Here we go again. Cutting firewood off the edge of a field.

[cutterboy]

Hi all. Yesterday and today I've cutting at the edge of a field and transporting the wood to the barn. I can split it inside on a rainy day. It's supposed to rain tomorrow so I pushed to get a lot in. My tractor is down(starter) so I've been using the Cub Cadet.
A good stack already and bringing in more.


 

 
Now back to the field to get some more. This little pile is the leftovers from this mornings cuttings.


 
Now cutting ash and oak.


 

 

 
First pile in...


 
and the other pile and back to the barn.


 

 

Happy cutting.....Cutter

[upnut]

Nice! Clean up the edges and make BTU's, win-win...My fields are already disced to the edges so i retreated into the woods and dropped a big old knarly cherry. Large, heavy rounds. Broke out the little trailer, installed a hitch on the back and took the splitter to the tree...


 

Small trailers make more trips but fit into tighter spots.

Scott B. 

[SwampDonkey]

That's the way I get all my firewood, SxS, chainsaw and maul. I don't need a wood splitter because the wood is small or very easy to split. I have a splitter back home, but the least stuff I gotta frig with the better. :D I cut 6 cord off the bank of the road in November. Tossed right into the pickup. I'm 4 miles from the house.



Draw a line from that second man hole cover to the far left corner of the barn, that was 2-1/2 cords, now stacked under the porch on pallets. To the right of the pile I'm burning right now, it's dry seasoned. Once empty, I'll fill that up with 3 cords. Three more will go in the house, and I buy 1-1/2 cord of hard maple. ;D Mostly burn softwood and aspen, some red maple and birch. Never froze yet. This morning it is a bit hot in here. ;D

[cutterboy]

Nice! Clean up the edges and make BTU's, win-win...My fields are already disced to the edges so i retreated into the woods and dropped a big old knarly cherry. Large, heavy rounds. Broke out the little trailer, installed a hitch on the back and took the splitter to the tree...


 

Small trailers make more trips but fit into tighter spots.

Scott B.

Scott, that's the way to do it. Keep all the mess in the woods. I like the idea of installing a hitch on the trailer to pull the splitter.
I see you don't have any snow either. It's raining here now with temps going up into the 40's, so the ground will remain uncovered for a while. Now if the ground would freeze I could get into the woods.

[Arctiva]

 
here is how I roll, ut them 8 to 10 foot bring a pile right to the boiler cut em and split. 
 

[Al_Smith]

Funny thing about all this .It's been so warm,26-30 degrees I don't run the fan on the insert .If I did it would run you out .It uses just as much wood and right now it's white oak .About a face cord a week or around 4.5 cord  for the heating season .Takes about 15 minutes a day  to haul it inside from the trailer on my tractor .Maybe scoop out the ashes once every two or three days . 

[DeerMeadowFarm]

I am constantly clearing field edges....

[SwampDonkey]

I am constantly clearing field edges....

Full time job especially if you're farming. There's always leaners, windfall and limbs.

[SwampDonkey]

I burn through a wheel barrel load of wood every day when there is no sun. Mostly aspen, I throw in a stick of maple once in awhile. When there is sun I can go 2 days. I've burnt about 4 cord here since September 15th. That's 4 months. And like I've said for years, wood burns in the stove the same rate at 20F as it does 0F. Only thing that can change that, is don't put any wood in. :D

[ButchC]

I haven't had a saw in the field since last winter. Back in the fall I had a dozen big dump truck loads of Black Locust given to me by a neighbor and just today I got 7 more dump truck loads of 8 to 16' long Cherry, Maple and Beech logs from another neighbo.  Probably 4 years worth of wood for us.

[SwampDonkey]

Wood to sell now. ;D

[brianJ]

Nothing has been done on this farm to hedgerows for 30+ years.    Started 6 years ago knocking them back.   Now getting all the ash dying.     Anyway, the boss pays me to knock them back and open them up so sunlight gets to even the outside row of the crops.   Got paid & 3 one yard buckets of firewood this week.   NIce Gig that

[Al_Smith]

You can cut hedge forever because I think it propagates from the roots .There used to be hedge rows in these parts but most of them fell to the bull dozers years ago .Those and most of the the fence rows are a thing of the past along with the huge dairy barns .Parts of northern Ohio are starting to look like Kansas .

[cutterboy]

I am constantly clearing field edges....

Yes, you have to if you want to keep your fields from being taken over by trees, brush and thorns. When I was a boy, (long time ago) I used to cut along the stone walls with a hand saw. (thus the nickname cutterboy) We used to mow the hay as close to the walls as possible and the fields were kept in good shape.
About 50 years ago my father gave up dairy farming and rented out the fields. Renters don't take care of the edges of the fields, they just take the hay and run. Now the woods have encroached into the fields 10-12feet in some areas. So, here I am cutting the edges of the fields like 60 years ago, being the cutterboy again. But at least this time I have chainsaws. ;D

[thecfarm]

cutterboy, you got that right.
My Father just gave away the hay to be cut. They never took the back cut. Than the next year they was another 6 feet away from the stone wall and never took the back cut again.  :     So now we are 12 feet away from the stone wall with woods on the other side. Things are growing. So he stopped giving it away and he started to just cut the grass let it lay. Than I bought a string trimmer. He thought that was just the tool to have around the stone wall to keep up on the bushes that tried to grow on our side. Than I bought him a Craftman's riding lawn mower. Another tool to keep the bushes back. He really liked that, because he could mow a couple times around the fields and than when we burned the fields the fire had no place to get away from us. Hard to burn green grass.  ;)
We was kinda slack on a few places around here. One day all is fine, than the next there are bushes head high.    Took us a few years to get it back under control.
Than when we got a tractor with a loader, I hauled off one stone wall. Well I call it a wall. One of those walls that never got built. Just dump the rocks and go. Dribble some along the sides to make the "wall" 10 feet wide in places. I trimmed around that for more than 10 years. That was a haven for the bushes to grow around. Sumac was the worse to kill. My father mowed through them for years and I do mean years before they stopped coming up in that area. They got a hold when the hay was given away. All the rest of the bushes died out quick, he mowed it like a lawn, around the edges of the field. 

[Corley5]

I'm letting our northern hardwood have back what belongs to it in several areas on our place.    Trees have a greater benefit here than open ground  

[SwampDonkey]

Cfarm, there's a bunch that farm near here, government paid for the farm so act like them fella's that cut and run. Aspen now 30 feet into the field that was always farmed. Nothing wrong with the land, just laziness. And an attitude that some bring when they don't pay for the land. Like that other farmer dumping rocks off his rented field on my land. ;D

[Corley5]

I've got one field that is still hayed.  I go around it with the bush hog after they're done.  They don't cut as close to the edges as I would ;D

[Old saw fixer]

I think that I am going to tell guy that I give the hay to that he or his custom cutter has to take the back cut, or I'll find someone that will.  We always raised the cutter bar and cut up to edge.  Of course that was with a Ferguson TO30 and a hay mower.  I don't know if the newfangled  haybines work that way.  When the folks sold the horses the haying equipment went away as well so I have nothing to work with.

[brianJ]

cutterboy, you got that right.
My Father just gave away the hay to be cut. They never took the back cut. Than the next year they was another 6 feet away from the stone wall and never took the back cut again.  :    So now we are 12 feet away from the stone wall with woods on the other side. Things are growing. So he stopped giving it away and he started to just cut the grass let it lay. Than I bought a string trimmer. He thought that was just the tool to have around the stone wall to keep up on the bushes that tried to grow on our side. Than I bought him a Craftman's riding lawn mower. Another tool to keep the bushes back. He really liked that, because he could mow a couple times around the fields and than when we burned the fields the fire had no place to get away from us. Hard to burn green grass.  ;)
We was kinda slack on a few places around here. One day all is fine, than the next there are bushes head high.    Took us a few years to get it back under control.
Than when we got a tractor with a loader, I hauled off one stone wall. Well I call it a wall. One of those walls that never got built. Just dump the rocks and go. Dribble some along the sides to make the "wall" 10 feet wide in places. I trimmed around that for more than 10 years. That was a haven for the bushes to grow around. Sumac was the worse to kill. My father mowed through them for years and I do mean years before they stopped coming up in that area. They got a hold when the hay was given away. All the rest of the bushes died out quick, he mowed it like a lawn, around the edges of the field.

HAHA   Once upon a time or actually 5 or 6 years ago I removed two hedgerows with just a 75XT skid steer on tires.   These small odd shaped fields had been in grass I suppose the last 20 years.    Hay was cut once in the spring then grazed later in the summer.    Probably just 300 feet total length, not much brush or trees because of that grazing.    But I took out 30 buckets of rocks.    
How small and odd shaped were those fields?   All three fields got consolidated to just one triangle shaped 5.5 acre field.   It grows corn now and soon into alfalfa.  

[upnut]

Last winter I traded chainsaw work for the use of a digger to remove stumps along the woods/field edge, this is what he provided for clean up work....


  

Made stump removal a breeze!

Scott B.

[cutterboy]

Some more cutting on the edge of the field.
Five trees growing together off of an old stump. I cut two, the other three will be coming down too.


 

 

 

 

 
I've got a nice supply of wood in the barn that's ready to split.


 
Happy splitting.....Cutter

[SwampDonkey]

Typical red maple. Those small diameter maple clumps can yield a lot of firewood. The less split'n the better. ;D

[mike_belben]

Or delicious sap

:laugh:

[SwampDonkey]

Now, we don't cut the sugar maples, Mike, that's the best sap. :D ;)

[mike_belben]

Well dont get all maple elite on me now yankee.. I work with what i got!

;D

[SwampDonkey]

Have to inject a correction to my caricature, it's Maritimer, not yankee. That's a swear word, didn't ya know?  :D

[brianJ]

Have to inject a correction to my caricature, it's Maritimer, not yankee. That's a swear word, didn't ya know?  :D

This is great to know and all this time I thought Grits was the official FF cuss word.

[cutterboy]

Yesterday and this morning cutting again at the edge of the field. The snow is a foot deep and I wasn't sure how much trouble the tractor would have with that. I loaded up the rear forks with 4-footers to give the back end some weight and the tractor had no problem.


 
Problems right away! First cut...chainsaw stuck and tree hung up!


 
 

 
I had another saw and a couple of pulling chains with me so things were soon made right.


 

 
After that things went well.


 

 

 

 
Now it's snowing, so I think I'll stay in and sit by the fire. ;D

Happy cutting.....Cutter

[mudfarmer]

Looks like you are having a good time! Our snow is deep and "sugary " right to the bottom. Tractor really really does not like it if you get off a packed trail! Luckily have been cutting mostly in one spot that is hard to get to for the rest of the year so the trails are doing pretty well. Sometimes I get jealous of the flat open ground pics you guys post on here  ;D

[thecfarm]

When there is less than a foot of snow, on the edge of the field, I will start my cutting again. Or when I can see the ground, which ever comes first.   ;D

[stavebuyer]

I'm letting our northern hardwood have back what belongs to it in several areas on our place.   Trees have a greater benefit here than open ground

I own a tract on the north face of a knob that is growing hardwood at an annual rate of 600ft per acre (Doyle). Taxes are next to nothing and ground could be leased for hunting. Figure stumpage at $.30 a BF and its paying me as much as high dollar river bottom corn ground cash rents for at about 1/3 the per acre land cost.
Curious what the return might be from growing walnut and oak in good bottomland corn ground? I bet by the time you figure all the inputs the trees could be viable.

[SwampDonkey]

Land prices up this way fluctuate a lot. There is lots of it and low density population. If competition for stumpage goes gang busters wood land goes up in price from $200/acre to $1500/acre. I've seen stumpage as high as $2000/acre and you don't even own it, and that is based on softwood logs and hardwood/popple pulp. We tend to hang onto our woodland though, taxes are about nil. But a lot of us were raised on cutting and selling wood the last 50 years. ;D Before that, our grandfather's used it for their own needs. Mills will pickup woodlot ground from heirship sales. The family wants sale money, and have no interest in the woods. That's how some recent ground got acquired. No sooner than they buried their mother and I seen mill orange painted lines and corner posts, that was never painted and marked for 100 years. :D It's terrible rough ground though with an old esker up through it. Steep slopes and gullies but full of gravel to. It's a climb up to the main road.

[SwampDonkey]

Curious what the return might be from growing walnut and oak in good bottomland corn ground? I bet by the time you figure all the inputs the trees could be viable.

If you're in a high population of deer, it ain't as simple and sticking trees in the mud. ;D Wait until they chew off all the tree tops for lunch. :D And the voles and mice girdle what is left that winter. ;D I know if I planted a field of yellow birch, the few deer we have here, would be moving in and those trees would be gone in 2 weeks. Did it on a couple sites, so have experience in that venture. :D

[farmfromkansas]

Hey cutterboy, how do you get around with that yellow ford?  Had one of those years ago, and I was stuck if we had any moisture. Did get a set of chains so I could push snow, made a huge difference.  Mine had turf tires, added wheel weights which helped some.

[stavebuyer]

Curious what the return might be from growing walnut and oak in good bottomland corn ground? I bet by the time you figure all the inputs the trees could be viable.

If you're in a high population of deer, it ain't as simple and sticking trees in the mud. ;D Wait until they chew off all the tree tops for lunch. :D And the voles and mice girdle what is left that winter. ;D I know if I planted a field of yellow birch, the few deer we have here, would be moving in and those trees would be gone in 2 weeks. Did it on a couple sites, so have experience in that venture. :D

We have lots of deer but its a full time job here to keep ground from converting itself from open to wooded. Ask the electric company lol

[SwampDonkey]

Let'r go. Then the battle between you and the bushes is over. 8) :D :D  A 20 stemmed coppiced tree is worth less than a single stemmed one that could potentially make a log in the future. But if they both turn out to be firewood, probably the coppiced one will bring in more dollars, at the very least more heat. :D

[cutterboy]

Hey cutterboy, how do you get around with that yellow ford?  Had one of those years ago, and I was stuck if we had any moisture. Did get a set of chains so I could push snow, made a huge difference.  Mine had turf tires, added wheel weights which helped some.

It's not a Ford. It's a Massey Ferguson. Because of the heavy front end loader it is light in the rear. However, if I put weight in the back it's ok in the snow.

[cutterboy]

I moved to another field. Just some pictures cutting along the edge.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
I now have plenty of wood in the barn to split and it is snowing right now so I guess I'll be splitting and stacking today.

   Happy splitting.....Cutter