medical bills.
Short logs knocked vertically into the ground to hold the log stack up the hill (depending on rules in your area etc)
Forwarder taking logs down the track to a truck and trailer unit to an extended area around the entrance gate adjacent to the county road. Trucks staying on the country road while being loaded.
This is my thinking. Clearcutting will devalue the property for at least 5 years, just a fact. If they have to sell the place make sure whatever you do doesn't hurt.
As Riwaka suggests, skid or forward to the road and load a truck on the road. This must have occurred to you so maybe the driveway is the only flat place along the road.
How about a picture?
What equipment do you have?
How about neighbors? Could someone loan you a spot?
The job will be more of a select cut. This section is part of the old family farm where the old house stood. The owner, as his dad before him, were born there so currently there's no plans to sell it. Already discussed with the owner that we would cut a couple of trees up near the house that need to come down, and then give them time to decide which others to take. The house sits just off the main highway, so I don't want it to look like a bomb went off around it. The house and shop sits on a small ridge with deep gullys on both sides. His septic system blocks one side, and a large gas line line runs at the bottom of the hill on the other. I'm going to meet with one of his neighbors to see about coming in on him. I think they're wanting to help, but I'll have drive right past their house to get back there. Any way I go I'll have to haul them out with my single axle truck. No way the guy that normally hauls for me will get his semi back there. I've had some difficult jobs before, but this one takes the cake.
Well if the cake runs out there is always cheese and dough. $$. Offer to log the neighbors place as well and use the common landing. Tell them timber is high and theyd be wise to atleast send a few prime trees to the mill while youre there. If needed, id be willing to fall and haul a handful of trees for free for the neighbor in order to get my good landing and haul road. It doesnt sound like there are other options.
A number of years back a guy I never met before came to my place and explained to me that he had purchased a decent sized wood lot behind my farm and the right of way he intended to use was actually not a right of way so he was in a serious pickle and I owned the only adjoining land that had road access. He offered to pay me $10K to build a road over my land to get his wood out. We talked for a while and ended up making a deal where he got his wood out and I bought the lot from him on the cheap, so everybody came out ahead on that one. Go talk with the neighbor, perhaps there is a deal to be made that makes all parties happy.
Not going to be easy, but I think we're going to make this work by going through the neighbors property. They're good people and are wanting to help out. I just have to make sure that I don't inconvenience them any more than needed.
This tract is nothing but hills, gullies and washouts. Made the landing where two narrow ridges come together with limited room room to stack logs, turn equipment, load trucks ... Hauled out four loads this week, and had to be pulled away from the landing on all of them. Waiting for it to dry out a little more, but going to have to put in two ditch and one creek crossing. :) Fun fun fun!
Glad you found a way to get it out. I looked at a nice little 35 acre boundary awhile back and they was no way possible to build a road off the hill to the only place that you could have a landing. The way the property is situated there's a road on one side so you can't get to it that way and the other side you would have to go through the neighbors yard and I don't think that would happen which I didn't ask.
Thanks, I hate to turn down jobs due to limited access of the landowner's timber. Back years ago when I first started cutting commercially I turned down a job that I couldn't figure any way to get the logs out. Massive trees, the kind that when you pull into the saw mill you'll be grinning like school boy hanging out with a group of cheerleaders. Small lot, maybe two, three acres at most, but more board feet than the eighteen acre job I'm doing now. But, all the timber was in a long steep holler that dropped straight down from the road. No access at all along the back side, and his house blocked the other. Entering from the far end was not possible since it butted up to a neighbor that was known to be anything but neighborly. There was one spot near the guy's side yard that a skidder could possibly pull out of the holler, but he wouldn't do it loaded. The side yard may have been fifty feet long and only twenty or thirty feet wide. I bet I walked that lot four different times, but finally talked myself out of it.
Believe it or not a year later an older guy with a young man helping came in and cut that lot. They had an old beat up 440, a small knuckleboom mounted on an old truck chassis, and a single axle truck to haul with. They would drop the tree buck the tree to whatever length they thought the 440 would pull out, winch the log out and load it straight on the truck. Most times the 440 wouldn't pull itself out, so they tied off to a tree up in the yard and winched themselves up, and then winched the logs up the hill. Can't say that they made any money, but they eventually cut all the timber in the holler. The fastest thing they did on the whole job was leaving. :D Ruts, girded yard tree, empty hydraulic buckets ... all left behind. Landowner raised all kinds of heck, but he did get his share of the money. Just shows you that your limiting factor is your imagination.
We've done some small stuff like that or corners of larger jobs where you sit the cat at the top of the hill and pull drum line before you cut the tree, then hook her up once she's on the ground drag the full stick up guts feathers and all. Before you guys say anything go drag 7/8" drum line for a few days with 1/2" chokers you'll find a quicker way fast.