Felling Season in VT

[yepper]

It's that time of year again! Every winter the ranch I work at selectively cuts a portion of the wood lot for our lumber, firewood, and maple sugaring wood. We've started the season and will continue till sugaring prep takes over in Late Feb-early March. Between firewood for sale and our own use, and sugaring wood total annual production is 40-50 cords . We work with a consulting forester to select all the trees. I figured I'd start a running thread for photos and videos of the process as it continues, here's a few to start:

Our war chest, everything is done with a pair of 455 Ranchers. Pretty humble compared to the wood chomping lightsabers popular on here but at the end of they day they get a lot of trees down and processed.



The first and one of the smallest milling logs of the season, around 14" DBH. Had to wedge this a little to the right to keep it out of an ash it was leaning towards.



A big birch on the ground, the leaner to the back left has since been felled too. Much of the birch in this stand is near the end of it's life cycle so the forester went pretty heavy on it.



Here's a teaser of what's to come, it's hard to see the paint stripe but the pine to the left is going for lumber. That one's around 22" DBH which is getting big for around here.



Finally a video of felling a dead one for sugaring wood, I had the good fortune of meeting someone with a GoPro they were willing to lend. This one was a little sketchy but went over well as it still had solid hinge wood. The top was pretty spongy but held on until it landed.



That's all for now, stay tuned!

 

[svk]

Looking forward to more pics.

We lived in eastern upstate NY for a couple years before moving home and visited VT frequently. I would definitely live in VT if I moved back. I've got a friend out there who we buy several gallons of syrup from each year.

 

[fuzz1500]

Makes me wanna get in my truck , pack up a few saws , and head east to VT ! Great pics !

 

[zogger]

cool! Interesting camera angle there.

 

[philoshop]

Sounds like a fun way to spend the winter. Thanks for the thread. I'll be watching for sure!
Welcome to AS, BTW.

 

[Ronaldo]

Thanks for the pics and video, I'll be watching. How many guys on the crew.....thats a lot of wood you are putting up. How long you been running the 455 Ranchers? They must be doing well for you.

Ron

 

[yepper]

cool! Interesting camera angle there.

Thanks, I like how it turned out though it wasn't quite what I was going for.. I can't figure out how all the climbers on youtube are catching video without any of the helmet showing.

Thanks for the pics and video, I'll be watching. How many guys on the crew.....thats a lot of wood you are putting up. How long you been running the 455 Ranchers? They must be doing well for you.

Ron

Crew size varies a lot. We're a therapeutic community for mental health & substance abuse, so on a given crew there are usually 2-3 crew leaders who can run the saws and between 2-6 residents helping out. They do splitting, stacking, limbing with bow saws, and dragging brush. Anything around two thumb size and up is saved for sugaring wood so we generate very little brush for the amount of trees felled.

The Ranchers do OK for us, considering that we're using them far beyond the workload they were designed for. I've worked here five months so I'm not sure how long either has been going but there's a graveyard with about half a dozen of them in the shop if that tells you anything. Both are running a little cranky right now and haven't quite been figured out, one leans out as it warms up and the other keeps stalling at idle then re-starting very hard. Yesterday I found a missing muffler bolt on the lean one so hopefully tightening that down will fix something. We had a pro saw here last winter but it was stolen when brand new and it's still a sore subject so a new one probably isn't in the works. We frequently have new crew leaders rotate through with little to no prior saw experience, so anything we buy is always in some danger of being straight gassed or otherwise abused. With that in mind maybe it's ultimately better to keep burning through Ranchers every couple years. I sure do long to get my hands on something better though..

 

[zogger]

Thanks, I like how it turned out though it wasn't quite what I was going for.. I can't figure out how all the climbers on youtube are catching video without any of the helmet showing.



Crew size varies a lot. We're a therapeutic community for mental health & substance abuse, so on a given crew there are usually 2-3 crew leaders who can run the saws and between 2-6 residents helping out. They do splitting, stacking, limbing with bow saws, and dragging brush. Anything around two thumb size and up is saved for sugaring wood so we generate very little brush for the amount of trees felled.

The Ranchers do OK for us, considering that we're using them far beyond the workload they were designed for. I've worked here five months so I'm not sure how long either has been going but there's a graveyard with about half a dozen of them in the shop if that tells you anything. Both are running a little cranky right now and haven't quite been figured out, one leans out as it warms up and the other keeps stalling at idle then re-starting very hard. Yesterday I found a missing muffler bolt on the lean one so hopefully tightening that down will fix something. We had a pro saw here last winter but it was stolen when brand new and it's still a sore subject so a new one probably isn't in the works. We frequently have new crew leaders rotate through with little to no prior saw experience, so anything we buy is always in some danger of being straight gassed or otherwise abused. With that in mind maybe it's ultimately better to keep burning through Ranchers every couple years. I sure do long to get my hands on something better though..

All the exact same saw in the junk pile? Just specialize and learn to fix them. You will get hip to what goes on them and then can become proactive in keeping them running, seals, carb boot thing, etc. Plus, a simple muffler mod and carb limiter trim then a good adjustment. Maybe fix a couple and sell them, use that, get a pro saw to run.