Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods

[Ron Scott]

Sorry to hear about your pap. Such individuals are among the forest's "vanishing breed."

[paulpieter]

First started cutting and hauling with my Pa in the 60's. He operated a landscaping business and removing dead elms was the order of the day and there were many and they were huge. All I remember is that Pa had a Pioneer saw which weighed a ton, with a manual oiler. Safety gear was unheard of; no hearing protection, no head or eye protection, no chainsaw pants, nothing. That might explain why I can't hear what I don't want to hear.

We took it all home and heated with it. The wiry elm wood is vivid in my mind today as if it was yesterday, and it was my job to split it with an axe and two wedges and a maul. I would drive the wedge clear through and it still wouldn't split. The second wedge was to rescue the first, but I got through it in time.

Then left for school and a life long career that is soon ended.

9 years ago I bought 80 acres of bush -- half wild mostly hardwoods, half reforested farm fields of white spruce and some tamarack and white pine. It is now an FSC certified woodlot - follow a management prescription -- don't cut faster than it grows, biodiversity, clear trails etc. So I figure 10 years of aggregate time is fairly accurate.

[timberjack240]

i myself have ben around this business since i was born .. i started loggin w my pap when i was 15 i started skiddin. i cut my first tree at 17 and started cuttin all the tiem when i was 18 19 and now about all i do is cut down. i have my cdl and haul logs from time to time.. some say i have five years of service .. i say at the most i have 3 1/2 .. i factored in all my no work time  and nov1 was the 3 year mark and ive worked 3 days since then due to no work  : . we also cut firewood liek wild .. 4 of us w jsust our tractor becasue the skidder was tied up cut 10 cords and hauled 7 in 8 hrs and took a lunch break and multiple breaks int he 100 deg afternoon  ;D i also worked at a dry kiln stackin and stripping lumber.. im more into the woods work myself   all i kno basically is wood haha

[IMOWOOD]

I I grew up on a dairy farm and we always logged in the winter i can remember setting chokers when i was about 10-12 or so and keeping track of the gas jugs.  But i never thought of it as a career till i went to college for forestry.  I would say I have 5 years of full time logging experience.  I did some buying/selling of timber on and off but i was just never into talking to land owners, always felt like a used car salsmen.  I can remember buyers asking my dad to sell his timber and they would always be making empty promices. So i never wanted to be like that so i just stick to the logging end.   

[mrnero]

What is the total number of experience you have Logging and working in the woods. (Round to the closest number

Hmmmm !  How come there is no "hours" of experience listed for me to pick from on this survey poll.  Oh well!!  Let me see, thats 15 minutes in 2001, 19 minutes in 2006 and 78 minutes last week .  Heck, I'll just round it off to one year experience. thats close enough. ;D ;D ;D ;D


Mrnero

PS. forgot to mention that my experience was cutting down a fresh christmas tree, annually.

[Holmes]

I grew up with wood heat,started stacking and hauling in wood when I was 10. Dad had a few buck saws ,sledge hammer and wedges then he got a homelite that took at least a hundred pulls to start. I,ve cut firewood most of my life , now I have  swing mill that needs logs logs logs.

[nas]

What is the total number of experience you have Logging and working in the woods. (Round to the closest number

Hmmmm !  How come there is no "hours" of experience listed for me to pick from on this survey poll.  Oh well!!  Let me see, thats 15 minutes in 2001, 19 minutes in 2006 and 78 minutes last week .  Heck, I'll just round it off to one year experience. thats close enough. ;D ;D ;D ;D


Mrnero

PS. forgot to mention that my experience was cutting down a fresh christmas tree, annually.

It took 78 minutes to cut down a Christmas tree ??? ;) :D

[Mooseherder]

I grew up with wood heat,started stacking and hauling in wood when I was 10. Dad had a few buck saws ,sledge hammer and wedges then he got a homelite that took at least a hundred pulls to start. I,ve cut firewood most of my life , now I have  swing mill that needs logs logs logs.

Welcome Holmes!
I've got an old Homelite that takes a hundred pulls to start also.  It didn't use to be that way.
I bet your tired of Fire Wood by now. :D
Tell us about your Swingmill.

[Holmes]

Thanks for the welcome Mooseherder  I bought a 9 year old Lucas 613 Everything seems in good working order. My first log was a red oak 11' long 22" dia I cut some 2x4 1.5x4 and 4x6s . My second log was a crooked cherry.I set it up wrong and turned it into a 14' long half round tapered wedge, nice grain though. I also cut 2 pines 12' long 22"dia  made some 6x6 and 4x6 to use to set up the mill properly.  Holmes

[thecfarm]

holmes,welcome to the forum.I always like to know,what's the plan for the lumber?

[Holmes]

holmes,welcome to the forum.I always like to know,what's the plan for the lumber?

In Ma. all lumber must be certified and stamped for  construction to pass a building inspection and everything has to be inspected.I will be building some sheds for my equipment and the mill. Should this be posted under outlaw buildings?

[Virginialogging]

Okay, I'm the new kid. I put 20 years in as that's the total for actual full time logging.
Sure, I cut fire wood and cleared some ground before that but as a part timer.

Started out as a Horse logger for about 12 years then went mechanical skidding.
Whilst hunting for some more sources for caulk boots I ran across this site and jined up.

Merry Christmas everyone.

[chucker]

  im called woodchuck from my family and friends, chucker for short. 52 years wet behind the ears ....  started working in the woods with my dad when i was 10 . we cut pulp and fire wood for sale and for the neighbors here in centeral minnesota. hauled and loaded pulp in an old 1950 ford ? f1 3/4 ton truck. loaded pulp by hand into rail cars for northwest paper co. in brainerd. dad pulled logs and most of the wood with a team of horses, as well as a jd b in later years .i still have dads orignal homelite saw with the gas tank on top of the motor old blue. 28 " beaver tail and around 5 horse power. things sure have changed!
now i use a arctic cat 300 and a home made skidder with a hand winch to pull logs from the woods and a small trailer to keep from damageing the trees on a lot clearing job . when ever pulp is at a fair market value the small unit comes handy for a one man operation and a fair days wage. over the years i have learned a lot from watching the ole man of the northern forest do the best he could to do for a family of 12 kids and mom. any more its do what it takes to stay in the game, without woods in my life and more wood in my veins its a short story!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

[Quebecnewf]

How long have I been in the woods???

I am 50 now if you X that by 365 you get 18250 days  and all the best days out of that were the ones I spent in the woods the other days were just wasted waiting to get in the woods.

Quebecnewf

[saltydog]

my first job was cutting cedar post and tie cuts i cut our 40 before out of highschool carried it all out on our shoulders then moved up to a honda 3004x4 that was in the mid 80s never could understand working for minimum wage i made a weeks wage in 1 or2 days have had up to a 6 man felling crew 311hydroax 3 forwarders now its just me and my tree farmer less stress less wood to buy  im now 42 never bought any state or federal stumpage only private never left the county i live in farthest job from home was 35 miles  im a lucky guy but its getting harder every year 16 to 42 but did have a few trial jobs in there so around 20 or so years

[forest.c]

well I worked in the woods 5yrs before going to the starch plant it closed last june the coldest winter iv ever seen was the winter I lived in a converted school bus in baxter park cutting wood in the expermental forestry area. also worked in haynsvillea coupla years cutting budworm damage

[quietrangr]

39 years this coming spring, and still going. For 15 years I took summers off to do tree service.

[timberjack240]

my pap had aprox 48 years in i jsut talked to his childhood friend a few days ago .. he is 64 or 65 and has been workin int he woods since he was 10 or so... during that time he worked a factory job for about 6 months and the rest was spent cuttin mostly pulpwood and firewood when things got tuff.. you dont find em liek that much anymore

[poor farmer/logger]

I put down 15 years. Been in the bush longer then that but that's roughtly the amount of time I've been actually felling and skiding trees. Was pretty well raised in the bush but unless you count keeping the fire going that's about right.lol..

Ryan

[treefarmer87]

i started when i was 12 with a homelite the moved up to a sthil, and now i have the jonsered 2171, i didnt start full time till about a year or so ago, i am only 22 but i dont wanna do anything else but cut timber

[Emajsh]

I started when i was around 16 with a little echo cutting up and stacking 4ft and 8ft pulp  on the landing. We've always been small scale with small john deere skidders and dozers. Its been 14 or 15 years now and i still use a small john deere skidder,either a 440B or a 340D and do our road work with a 450D. I now use a husky 385XP or  372XP but thats about all that has changed from when i was younger.

[chain]

I've actively managed our family forest farm for twenty years or more. I do boundary marking, tree marking for harvest, timber stand improvement, using chainsaw and chemical applications for culling. Owned a band-saw for five years, cut timbers and lumber for farm use, built a solar dry-kiln from lumber as well as a forest cabin.

Also, my pet project is restoring a severely eroding woods-stream to more natural ecology friendly stream. Developed wildlife watering areas and food plots as well as thinning for more diversity in bird species and forest animals. Saw first black bear tracks ever, three years ago, a happy day! All in all, a great winter-time hobby but I'm outta there when tick season arrives! ;)

[windy hill farm]

I checked 30 years mostly cutting firewood. Now that i have a piece of land that i can cut logs on i will cut the tops for stove wood and keep the logs for my future mill. all the slabs can go in the wood furnace. kevin

[mr T]

I started in 1957 peeling pulp for my grand father Back then thats the only way you could rid of polar &hemlock  He was an old horse logger bucksaw &axe 77yrs & still going  I have cut wood off &on since then Sometimes for money sometimes for fun

[habaneroeater]

more years than............................................General Sherman...........lol just kidded
General Sherman is the name of a Giant Sequoia with a height of 275 feet (83.8 metres). As of 2002, the volume of its trunk measured about 1487 cubic meters, making it the largest non-clonal tree by volume.[1] The tree is located in the Giant Forest of Sequoia National Park in the United States, east of Visalia, California. The tree is believed to be between 2,300 and 2,700 years old.
nice fact... stephan