couple pics... post what your currently cutting

[ehp]

Had quite a few log buyers this week and all say the same thing . Next spring its not going to be good around here .  Lots of guys are going to have to park their equipment 

[ehp]

And again Barge is the smart one and making the big coin and buying everyone's equipment for pennies on the dollar

[SwampDonkey]

Those old prairie gullies are where old Bernstein in ND cuts his firewood and logs, oak and ash. Everything on level ground is old pasture and fields. I'd rather cut on flat ground, and that's where I cut my firewood from. My wet runs are full of spruce and some tamarack I put in. Tamarack grows fast and can grow on top of water practically. Cedar eventually creeps in, slowly, as long as there is seed. I don't have much for cedar seed, would rather have cedar than tamarack, but no need of complaining about what nature doesn't provide. :D Spruce will do surprisingly well on wet ground as long as you have lateral flow. Some pretty good size diameters of spruce and not even 30 years yet. For about 10 years the ground looks open, but by 25 years you will change your mind. :D I have a section of older fir, probably an acre, a lot of wood standing. I cut 4 cord by thinning it along the perimeter of it were the ground starts to change because I could get at some leaning popples from Arthur. It was probably a 15% cut just taking leaners and stuff in bad shape, for firewood. It wasn't even 1/4 of the ground. Trail started to get wet with rain so I got that out and moved out by the road for another 4. That's the extend of my annual harvest. Well, besides a couple cord earlier in the year. Everything takes 4 x the effort without big equipment. ;) :D

[SwampDonkey]

Ground is getting solid around here, it has never been above freezing for over a week. Was in the teens yesterday am and this morning. No big snow storms showing up, just 2-4" stuff. Suppose to get a little bit Sunday, but just light fine stuff.

[leeroyjd]

Tracks, Diffs locked, no go up the main trail.  A bit steep .  Forwarder is old and I need to baby it 6 months til a. Ew one magically appears

Tracks tight?

[nativewolf]

Good question!  I am thinking of cutting a bar out, I do have lots of various link sizes.  However the harvester with new tracks and tires (new) was slipping so I chalk it up to a challenging trail.  Good idea

[nativewolf]

@nativewolf
What's steep? 30 degrees?

Maybe so, old mntn.  Sandy soil and not enough rock in the soil.  

[bigblockyeti]

Decent tract but the buy in was high and was split with many buyers, I'll be lucky if I can get one post from it, only 4" DBH.  At least it's making a few people happy.



 

[Southside]

I hope you deducted it back to 10' for the short trim and dropped the grade due to excessive knots. 

[bigblockyeti]

I hope you deducted it back to 10' for the short trim and dropped the grade due to excessive knots.

Priced at 9' but still $200

[nativewolf]

 

 

 

 

[PoginyHill]

NW, is the heart on the yellow poplar typical size? Or smaller than normal. Quite a bit smaller than what we see further north.

[BAN]

Some pretty nice Grand fir. Have to haul 150 miles to find mill that takes big logs

 

[nativewolf]

NW, is the heart on the yellow poplar typical size? Or smaller than normal. Quite a bit smaller than what we see further north.

Smaller, this generally means very fast growing wood.  I know you know your veneer but YP veneer is a bit different.  They want large sapwood rings, usually 50-60% sapwood. Last year it had hit almost $2/bf which is crazy for such a commodity product.  Most loggers just don't separate it - they don't know it is a market.  Many small mills just saw it.

[SwampDonkey]

Priced at 9' but still $200

:D I get mine for $30 Canuck bucks, but 7', not 12'. Pricey neighbourhood out your way. :D

I seen 6 footers at Lowes 4 years ago, US$60 bucks. Doh!

[SwampDonkey]

Birch heartwood size up here never seemed to matter on grade, but it does on sugar maple. But from what I've seen on here, we aren't getting the best prices either. Still a lot more than log prices. Logs have never been much better than pulp price, so most never separate it for pennies. Log buyers here are used to cheap wood because of crown wood, without that cheap source of wood there wouldn't be a mill. Every commercial operation here is tied to the hip to crown timber.

We've had an aspen veneer market here one time, but they only paid about $10 more than pulp price. Not much incentive for all the extra handling and making a larger yard to sort. A lot of aspen is full of conk at old branch knots. Tree looks good in the crown but getting eaten inside out. The aspen across the road from my lot is all dying and falling down, barely 30 years old. I've also cut a lot of cankered stuff to. Aspen doesn't do all that great from suckering, needs a good fire. The original aspen was after fire in my area, got to over 30", measured some 44". None of this will ever get there, except maybe large tooth. That stuff grows 30% faster than trembling, rings finger width apart.

[PoginyHill]

NW, is the heart on the yellow poplar typical size? Or smaller than normal. Quite a bit smaller than what we see further north.

Smaller, this generally means very fast growing wood.  I know you know your veneer but YP veneer is a bit different.  They want large sapwood rings, usually 50-60% sapwood. Last year it had hit almost $2/bf which is crazy for such a commodity product.  Most loggers just don't separate it - they don't know it is a market.  Many small mills just saw it.

We cut yellow poplar veneer for faces/backs (procurement area is normally southern New England - occasionally as far south as WV if we get desperate). Most do not have a sap ring as big as those you showed. I'm familiar with the YP used for core veneer as well - they don't care so much about sap.

[Resonator]

When I hauled Christmas trees years back, we could cut it in the morning in WI, and have it fresh at the tree lot in big cities by that evening. Would sell the big tall trees to people with big homes with high vaulted ceilings. Could charge a pretty penny (which they'd pay), but the trees had to be NICE.

[beenthere]

I'm cutting a tree in the morning and hauling 21' of it's 30+ feet on a trailer to be erected in a stand by noon on Friday. Should be fresh. 



 

[Walnut Beast]

Look forward to seeing more pictures 

[caveman]

Back before I switched over from teaching science and social studies to ag in 2000, I moonlighted at a Christmas tree lot.  We would get trucks in, unload and distribute trees to other lots around Florida.  One night while I was working at the juvenile detention center during the day, I got back to the central tree lot after hauling a hundred trees to Clearwater.  This was around 10 p.m.  The boss told me the rental Kenworth box truck was loaded and I just had one more delivery and I could go home.  The load was to go to Jacksonville.  With that truck running on the governor the whole way there, we quickly unloaded the trees and headed back to Lakeland.  When I got home, I recall taking a shower and washing with GoJoe pumice hand cleaner to get some of the sap off and heading the 45 minutes to Bartow to try to stay awake amongst a bunch of felons and head back to the tree lot afterwards.  I think I worked over 40 days straight like that.  Most nights I was home before midnight.

We got 18-24' Douglas Firs from Oregon.  Most of those went into churches or banks.  If I recall, they stacked 50-60 in a refer.  Back in those days, I could carry one of those solo.  We got Noble Firs from somewhere, Scotch Pine from Michigan, Frazer Firs from NC, Balsam Firs from Canada, Blue Spruce from Colorado (giant sandspurs), and probably others that I've forgotten.  Some of the trees would come in in (Tom) trailers packed in snow.  We moved and sold about 50,000 trees that year.  I got paid on Christmas Eve, $500 for the whole 40 something days.  I worked it again for a friend after the other boss died, but I made it clear that I had to be properly compensated and I was.

At the original tree lot, I was on top of a trailer stacking trees to go to another lot when a friend/co-worked yelled to me, "get him, Kyle".  Realize this lot was in a sketchy area of town (hobos, drugs, projects).  I saw a figure come running by and I bailed off of the pile of trees loaded 8' high on the trailer and began the chase.  I assumed he robbed the tree lot.  I chased him about a block and decided if he made it across Hwy. 98 before I could catch him, he could go on his way.  He stumbled in the middle of the road, right in front of me.  Within a short time, there were several cops with guns drawn down on him.  At this time, I was hoping he was over 17 or he'd likely be in my class in a few hours at the JDC.  Turns out that he was over 18, punched an old lady in the face while she sat in her daughter's car at a convenience store and stole her purse.

Since this thread is about cutting, we put a fresh cut on the bottom of all of the trees we sold and trimmed the lower limbs too.

[newoodguy78]

I picked up a load of trees in northern Vermont Monday afternoon. All cut and wrapped while I was headed up. Unloaded and displayed them today. Sold 3 in the process. Fortunately there was no foot chases involved. 

[Skeans1]

Back before I switched over from teaching science and social studies to ag in 2000, I moonlighted at a Christmas tree lot.  We would get trucks in, unload and distribute trees to other lots around Florida.  One night while I was working at the juvenile detention center during the day, I got back to the central tree lot after hauling a hundred trees to Clearwater.  This was around 10 p.m.  The boss told me the rental Kenworth box truck was loaded and I just had one more delivery and I could go home.  The load was to go to Jacksonville.  With that truck running on the governor the whole way there, we quickly unloaded the trees and headed back to Lakeland.  When I got home, I recall taking a shower and washing with GoJoe pumice hand cleaner to get some of the sap off and heading the 45 minutes to Bartow to try to stay awake amongst a bunch of felons and head back to the tree lot afterwards.  I think I worked over 40 days straight like that.  Most nights I was home before midnight.

We got 18-24' Douglas Firs from Oregon.  Most of those went into churches or banks.  If I recall, they stacked 50-60 in a refer.  Back in those days, I could carry one of those solo.  We got Noble Firs from somewhere, Scotch Pine from Michigan, Frazer Firs from NC, Balsam Firs from Canada, Blue Spruce from Colorado (giant sandspurs), and probably others that I've forgotten.  Some of the trees would come in in (Tom) trailers packed in snow.  We moved and sold about 50,000 trees that year.  I got paid on Christmas Eve, $500 for the whole 40 something days.  I worked it again for a friend after the other boss died, but I made it clear that I had to be properly compensated and I was.

At the original tree lot, I was on top of a trailer stacking trees to go to another lot when a friend/co-worked yelled to me, "get him, Kyle".  Realize this lot was in a sketchy area of town (hobos, drugs, projects).  I saw a figure come running by and I bailed off of the pile of trees loaded 8' high on the trailer and began the chase.  I assumed he robbed the tree lot.  I chased him about a block and decided if he made it across Hwy. 98 before I could catch him, he could go on his way.  He stumbled in the middle of the road, right in front of me.  Within a short time, there were several cops with guns drawn down on him.  At this time, I was hoping he was over 17 or he'd likely be in my class in a few hours at the JDC.  Turns out that he was over 18, punched an old lady in the face while she sat in her daughter's car at a convenience store and stole her purse.

Since this thread is about cutting, we put a fresh cut on the bottom of all of the trees we sold and trimmed the lower limbs too.

We use to do Nobles around that size it use to be our specialty 10' plus sheared number 1's *DanG things where heavy too. Last one we did 10 plus years ago were 14 to 15 ft took 5 guys to lift them and a winch to get them on the bailer deck to get through the cone to wrap them. Tallest we sent out as a sheared tree was 20' and was not a fun project to say the least.

[SwampDonkey]

Cousins here cut Christmas trees 7 days a week for 6 weeks, rain, snow, sunshine. One to two boxed tractor-trailer trucks a day leaves Mon-Friday. Height looks mostly 6-7 footers, but have seen some 10-12 footers in the staging area. I know one thing, Fraser Fir is lighter than Balsam. Balsam is real heavy. My 7 footer I got this year was a Fraser and real light. I cut a lot of wild balsam that size and they ain't easy to pick up. Lots heavier than spruce. I cut a lot of black spruce for corduroy rails, they are like cedar fence post light - green. :D

[nativewolf]

Been a very horrible year here and I am thankful for all those that posted pictures, each and everyone has distracted & cheered me up.  Many thanks on thanksgiving.