Different market here boys. Farm communities on average 125 population to the largest aroound 3000, most people own at least five acres if they are not in town, most have 30 to a 100. Oak is abundant, tons of sawmills and a couple of pallet mills. The main stay of the economy around here is raising chickens or beef cattle there are a few dairies left but a dying breed.
Everyone who owns a saw is in the wood business in the fall, it just depends to what degree, most peter out after they have cut and split 20 to 30 rick.
Our business has been built on customer service and value.
Here we can hire a guys all day long to help cut and split for 8.00 a rick.
We pay zero for the wood, mostly cleaning up property that has been logged, cutting up seasoned tops and cull logs. Property owners are just glad to see it get cleaned up.
It's cheaper here to hire a guy that will work his hiney off for 8.00 a rick than to buy a 8k wood splitter, if it gets slow we don't have an expensive piece of machinery sitting idle. With a one ton dump than will easily haul 3 face cords at a time if needed, its just back up dump and be gone. When people see the dump we get quite a few hauling jobs, mulch, gravel, etc which we make quiet a bit more money on. Having a small dump 8' wide x 9' long has been a real labor saver to the business. Having a farm operation allows us to pretty much fab anything we need. We buy our chain and mix from Baileys to cut cost and do all our own saw maint., my high school age boys pretty much run the business. They grossed over 30k this summer in their own lawn service, made a extra couple of thousand hauling hay and will gross 10-12k this winter with wood. They keep and maintain books and both have bought their own nice trucks, the rest goes in their college fund.
Even in this tough economy anybody with a will to work, a good saw, splitting maul and truck can eek out a existence. Most think they are worth too much or just too damn lazy to work.
Trust me if the local market would bear some of the prices I've seen quoted on here, we'd own a small processor.