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!
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!