Started planning this winter's cutting

[Jon E]

I'll put in another vote for blue. I own a surveying and engineering company and we use red and orange for property line and corner markers. Using those colors for anything else tends to confuse the landowner. I have found that any bright blue spray paint works for about two years before it tends to disappear. A big 'X' on the tree at about chest height stands out in any woods all year long.

I painted subdivision lines on a big woods parcel ten or twelve years ago with yellow paint - I used a oil-based floor enamel from Wal-mart, about eight bucks a gallon and I told the paint guy, make it as yellow as you can. That paint was still bright as new two years ago when we walked the lines again with a new owner.

 

[ProMac1K]

Me too, now that i've got the extra paint. And if I could brushcut as fast as I could walk, that would cool!

 

[Straightgrain]

I might be one step o head of you steve, I decked thrity or so straightgrain maple logs yesterday. I should have 75 by the end of the year if the leaves are still on when I get my two new calves next week, I will be slayn the maple. The calves are my maple cleanup crew.
Marking for me is easy, all of my maples have ten or twelve 60' shoots growing out of them, I leave only the straight one standing. I have about twenty more trees like that which need cutting.

 

[Steve NW WI]

I might be one step o head of you steve, I decked thrity or so straightgrain maple logs yesterday. I should have 75 by the end of the year if the leaves are still on when I get my two new calves next week, I will be slayn the maple. The calves are my maple cleanup crew.
Marking for me is easy, all of my maples have ten or twelve 60' shoots growing out of them, I leave only the straight one standing. I have about twenty more trees like that which need cutting.

What kind of calves? A guy down the road has Scottish Highlander cattle, they are big time browsers, the woods he pastures them in look like city parks. They're pretty gentle creatures, which is good with the size of the horns they grow: (pic found on wikipedia)

 

[CrappieKeith]

Cute Cows....did I say that!

With all of the grouse hunting I do on county ans state lands I've seen several trees marked.
Blue really stands out for me.

 

[Straightgrain]

I get my calves from a red angus bull. The "mommas" are either red angus or white face. Here is last year's clean-up crew.

I don't get any protection from maple trees in the winter. My fir trees give me a lot of surface roughness so I am very picky about dropping them. So, the wind plays a big part in which fir tree I drop.

Marking trees is good planning........the feds on the BLM behind us use blue. The private "Warehauser" seem to just obliterate and mark with boundarys.

I talked to a private tree feller getting out of his "crummy"; they are weary of the tactics of the ELF.
"Any marked tree can be spiked".

 

[STANG302]

What kind of calves? A guy down the road has Scottish Highlander cattle, they are big time browsers, the woods he pastures them in look like city parks. They're pretty gentle creatures, which is good with the size of the horns they grow: (pic found on wikipedia)

We may live closer to each other than I thought. You talking about? I can't remember there last name. But they are on the corner of 10th and 240th? I'm just south of them on 240th. There some fugly looking cattle. And they sure know how to make a trail in the woods! Looks like they have there own trafic system out there. When we used to be able to hunt in there woods it was great, just follow the cattle tracks!

I've tried red and yellow. Red works best for me. But will have to pick up some blue and give that a try after reading this.

 

[Steve NW WI]

Byle (Bile?) is the guy's name. Friend of mine rents the farmhouse there on the corner. I'm a mile north of Cedar Lake on 200th, so maybe 5 miles apart.

My woods are starting to get overgrown in spots again, might be time for a few head again.

Back on topic, I picked up a can of High Viz orange on the way home tonight, still looking for a place with a bright blue, then I'll get some comparison pics in the woods, both green now and brown in the fall and white in the winter, just for kicks. I tried the orange on a piece of bark when I got home and it seems brighter, but will see how it is in the woods.

 

[Steve NW WI]

Tried the orange tonight. It shows quite a bit better under summer conditions than the yellow. I still need to hunt down some blue.

It doesn't look any better in the picture (maybe worse) but in person there's a huge difference, especially with the sun low on the horizon, you get a lot of yellow tones reflecting off the leaves:

 

[Straightgrain]

I just remembered my neighbor's (he has 65,000 fir trees on 300 acres) technique; he hatchets a 3"X 3" chunk/spot off the bark. The white interior wood really stands out.

I did it on my route through the swamp when I was an instructor at Ft. Benning, (since bread crumbs don't work, lol) ; No time to navigate when babysitting students...I don't know if the students ever knew.

Now, dog-on tractors are run by GPS. Do you have enough to mark way points on a plugger?

P.S. nice piece of land.

 

[Steve NW WI]

I just remembered my neighbor's (he has 65,000 fir trees on 300 acres) technique; he hatchets a 3"X 3" chunk/spot off the bark. The white interior wood really stands out.

I did it on my route through the swamp when I was an instructor at Ft. Benning, (since bread crumbs don't work, lol) ; No time to navigate when babysitting students...I don't know if the students ever knew.

Now, dog-on tractors are run by GPS. Do you have enough to mark way points on a plugger?

P.S. nice piece of land.

Spent 90-92 in Benning (minus 8 months in Desert Shield/Storm). If you were there then, I may have run into you at one of the ranges. I drove the tractor-trailers delivering ammo to all the ranges.

The cheapie GPS I have has a hard time getting signal through the canopy. I stick to the compass when hunting, dang electronics will let you down when you need them most. Navigation with a good map and compass is simple to me, but I've met a lot of people that couldn't point out where they live on a county map...

Appreciate the comment about the land. It is a nice place to live, but there's always a need to improve it. I could send a half dozen scrap trucks out of here at any time and not be out of junk that my family has collected over the last 100 years.

 

[Steve NW WI]

Finally found some blue. Here's all 3 colors on the same tree. They seem fairly even right here, but I'd say the orange is showing best right now, with blue a close 2nd, and yellow is a far distant 3rd, and will likely get worse until snow covers the ground.

I will get another shot of the same tree after leaves change and again with snow on the ground.

I burned up another can of paint tonight, I have a ton of work to do this winter! I'm still only about 1/2way through marking my woods, but much of what I haven't marked yet is where I've been doing most of my cutting the last couple of years, so there isn't much dead in that area.

I brought the 5100 with me, and wound up cutting a couple oak branches and a 18" elm that had fallen across my trails, now I've got another pickup load to split and stack...

 

[ProMac1K]

The real test (where the testing pays) is to do it in the middle of a grove in a dense area, and to get a picture of it 50 ft away or so. That to me makes the most sense. Or do it to multiple trees at random. And do it in a dark area, that doesn't get much sunlight. If you only do it to one tree, it isn't much of a chore to find the tree you have marked. Granted this is a test to see how it applies and what color shows up the best, but I wouldn't pick one color based on a pattern test on one tree. You want to see what shows up the best in a populated area.

 

[Steve NW WI]

Granted this is a test to see how it applies and what color shows up the best, but I wouldn't pick one color based on a pattern test on one tree. You want to see what shows up the best in a populated area.

Yes, I agree. I have trees marked with all three, I just painted that one up for an easy one shot comparison photo. Some of the yellows I can just about run into before I see them, the blue and orange catch your eye much better. I think the orange might have the edge in thick brush, but in the fairly open stuff the blue sticks out more.

 

[ProMac1K]

Were you fussy about the spray pattern that the cans used? I went so far as to use ceramic high-temp engine enamel, as I liked how it applied. A lot of the general purpose spray cans like to use a fan pattern, for a wide-coat application. I think that's annoying in this application.

 

[Steve NW WI]

Were you fussy about the spray pattern that the cans used? I went so far as to use ceramic high-temp engine enamel, as I liked how it applied. A lot of the general purpose spray cans like to use a fan pattern, for a wide-coat application. I think that's annoying in this application.

All three were the upside down marker type cans, like the mingo marker uses, lots of flow, not a horribly wide pattern but not a fine line either. I think laying it on thick and fast like that is a good thing when spraying rough bark. I've used some spray cans that would probably take a darn long time to put enough paint on bark to show up.

This type of paint/can is more expensive than the usual spray bomb cans, I think the can of blue was about $5 at Home Depot, the other 2 were from the local hardware store, closer to $7 there.

 

[GrizzlyAdams86]

Now that it's almost fall the clouds of mosquitos have come out now around here. About a week ago on Wensday there had been hardly any all summer and then on Thursday its like someone flipped a switch. They are not so bad right now. Checked out the woods and found a few more good-sized elms that died from dutch elm I need to go mark before the leaves change.

 

[ProMac1K]

All three were the upside down marker type cans, like the mingo marker uses, lots of flow, not a horribly wide pattern but not a fine line either.

I thought it looked like what you had applied real good. Probably even better than what I ended up with. A weekend ago I just decided to go crazy and start falling dead ones, rather than mark them for later cutting. I might do that this week again, have a good sized ash for sure to take down. Want to get all the ash out before the rest of the leaves drop. The mulberry I will just cut down either way, if I need more wood. What I have taken down and skidded seems to be holding up real good for now, until I get my bucking saws fixed. No bug issues yet, that i've seen. But i'm going to be running out of room for new skidded trees shortly if I don't get the stuff bucked up.

 

[Slick]

Yes, I agree. I have trees marked with all three, I just painted that one up for an easy one shot comparison photo. Some of the yellows I can just about run into before I see them, the blue and orange catch your eye much better. I think the orange might have the edge in thick brush, but in the fairly open stuff the blue sticks out more.

Wait till cutting season comes and there is orange and yellow leaves all over...behind your trees on the ground etc...that's when the blue stands out...orange is standing out in the brush right now because the brush is green, won't be when it's cutting season Blue is one of the only colors not present naturally in the woods during fall/winter...

 

[Steve NW WI]

Now that it's almost fall the clouds of mosquitos have come out now around here. About a week ago on Wensday there had been hardly any all summer and then on Thursday its like someone flipped a switch. They are not so bad right now. Checked out the woods and found a few more good-sized elms that died from dutch elm I need to go mark before the leaves change.

Bugs have been very minimal this year up here, I haven't even had a woodtick in a couple of months. This has been a beautiful holiday weekend, even though it was too warm for serious wood work. I have this strange feeling that we're gonna pay for this weekend later in the winter...But the woodpiles are ready for the cold, and between the ATV and the loader tractor, I can usually have the yard cleared of snow a good 3-4 hours before the township boys get the road cleared.

Elm is gonna be a big part of my stove's diet for the next couple of years. Driving around the country, you can spot the dead elms a mile away. It's a shame that many people will just leave them to rot, once split they are very good heat, and the stringy strands on it after splitting are like built in kindling when dry. Over 1/2 of the trees I marked in the last 2 days were elm, and I have a dozen or more at the back end of the pasture to get to before the snow flies as well, there's no way up that hill short of a snowmobile after that.