Cedar Eater's Oak Sawlog Sale

[Cedar Eater]

Well, It's finally happening. The first attempt to sell these 50 Northern Red Oaks (NROs) fell through after the logger put 10% down and paid a 10% bond. So I ended up with 20% payment and not a tree cut. My consultant forester found another buyer and he started earlier this week. Here's some photos.

This pictures shows how low the stumps have to be cut per the contract terms. The logger wasn't happy, but I'll have more blocks for my lopro splitter. This is a triple trunk oak.




The logger is felling and bucking, but leaving the tops and blocks behind.




I'm hoping this beech on the right won't get creamed by the oak, but the lean doesn't look good.



Ceadar Eater

[Rob]

 Nice logs Cedar I'm suprised not to see any snow up that way,we got more coming today... :-[ I can't really tell from that pic but the logger should have no problem overcoming that lean to avoid the Beech,if you had some more shots I could tell you better..Nice work though.

                                     Later Rob.

[Cedar Eater]

Nice logs Cedar I'm suprised not to see any snow up that way,we got more coming today... :-[ I can't really tell from that pic but the logger should have no problem overcoming that lean to avoid the Beech,if you had some more shots I could tell you better..Nice work though.

We got very little snow this winter (it was too cold). We had a few warm days and what we had melted quickly.

I'll try to get a better picture of the lean or at least the post-fall result.

Cedar Eater

[Jeff]

C.E., were most of these up on that hill above the cedars out near the road? I think that must have been one year ago we walked around up there. Seems that it was before snow. Stacy and I are making a project today with one of the slabs from the Cedar Eater Cedar Log. I'll post a picture when we are finished.  That log is providing us with lots of projects.

[Rob]

C.E. that would be great if you could get a few more pics of that tree,I could tell you a little better then..I wish we did'nt get any snow this winter although it did help my cordwood sales so I can't complain..Keep in touch

                               Later Rob.

[Cedar Eater]

C.E., were most of these up on that hill above the cedars out near the road? I think that must have been one year ago we walked around up there. Seems that it was before snow. Stacy and I are making a project today with one of the slabs from the Cedar Eater Cedar Log. I'll post a picture when we are finished.  That log is providing us with lots of projects.

Yes, those were pretty close to the old scorched white pine stump that you pointed out. I'm getting all 50 NROs from the crescent shaped ridge around the cedar swamp. It's about 20 acres.

I'm looking forward to the pictures from that log.

Cedar Eater

[Cedar Eater]

Just took some more pictures.

This picture shows the oak in the center leaning toward the beech. The beech looks small, but it's about 8" DBH and is one of the largest I have. Ideally, the oak should fall left or straight toward the viewer, but there will probable be some crown interaction with the beech. I'm hoping that more beeches will grow in this area when the oak overstory is gone.





The oak is in the center and you can see how it has few branches to the right and many to the left. The branches on the left are intertwined in the beech crown. It would need to fall to the right and twist 90 degrees while falling to completely spare the beech.





This top came down through the crown of this clumped red maple. The maple is marked for a pulp sale that had to be postponed until next fall. I've got many maples this crappy that shouldn't have been left during an aspen harvest about 20 years ago.




This oak looked coreshot when cut, but after two blocks of less than 2 ft. ea. were cut off, the logger got two good logs.




These two tops will go into my lopro splitter.






Cedar Eater

[Rob]

C.E. nice pics again,that Oak should'nt be anything that you could'nt overcome with a conventional notch/back cut and a few wedges especially if the other Oak is going as well.It looks to me like the best bet would be to aim it towards the view from the camera,I see it has a rather large leader off to the right hand side but by leaving a good amount more holding wood on the oppisite side that should be no problem..I think your Beech will definetly live to see another day  8)..Let us know how things turn out when the action happens.

                                  Rob.

[Jeff]

Carl,
The shelf supporting the logging sled is a chuck of the cedar eater cedar log. The photo above the shelve is my 1 dollar find.



This is on the end of Tammy's closet from My wife has a big hammer thread.

[Cedar Eater]

Before/After! The beech is spared. I talked with the logger and he thunk it out to offer me the option of sparing the beech if I sacrificed the maples that are shown behind them in the first picture (and gone in the second). That was a nobrainer. He said the lean in combination with the stump rot was just too much to allow more than about 20 degrees of deflection from the "natural" fall.






This is one of the maples that was sacrificed to spare the beech. The other one was smaller.




Mrs. CE is happy with the result (and that's important).




Me with the other NRO near the beech.




Cedar Eater

[Rob]

 Nice pics C.E. I'm glad to see that the Beech was saved,I can see why the Maple had to go man looks like a little stump rot defintely would have caused a problem trying to fell it the way I was talking about..Sweet pics though so how is it coming along?

                                              Rob

[Rob]

C.E.,

      How's the timber harvesting coming along has there been more progress since the last post??

                                    Rob.

[Jeff]

Jeez, I hope he didnt turn into an Oak Eater, that'll tear ya up.

[Rob]

 Jeff by the looks of the harvest he very well may have converted to a Oak Eater..Only he can tell us for sure though  ;D

                                   Later Rob.

[Cedar Eater]

All 51 oaks are felled and bucked, but the logger left temporarily to cut oaks on 2 small jobs right nearby for the same buyer and same consultant. The risk of oak wilt goes up quickly after mid-April, so getting them all down makes sense. It's been raining a lot lately, so I haven't got any more pictures, but I counted 110 rings on one big boy. I'll try to get a picture of it because it has an interesting ring aroud age 40 where the logger thinks it survived a fire.

Another tree was right on the edge of the cedars and had obvious stump rot. The logger cut four 3' blocks before he found sound wood. He got two sawlogs from it. I looked back at the inventory and that's exactly what the forester had estimated. I'll get a picture of that one too.

I've started splitting some of the big blocks with my lopro splitter. I worked most of a day and only got about half a cord. This was a shakedown run for the repaired hoist.

[Rob]

Sounds good C.E glad to hear they're all felled an bucked I would be interested in viewing a pick of that growth ring if you do decide to snap some more pics.

                                 Rob.

[Cedar Eater]

Here's the big boy of the bunch. I posted this picture a while back. That's me standing next to it and I'm 6'5". It's 36+" DBH.




Here's that big boy on the ground. I counted 110 growth rings




Here's a closer view of the probable burn ring at about age 40.




Here's the stumprotted tree that was bad for the first 15'. It's about 32" DBH. The logger was trying to pull it to the right, but it fell right on the natural lean and right into the cedar swamp.




This block came off the stump visible behind it. It's about 4' X 4'. My splitter might choke on it. I'll try to get a picture when I hoist it.

[Rob]

 C.E,

       Nice pics once again,that tree ring is rather odd looking could be burn ring or maybe shake can't really tell.The other tree below it man I see why it went in the direction of it's lean there's no way he could have established a hinge with all that rot present.Let us know how the rest goes and the splitting of course.

                                                                Later Rob.

[Cedar Eater]

C.E,

       Nice pics once again,that tree ring is rather odd looking could be burn ring or maybe shake can't really tell.

Thanks. I saw a similar ring on a smaller younger tree and it was much closer to the center. I didn't count the rings on that one, but it looked roughly like the same distance from ring to exterior. The logger called it a frost ring before saying it was probably caused by a burn.

[Sawyerfortyish]

How does your logger get all the bucked logs out? does he have a small tractor or a forwarder? The reason I ask is I see he bucked them where they fell if he had a skidder I would think he would pull them out full length. Also when felling a tree a skidder can be used to give it a nudge the direction you want it to go.
  I think your doing the right thing cutting the big oaks they get to a point in there lifespan where they start going backwards thats where you get a lot rot in the butts and it looks like these were at that point. Better to get what there worth now than latter.

[Cedar Eater]

How does your logger get all the bucked logs out? does he have a small tractor or a forwarder? The reason I ask is I see he bucked them where they fell if he had a skidder I would think he would pull them out full length. Also when felling a tree a skidder can be used to give it a nudge the direction you want it to go.

Funny you should ask. I just took these pics today. The logger uses an old TreeFarmer. He calls it a skidder, but that's common around here.





I'm not an expert on hardwood logging, but my understanding from my forester is that pulling them full length is not good. They are very heavy and some of the pallet logs are out on wide branches and would need to be pulled separately to narrow the skid trail. I'll try to get a picture of the trail the TreeFarmer makes. He backs it in, hoists the logs and drives it out. He got five trees on one load and knocked down a few small maples and balsam firs and scraped a few others, but I was amazed at how well he did. Most of the trees are near an old trail that I keep open. The damage done in this harvest will be nothing compared to what will happen when the aspen/maple sale occurs.

This logger specializes in big heavy trees and directional felling with just his chainsaw. He can make them rotate on the way down if required. Unfortunately for him, he dropped the last oak of one of the smaller sales on a small shed and has to replace it. The oak was supposed to roll left off a sacrificial pine, but the pine snapped and the oak rolled right. He refused to fell three other trees on that sale due to heavy leans toward expensive objects.

This pile is the sawlogs from 11 trees. Pallet logs were piled separately. The logger estimates an average of 1 full cord of firewood per tree which seemed high to me, but I guess I'll find out.




This double stump shows that something odd happened about 75 years ago. It's much more obvious on the left, but the right trunk shows it too. This matches with the timeframe of the ring in the big boy's trunk.

 I think your doing the right thing cutting the big oaks they get to a point in there lifespan where they start going backwards thats where you get a lot rot in the butts and it looks like these were at that point. Better to get what there worth now than latter.

The logger called more than a few of these "trophy trees", but maybe 25% were clearly on their way out. We left about 20 trees that were greater than 12"DBH and plenty of big black oaks.

Cedar Eater

[Rob]

C.E,

      Nice pics as usual,those are some very nice looking Oak logs there at the landing.I like to hear about loggers who have gone completly mechanical and still do all the felling with saws unfortunately were a dying breed but hopefully it will take quite a few more years before that happens.So when will the splitting start??

                                              later Rob.

[Sawyerfortyish]

Rob there are some of us that fell trees that no machine would be able to handle unless it's huge and at that it would damage more young trees just getting around the woods so don't hang up the saw yet! ;)
   CE I like that way your logger is working. I've been looking at these machines for a while now just wasn't sure they could handle the huge stuff.We only mark trees 18" DBH to cut once in a while we cull out some smaller trees. I like the Idea of being able to grade the tree standing for veneer cut it and buck it on the spot instead of dragging it through the mud for a half mile then try to figure out where to cut it. ??? :-/
   The only two drawbacks I see with a machine like that is long logs. I cut a lot of 20-24' logs and my pockets were never big enough to carry enough money to buy one : ;D :D

[Cedar Eater]

  The only two drawbacks I see with a machine like that is long logs. I cut a lot of 20-24' logs and my pockets were never big enough to carry enough money to buy one : ;D :D

Long logs weren't really an option. Some of the logs were 14', but I don't think any were longer. Also, very few of the stems were considered veneer quality. Apparently, the veneer log buyers want at least 9 ft without any knots. I know they can get veneer from many of the logs, but they have to work at it and they can't get a good continuous peel.

So when will the splitting start??

Soon maybe. My wife is concerned that the top from the big boy might get raided if I don't cut it up and haul it home first. It's close to the main road in town and we have our share of people who aren't above a little petty larceny. I told her that if thieves were willing to work as hard as I'll be working to cut that top up, they would find jobs that pay a lot better. :D :D :D :D

Cedar Eater

[Rob]

Sawyer40,

         Oh believe me I have no plans on hanging up any of my saws at least not for another 20 + years anyway.I completely understand where your coming from with the large equipment.

C.E.,

         If you can post some pics of that splitter in action when you decide to start splittin'.

                                later Rob.