Would You Guess How Many Cord Out of This? (Caution: Picture Heavy!)

Well, hit the grove hardcore this weekend, and yesterday. My aim was to get dead trees, the trees that were starting to rot, and the trees that showed damage out of there. There's still a good and tall 20" diameter ash out there that's dead, as well as some damaged ash and box-elder that may be salvageable. It's time to stockpile firewood. I'll post some pics of my recently constructed wood stack rack with its contents and also the rack in the basement, with leftover wood from last year. The vast majority of the wood I took down and hauled out was ash, with a mix of a couple forks of maple and some box-elder. Any guesses on how much I can get out of this pile? It fills up most of the backyard. I know, a lot of limbs take up a lot of space, but I try and salvage as much wood as possible. 2" dia or bigger. Some of it was just skidded out with the rest to get it out of the grove, but even on the poor stuff most is salvageable. There's a couple that are junk though, that I just skidded from the ground. This is my biggest harvest yet, I think. It sure was fun, but i've got some saw repairing to do yet, and some chain sharpening. Then i'll get to limbing and bucking. Let me know what you think. Will it get me a cord, do you suppose? Pictures to follow.... Sorry for the broad picture shots, I wanted to get an overview on some of them, and there was so much to cover.

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Here's pics of the newly built wood rack with some ash, mulberry, maple, cherry, and some ash on the ground, waiting to be split.

And here's the basement wood storage rack, with the leftover wood for emergency use last year. That is just some stuff that I salvaged from my first venture out in the woods a couple years ago or so. The rest got put in another shed, and is in the pictures on the outdoor wood rack. This will be my first year that I hope to run the furnace the majority of the time.

Im not sure what to say. You are right its picture heavy. They are nice ones too. Nice lookin farm.

Rookie1 said:

Im not sure what to say. You are right its picture heavy. They are nice ones too. Nice lookin farm.

Click to expand...

Thank you, just moved onto it. It's going to be a century farm in a yr or two.

I'm also not good at cord estimating. I was hoping I could get somewhat of an idea so I know how much more falling I have to do yet. About out of dead trees out there in the grove.

Waiting to get the 490 fixed so I can start limbing. I think I would get tired real quick if I took the PM1000 out there.

I'm sorry guys if it's too many pics, or takes too long to load. I have a 1meg internet connection, so everything pops up right way on just about any page.

I meant to title the thread "How Many Cord Would You Guess Out of This" rather, so i'm sorry if it sounds like i'm begging you to guess the cordage. I'm not, just more-or-less wanted to get into some more conversation with the group here, and show you some of my efforts from this year, and years past.

Pictures can be deceiving, but I'm gonna guess on the high side of 3 cords all together. It looks to me like the whole pile doesn't show up in any one spot, and also at least a couple nice big logs, they add up fast when split.

Getting the Axial Flow ready yet? I see an old Massey combine in one of the shots too...retired?

Hi Steve!

Thanks for the guess, I have no idea what it will be personally. But it sure seemed to be a heavy task. Worked like a dog until dark a few nights. There were a lot of good ash logs, some around 12", some around 16", and a couple 20" or so. I sure enjoy seeing good ash trees, and maple trees, with the overpopulation of mulberry in the grove, and also the old boxelder that seems to rot so easy. More than likely going to be a lot of branches and some unsalvageable wood from this bunch, but i'm glad they're out of the grove. Trying to clean the grove up. And I am anxious to see how much all of this adds up to. Also anxious to see how much it takes to keep the house warm, and if I manage to get enough cut to do so. Oh, and if the grass looks dry back there, it's because I watered it with a little Roundup. Got sick of the weed mess on most of the yard, it desperately needed spraying and graveling. I was also getting tired of kicking sod up when I skidded logs. That, and not being able to find a bolt or something when you dropped it, gave me the urge. But it desperately needs graveling, that and the driveway and main yard. I got flack again about it tonight, I was told it makes it look trashy and makes the ground muddy. Oh well, it looked good with grass, until you started skidding logs, or until the grass and weeds grew up around implements. Then it looks horrible. We haven't got much moisture this year, definitely wasn't a green year, so the weeds got to me. Nothing a little gravel and money can't fix.

Just about ready to start working on the 1640. Got it a couple years ago from a neighbor. Have some metal straightening to do. I broke a front axle and dropped it down on the left side of the corn head just turning to go and unload after the last round last year. :censored: The year before that the right axle broke on dad in the middle of a field. Maybe the lack of having a grain cart to go with these modern combines is a problem. The Massey in the pictures is dads 750. We for the most part retired it when we got the IH, but had to put it into use when the axle broke on dad. I have a 550 gray-cab sitting in one of the sheds, that I picked up for a good price. We also have a 2745 and 1105 that are sitting just beyond the 750. Then I play around with MM's a bit, and use some of them for yard tractors.

Here's a picture of one of my log hauling tractors. Ol' reliable, indeed. Pulls extremely well for a tractor of its time, so do my MM Z's!





Here's a picture of the widowmaker it helped me take down. This one has been sitting here for a year or two. It's bothered me a long time, enough was enough. The ash to the left that is painted is one that is pictured in the pile pics.





Here's a picture of my other log hauling tractor, on the left, and my first tractor (bought from my grandpa), on the right.





Here's the Jonsered 490 that I was going to cut with for the first time Monday, to do the limbing and light bucking. From the little bit of time I got to use it, I was extremely happy. Hi revs, strong power, lightweight, and pulled the 3/8 LGX awesome. Unfortunately a few minutes in I noticed moisture on the top cover. I presume the fuel vent valve went bad after I ran it, as I checked for leaks prior to and it was 100% dry.





I also ran a couple Macs. The Titan 50 was what I used for falling initially, as it deemed strong, maneuverable, and lightweight. It ended up having some carb or tuning issues. (I took the carb apart yesterday, and the carb filter was extremely gummed up.) So I switched to the family PM610. And it also ended up having some carb or tuning issues. Trying to keep the show on the road, I grabbed the reliable 385xp. I don't have a centralized picture of the 385xp, or i'd post one with the rest.

I wouldnt waste my time with boxelder but if I need wood, Then its as good as any.

Id also like to add...Some of the pics look like your doing a angled back cut. I would strongly suggest you stop doing that before you get hurt. If your not than I say good work.

On a large ash that I dropped, the backcut did slowly go towards an angle. I see that in the pics. I don't know why, maybe I was uncomfortable as it was the largest tree that i've dropped. I wasn't sighting it right, I'm used to working with stuff that I don't have to make two backcuts on. And I had an old tree cable hooked up on it pulled by a tractor because I was working right next to the lp tank for the grain dryer, the tree was leaning towards the dryer. It took an excessive amount of pull to get it to go against the lean, and it really hung on before it gave way. All of the cuts were made with a conventional notch, so that may give off a disguise that the rest of the backcuts were angled. Also some of the trees had a good lean on them, so I may have cut with the lean.