Juniper cutting in SW Idaho

[Femoralarchery]

One of my friends cuts firewood as a hobby. Last year he cut around 65 cord. This year I've teamed up with him and we are hoping to bring home around 75 cord.

Before this year I had only run a saw for about an hour total. This was a whole new world to me. I am now addicted to running the saw. Loading/unloading/splitting are all necessary evils I guess, but I feel like I could run the saw everyday for as far as I can see in to the future.

Here are a few pics from this year so far.
This was my first tree with my new saw. I had absolutely no knowledge about saws before I picked up this one. Next saw will be a pro saw, but this saw has been flawless so far.


These types of trees are fairly common where we cut.


Splitting.
Part of the first load of the year.
Trailer holds 4 cord and I'm about done with this load.
Here's the hillside where we are working. Junipers grow thick and fast.

 

[Ronaldo]

Welcome to the site. Sounds like you got the "disease".
Does the Juniper burn well for firewood?

 

[zogger]

Nice setup you guys have, and pretty country!

That's a heckuva nice trailer there.

 

[Femoralarchery]

Welcome to the site. Sounds like you got the "disease".
Does the Juniper burn well for firewood?

Juniper burns really well from everything that I've heard. It's somewhat of a pain as far as processing, though. The trees we are cutting are fairly short, maybe 20' tall and 24-28" at the base. The trunks taper quickly and after the first few rounds are taken off the butt, they get pretty small pretty quick. They also have a crazy amount of branches starting right at the dirt. Sometimes they will have a few branches nearly as big as the trunk itself less than 3 feet off the ground. It makes felling a pain some days. Some of it is tough to split because of that as well. But once it gets split, it dries quickly with our hot dry summers and makes great firewood.

I need to get better about taking more pictures, I just get in the zone while sawing and I always forget until we are done for the day.

And yes, I believe I have the disease.

 

[jwade]

welcome to the site. nice setup and very nice pictures.good luck on your new enterprise

 

[ShaneLogs]

Awesome pictures. Welcome to A.S.! U'll get infected with CAD soon and have a whole critter fleet of saws!

 

[brewmonster]

Not that it's any of my business, but I have to wonder: private property? standing dead?

 

[Femoralarchery]

Private and live trees.

 

[cat-face timber]

how do your chains hold up to cutting that stuff?
the bark is stringy or aligator
here we call them trees cedars, if the bark is stringy.
shaggy barks

 

[Femoralarchery]

If you can keep them out of the rocks, the chains do alright. I usually do one touch up with the file during a full days work.

The landowner likes the stumps short, I will get within a couple inches of the dirt on the uphill side of the tree. My partner digs down the dirt a little and cuts below the dirt line. He will swap chains a couple times a day.

Stringy bark. Here's a picture I took of a big that shed his skin on the side of a tree.

Should get a good look at the bark there. I believe the juniper is either part of or very closely related to the cedar family.

 

[blumtn969]

how do your chains hold up to cutting that stuff?
the bark is stringy or aligator
here we call them trees cedars, if the bark is stringy.
shaggy barks

There are several different subspecies of juniper, we have two main types where I live. The silvers grow in the lower elevations don't get very tall, and way too many limbs. Up in the forest areas there are red junipers that grow on south and wesrtern facing slopes and rocky flats. These get a lot taller and a lot fewer limbs.

 

[Femoralarchery]

Almost full for this trip.


So so many branches.


Do your trees often land upside down? Ours do.


Done for the day.

 

[Femoralarchery]

We've hauled 24 cord home now. About 22 of then are split.

 

[WVhunter]

Welcome, great setup you have there, and some great pics!

 

[mr.finn]

Nice work there!! How does that stuff split? I have cedar that I split and use it in my fire pit, love the way it burns!!

 

[CTYank]

On seeing how difficult access is to your junipers once felled, I'd be tempted to break out a polesaw, beforehand to limb it as much as possible, after felling to limb it the rest of the way.

Lots lower power, much longer reach and reduced tripping hazard. Just my take on it.

 

[zogger]

On seeing how difficult access is to your junipers once felled, I'd be tempted to break out a polesaw, beforehand to limb it as much as possible, after felling to limb it the rest of the way.

Lots lower power, much longer reach and reduced tripping hazard. Just my take on it.

I forget the name of the tool, a link to a vid of it was posted here before. Chainsaw engine, spiraled right up a tree and limbed it. It was *really* slick.

 

[Femoralarchery]

On seeing how difficult access is to your junipers once felled, I'd be tempted to break out a polesaw, beforehand to limb it as much as possible, after felling to limb it the rest of the way.

Lots lower power, much longer reach and reduced tripping hazard. Just my take on it.

I've often thought the same thing.

How it splits greatly depends on the particular piece you are splitting. Most of it isn't bad, especially the dead standing stuff we come across that's is super dry. We use a 34 ton splitter and there are some pieces that bring it to a dead stop. I will try to get some pictures of the splitting and maybe some video one of these days.

 

[president]

Juniper burns really well from everything that I've heard. It's somewhat of a pain as far as processing, though. The trees we are cutting are fairly short, maybe 20' tall and 24-28" at the base. The trunks taper quickly and after the first few rounds are taken off the butt, they get pretty small pretty quick. They also have a crazy amount of branches starting right at the dirt. Sometimes they will have a few branches nearly as big as the trunk itself less than 3 feet off the ground. It makes felling a pain some days. Some of it is tough to split because of that as well. But once it gets split, it dries quickly with our hot dry summers and makes great firewood.

I need to get better about taking more pictures, I just get in the zone while sawing and I always forget until we are done for the day.

And yes, I believe I have the disease.

its got a funky smell to it when its freshly cut