Log Prices?

[ehp]

Yes we have a couple different things killing the white oak quite fast, gypsy moth has been real bad for years but there is other stuff going on

[ehp]

been talking to a few of the higher grade buyers and they all say the same thing , most places are buying just about anything they can get their hands on right now but plan on shutting everything off in the spring and not moving a single log for the whole summer and into next fall

[ehp]

weather sucks up here but did manage to get another 40,000 feet into the mill this week , I guess working last weekend and new years day did help , log prices are very good for me and seem to be making money some how , Not Barge kind of money but no one makes that kind of coin legally but doing ok for a old over the hill fat bald has been that never was . It seems like not many others are posting on log prices lately

[barbender]

 Ed, we can't all be Barge but it's good to have something to shoot for😁

40,000 in a week is a lot hand falling/skidding by yourself!

If I still get to it with our late winter, I have an aspen/balsam pulp sale by my place to hand fall and cable skid. I haven't really cut anything like this since I cut our property about 20 years ago. The standard around here, is a 10 cord load of pulp per day, I'm told with a cable machine. I'm not sure if I got what it takes! I know I move way slower than 20 years ago😁

[SwampDonkey]

I remember dad cutting that with an old skidder and bucking to 100" and time to load the truck with the tractor and forks, then haul that night to Houlton, Maine. It was big wood to, so fewer sticks to cut. 300 cords of 90' aspen came off 10 acres. All fire origin aspen, so seed, not suckers. Most aspen now is 30-40 years old since the big clearcuts started. But it ain't 20+ inch wood either. Large tooth would be pushing 20" @ 40 though, but probably only 70 feet, not 90, in these parts. And never enough of large tooth. Those 90'ers were about 70 years old. I measured some near the property line when they were done growing in later years and they was pushing 40". I had a couple fellas measuring my yellow birch for their tree book. The birch was 26". I said have a look over there at how big aspen grow in here. One barely alive by then was 40" about 5 steps away. :D The birch was 75' tall, the aspen 90'. I actually measured blow downs with a tape, so it was no estimate error. They were dangerous trees to ever cut by then, some 30 years later, since dad cut in there. Big upswept limbs that looked like a widow maker if you ever saw them. No prize for beauty. :D

[Hogdaddy]

Ed, 40k feet in a week is flying by yourself, I'm lucky to get 20k... on good ground! Where I'm at now, 15k is good, pretty rough ground for me.  Im very slow though, torn mcl in the knee and a bad back.

[Kodiakmac]

Yup, 40k is busting it.  But output depends on so many factors that comparing figures become meaningless.  Over the last 20 to 25 years (with 1 one-month clearcut exception) all I've been doing is select cuts on private land ... mostly my own.  There were days when I took out only 1200 to 1500 feet of white cedar, but it was paying $1K per 1000 bf so I was quite happy with that. 

[barbender]

 Well Ed does pull out logs that scale over 1000 feet too😁

[ehp]

Bar some are , been averaging right around 40,000 a week for the last while , good timber and nice to cut. After that last bush cutting this much volume is a cake walk . Last bush was so thick it was hard to see the marks on the trees . I got 55,000 or so feet to cut if I can get cutting again on these 3 bushes side by side pretty much and I'm on blow sand , if you got any clay your not working anywhere around here unless you got some way of flying the trees or logs to pavement so the log trucks can load

[ehp]

Now if I could get up around 100,000 feet a week of high grade walnut then maybe just maybe I could sit at the same table as Barge without him looking down on me to bad but that is a Big Maybe , this stuff is around 500 ft per tree average so 20 trees a day gives you your 10,000 feet and it seems I can only get about 4 days a week with this crazy weather , I donot mind cutting in the rain but this close to freezing and the chance of 2 or 4 feet of snow coming at any point I just cut when I can skid

[BargeMonkey]

 We all know who's making money, you don't have to play it off 😆. Im going to show such a loss from last year I need to start an OnlyFans page here soon.

[ehp]

Barge, you do not see any Tigercat skidders in my bush and we all know you got to have coin to drive and own a Tigercat , I did cut 1 walnut last week. Nothing great just a corner tree on edge of field so short and had limbs but gave me $3 a ft for butt log and $2.3 a ft for the other logs so just got just under $1500 for that tree , nothing great but I'm happy for that as it was just a lower grade tree , Got 4 more to cut here in the next day or 2 , Most of stuff today was hard maple

[Breezybrzez]

I remember dad cutting that with an old skidder and bucking to 100" and time to load the truck with the tractor and forks, then haul that night to Houlton, Maine. It was big wood to, so fewer sticks to cut. 300 cords of 90' aspen came off 10 acres. All fire origin aspen, so seed, not suckers. Most aspen now is 30-40 years old since the big clearcuts started. But it ain't 20+ inch wood either. Large tooth would be pushing 20" @ 40 though, but probably only 70 feet, not 90, in these parts. And never enough of large tooth. Those 90'ers were about 70 years old. I measured some near the property line when they were done growing in later years and they was pushing 40". I had a couple fellas measuring my yellow birch for their tree book. The birch was 26". I said have a look over there at how big aspen grow in here. One barely alive by then was 40" about 5 steps away. :D The birch was 75' tall, the aspen 90'. I actually measured blow downs with a tape, so it was no estimate error. They were dangerous trees to ever cut by then, some 30 years later, since dad cut in there. Big upswept limbs that looked like a widow maker if you ever saw them. No prize for beauty. :D

SwampDonkey, reading that post of yours brings such a smile to my face remembering my grandpa. Sounds a lot like his "back 40" he was always saving for a rainy day. Giant big tooth that would yield 9 or more 100" sticks depending how many of the crown limbs would yield a stick or 2.
Grandpa had it cruised when considering getting into tax advantage forest crop assessment, the forester said it should have been logged off 25-30 yrs earlier. He got away from that when they pushed for a large scale quick clear cut from the professional's that far exceeded what we could do ourselves. Just a old front distributor 47 ford 8N tractor and home made skid plate....a truckload a day sounds exhausting to me.... Haha
When I was younger we would hand peel bark in the spring and let them dry until autumn. That would help our ford 8N skidder out losing some moisture. Towards the end, the specialty mill closed so we were green cutting pulp and bolts and that slowed production down and was immensely harder on our poor tired skidder. Funny that we always seemed to go after the stuff furthest from the landings and kept the close stuff for a quick easy buck if needed.

Grandpas been gone a few years now and it's been even a few yrs longer since we cut for production, but there's still a few acres left of that old growth stuff in there that we didn't get to and the wind hasn't toppled yet. I have a few lined up for my Woodmizer next spring. Your post just brought a nice warm thought to this cabin fever suffering semi pro 

[SwampDonkey]

Yeah. I have a little grove of large tooth, they kind of grow in a circular plot. I would imagine the original tree or two grew there and they suckered off the roots. But anyway, some of them are all bear clawed where they will climb up them things. No idea why a bear wants to climb an aspen. I've seen art or paintings of cub bears up aspen trees (or white birch, some mislabeled as birch that are aspen). As a matter of fact I've seen 3 bear cubs climb aspen for safety. We saw them when rock picking the field and momma bear must have told them to take to the trees. For the first time in all the years I've walked those woods, I found a new bear den. Not on my land, but just beside the boundary line with my cousin. I keep the line cleaned out, it used that as a path. Also, I keep an old skid path open that they have also used. I have a lot of bears that roam my land. More so when the fields up there have corn. There is a local bear hunter guide that has always taken 2 or 3 bears out of there every year in the past. I don't think he is doing that much now for health reasons. I see him every fall when I'm cutting firewood, he stops and chats a little now and again.

[ehp]

Everything is holding steady here for me , prices are good but I think cause the winter for most has been fairly poor the mill is not getting the amount of logs it would normally , I know they sure would take 2 or 3 million feet of good logs in a heart beat so maybe they will have to talk to Barge about getting the logs from him

[Texas Ranger]

down anywhere from 1 to 8 percent across the board in Texas.

[stavebuyer]

A few bright spots in pricing include Hard Maple, Walnut, and White Oak uppers. Sounds typical for mid winter. What's not typical is US Hardwood production in the 4th QTR of 2023 set an all-time low record.

Locally, a 3rd generation grade mill is closing the doors for good at the end of the month. Mixed wood lumber such as beech, soft maple, gum, and sycamore no longer generate offers at any price point.

The industry is dying.

First went the small dairy farms. Next went the tobacco farms followed by the small town car and equipment dealers. Only small business left are one day bath remodelers.

[moodnacreek]

You have held on a lot longer than we have up here. In 1980 when I started playing with a sawmill a salesman would stop by as I was on his route. He showed me how to taper the log and sold me an inserted tooth saw. Up in Mass. there was Mill supply [Chase] that specialized in sawmills.  There where sawmills in all directions from me. Today there is one sawmill shop in N.H. and no fixed traditional mills within a hundred miles I am aware of.  The last farm that milked cows , in this town, sold out about i5 years ago. There are a few that still do hay or raise beef to stay in the ag. district. Gone also are the auctions of both farms and sawmills.   I guess the bright side is the resources , undisturbed or wasted , still exist.

[nativewolf]

A few bright spots in pricing include Hard Maple, Walnut, and White Oak uppers. Sounds typical for mid winter. What's not typical is US Hardwood production in the 4th QTR of 2023 set an all-time low record.

Locally, a 3rd generation grade mill is closing the doors for good at the end of the month. Mixed wood lumber such as beech, soft maple, gum, and sycamore no longer generate offers at any price point.

The industry is dying.

First went the small dairy farms. Next went the tobacco farms followed by the small town car and equipment dealers. Only small business left are one day bath remodelers.

The industry is in the shatter and it is because of substitutions.  I was meeting with NFP COO last week and we were discussing, vinyl everywhere in homes, sawdust/glue moldings, concrete and steel.  He goes to green building events and at the biggest national convention only 2 hardwood companies there out of a thousand exhibitors.  Crazy.   Hardwood industry has themselves to blame I guess.   He buys from very high end mills and when he'd meet owners he'd ask what were the goals for the coming year and he'd hear things like put money into 401k, sell fence boards for cash, etc etc. 

[mudfarmer]

401k... I know the market keeps hitting all time highs but if you buy a politician you still get better returns and sometimes they are surprisingly affordable

[nativewolf]

401k... I know the market keeps hitting all time highs but if you buy a politician you still get better returns and sometimes they are surprisingly affordable

That particular mill is now closed.  I looked at it, never seen such depreciated sawmill equipment, everything very old.  Rolling stock was all newish, mill was ...old. 

[ehp]

starting the white oak job today , see how they turn out

[ehp]

So far the white oak has paid very very very well , just the sawlogs are very good without the veneer 

[ehp]

Not as good as Barge when he is cutting spruce of aspen but close

[Hogdaddy]

So far the white oak has paid very very very well , just the sawlogs are very good without the veneer

Yeah. for right now, white oak is flying here too.