couple pics... post what your currently cutting

[snowstorm]

plenty of big grapple skidders around. there is a 748 for short money just north of bangor

[Skeans1]

I want to see how it fits 1x. I asked the mechanic today if we could fab wheels up on 24.5 truck tires just for transport. 11'ish isn't bad, 12'6" is 😂. If not just strip the chains off and send it down the road at 2am, not the first time 🤷‍♂️ the guy screwed up telling me it came thru the auction, I'm going to buy it cheap or walk, no ones hunting those BIG skidders up here, I want to go to Brewer and see what Milton's got in the yard anyway.
I've been looking at NEW lowboys but the problem is where do you stop ? Might as well go dropside, 55ton, then your tractor isn't big enough.

Almost done re-hosing my loader, stick is swapped, poor loader is just tired but a hood will about go forever. I mean this honestly, that loader has seen more wood than alot of guys will ever cut in their lives, it worked around the clock at Finch for 4yrs before we bought it in 1991. Just keep putting grease in it and run it.

Go non ground bearing, double cantilever 10' 6" wide it'll make something that skidder a cake walk to move. Anything under 55 ton really you're pushing the trailer pretty good especially if you ever go to a shovel. How heavy is your lowboy truck speced right now?

[ehp]

Barge that was one of the reason I got rid of my forwarder. It was a real pain to move and super wide and it was not fun to drive down the road . 

[BargeMonkey]

 Get back after it again. 


 
 All the ash on this job is shot, right up on the mountain and everything is ice damaged, couple spots it's going to get the haircut. 


 

[Southside]

Friend of mine bought an old 30 ton excavator this spring at an auction and had never operated one so he asked me to load it onto the lowboy he hired to bring it home, no problem I figured.  Truck pulled in with a OLD, 8'6", drive over the rear tandem axle style lowboy.  Steel tracks on wet steel ramps, and the idlers were out to the very edge, but hey - he welded on some rebar grousers to the ramps for traction....  Not a ditch around to back the trailer into and I knew there wasn't one at my buddy's place.  I tried to walk her on a couple of times, had to judge when to stop the swing ahead of time as the brake wore out in probably 1995.  Driver didn't want to side load her and I don't blame him.  Pretty sure Barge was standing off to the side wearing his famous T-shirt by the time I said - "Nope".  Found another truck that had a detachable to come and get her.  Yea - the right trailer makes all the difference. 

[Skeans1]

 

 

 
A little bit from yesterday since we got blown out today. If we go much lower then this you're normally hitting dirt in most cases worst case it's an old growth log or stump. Also with the flare and pitch seams in these two 4 feet had to be taken off the butt to clean up.

[BargeMonkey]

@Southside oh I feel your pain, good luck loading a 30ton excavator over the tail on an old lowboy. 😆 that 330  bought wasn't bad, technically im legal weight wise, just the roads here aren't meant for it and I dragged a couple  times, it happens. 

[nativewolf]

 

 
A little bit from yesterday since we got blown out today. If we go much lower then this you're normally hitting dirt in most cases worst case it's an old growth log or stump. Also with the flare and pitch seams in these two 4 feet had to be taken off the butt to clean up.

Nice!  How goes the rebuild?  

[Skeans1]

@nativewolf still waiting on parts other then it taking up the main bay in the shop it's not hurting anything being down. In this size of wood where the small stuff is around the 3' mark across the hinge the forwarder wouldn't be much use other then for pulp clean up. Even the harvester is parked till I get enough smaller stuff to make it worth while to process at the end of the week most of this stuff is going out just as fast as I can get it down.

[nativewolf]

Good deal and good timing.  When you get them out are your loading with your track hoe with the grapple?  Or ? 

Does the mill send trucks since you have such nice wood?

[Skeans1]

@nativewolf 
All logs are loaded with our shovel it's small enough the grapples can fully reach around for a grab.

I've never heard of the mills sending trucks in all the years I've been around, now I've heard of them paying for the trucking before for certain things like poles. Even as it is we do our own trucking we are a full service setup it's almost a must out here.

[nativewolf]

Gotcha, I knew you had a shovel.  Didn't know you did your own trucking but that makes sense, especially given the amount of thinnings that you do.  Your volume per day must be pretty high.  How many drivers do you keep busy?

Here in VA we have started the winter dance of mud/dry condtions.  We've got a couple of nice trees down low on a slop and it is wet, we might chain them up and pull them back up the slope but we don't know.  

Otherwise we've been cleaning up some of the prior work and trying to get ready for a decent amount of yellow poplar to hit the landing.  

The long bridge timbers are great still.  Pricing is strong.  Black oak and red oak are still problematic.  The butts are ok but the rest of the log...either fence boards or bridge timbers.  Crazy.  30" diameter 3 side clear NRO is that is just lovely and ...it is worth more to me as a fence board log.  

[Skeans1]

@nativewolf 
Right now one can pretty much out run everything I can cut one of the mills is only 10 road miles away. When we are going good in the thinning I can do 5 to 6 loads a day which depending on distance is 2 trucks a a day running steady. I'm not sure what we would do without at least one truck of our own it's hard enough to get a second truck some times to do an extra couple of loads. Also couldn't image not being able to move our own equipment in about half an hour I can have one of our truck switched over from long logger to fifth wheel lowboy well our second truck is still able to haul wood the only thing we have to call out for is over 90' long we can't legally haul that in Oregon.

Sounds like in the winter you could have more use for a grapple track skidder they will go a lot of places no need for chains or anything else plus some have winches built in. 

[mudfarmer]

While reclaiming old pasture we have cut tractor trailer loads of hawthorn. Nasty nasty stuff. Today was no different, 2x 1 ton mason body loads but had an epiphany! A great anniversary present would wto get someone with a mulcher in to tackle the other pasture  8)



 

 

[ehp]

NW, the other day I sent some red oak for container logs again, I hope that market picks up some more as for just normal red oak to the mill the price is just no good and its a shame to cut them into timber logs . Here the mills have their own trucks , they come pick the load up and they charge you whatever the amount is and take that off what the load was worth and on average charge about 1/2 the cost of private truckers

[brianJ]

While reclaiming old pasture we have cut tractor trailer loads of hawthorn. Nasty nasty stuff. Today was no different, 2x 1 ton mason body loads 

My experience is that stuff stump sprouts too much and it is much better to pull them out with a chain and take some roots with it.    Then push in a pile.  

[mudfarmer]

While reclaiming old pasture we have cut tractor trailer loads of hawthorn. Nasty nasty stuff. Today was no different, 2x 1 ton mason body loads

My experience is that stuff will stump sprout a lot and it is better to use a chain to rip them out and bring some roots along.   Then push them into a pile.

Agreed! My tractors have a hard time pulling the big stumps, most really can't unless I do the old dig and chop to get some of the larger roots. We use pigs to do the stumping job now, so I just cut them, even when dormant.. The honeysuckle gets chained to the tractor and pulled out whole. A mini/midi excavator would be a wayyy better present but for the quality I can afford right now it would cost more than pigs per stump to keep running   ;D

[mike_belben]

If you can kill it with something.. Glyphosate, diesel, whatever... Then bury with dirt to keep moisture up so the bugs start breaking it down faster etc..

Once dead and rotting a little, a 3 point single bottom turnover plow can sever the roots and turn up small stumps by making passes on all sides.  Especially if you sharpen the cutting face. Pull coulter wheel first.  What u cant cut will rot faster from the water.  And every stump comes out much easier when saturated.  I dump drums of water in stump holes before they let go. 

[mudfarmer]

Between the beech and hawthorn we have done a lot of experimenting with killing off sprouting stumps but no chemicals, sorry. This year's garden was so thick with hawthorn two years ago you could not crawl on hands and knees through it. Some of our biggest, 8" on the stumps or worse two or three or five 6" grown together.

 Big old nasty boar hog + grain + fruits and veggies + a week in a movable shed on skids with built in fence and the stump can be pulled out by hand if you were so inclined. Pick the rocks till and go. If multiple pigs, wet or too long in one spot may need to subsoil. Your mileage may vary! Chickens work really well on dead stumps that have started to rot  ;D

[mike_belben]

No kidding.  


So are you drilling a bulb auger hole near the stump for feed and letting the pig dig it up?   

Tell us more please.

[chet]

A pig can and WILL unearth anything, not for any special reason, only can they can.  :D

[mudfarmer]

No kidding.  


So are you drilling a bulb auger hole near the stump for feed and letting the pig dig it up?  

Tell us more please.

Don't really have to do anything special with the boar, like chet said he just likes to root and dig and if there is an obstacle in his way all the better. Does not hurt to scatter some food around the stump if that's your goal but he will do the job either way. The girls and growers can use more enticement than that sometimes.
They build a decent woods road too, roll the big rocks out of the way and grade it after if you left them in too long. Just like a dog or a horse or a human they like to have a purpose and something to do all day rather than laying around. They get all the sticks and roots and pull the rocks up for you too. It's like passive earth work except you have to feed them and move the fencing Oh and then you get to eat them
This used to be a hawthorn thicket


 
This too but not as bad


 
These movable pens on skids are the ticket for stumpin', pull it right over the stump with tractor even if the pig is still in there. Or just keep moving it up your new road every few days and don't have to move fencing. This one has seen better days and got ripped apart pulling it out of frozen mud but some GRK screws and some swear words it went back together and still lives on. 4x6x14ft cedar skids so they have a covered shed in the back to get out of the weather and an open fenced in spot up front. This one was in same spot too long when pic was taken


 

[mike_belben]

Wow.. I been around hogs a bit but didnt know they were that fast at it.   I got offered free huge grumpy boars a while back but they were swimmin in their own cesspool.. Just wasnt appealing to eat and i didnt think of them as excavators and sure didnt want to feed them. 


I built a mobile A frame chicken coop with about a 10x8 footprint for garden expansion.  My compost pile ended up becoming an epic black soldier fly larvae producer this year and ive decided this spring i will run the chickens on compost full of larvae to supplement feed or maybe replace it if i can successfully breed the BSFLs.. No luck this year.  Anyway let the chickens rototill and fertilize the compost in for me then move the coop again.   Id'a done it this year but no plucker, chest freezer not set up and another chore to do ontop of a thousand others.  Wife's friend has too many chickens and gives us more eggs than we can eat thru summer.  


Hoping to grow 2 pigs and a hereford or angus or perhaps a H/A cross in a year.  First time, just for us.  Will slaughter at home.  Slowly thinning the woodlot into an oak savannah.. Want to keep some shade.  Raddish, kale, chard and turnip all do pretty well in my poor native dirt and bring the deer.  Figured other critters will do fine on forage as well. 


How are hogs at fending off coyotes?   Nice sod roof btw.  

[Walnut Beast]

Hopefully the PIGS 🐷 will get some Christmas goodies for working so hard 😂🐷🐖

[JJ]

  

Some Pig

Is that Charlotte's Web?