Logging with oxen or horses

[slowp]

I consider the work these guys did as about as nice as it gets. BEFORE they started cutting, skid trails and road locations were flagged in. We had a meeting and explained what was wanted, and they explained how they would do it. This unit was along the second busiest forest road in the area. It is one of the main touristy routes to Mt St Helens. We all agreed that we wanted it to look as nice as possible.

The logging company was one of the bigger ones but sent in a very experienced small group of guys. I'd worked a lot with their bullbuck and bribed him with cookies in the past. He'd tried to kill me by dropping a tree where I had been standing in the past--I spent a day on crutches and lots more hobbling around after that. Back to the topic, these guys wanted to make things work and also make money. They did. Yup, you could see the slash and the skid trails afterwards. The contract required that the skid trails be scarified afterwards so these guys planned everything in advance--dropping trees so the limbs would be on the trails, leaving trees for rub trees--you name it, they had the experience and the skill and I was very pleased with it all. They could have put in a feller buncher, but we'd knocked heads in the past with damage done from whole tree skidding, so they hand fell the unit.

 

[Jim Timber]

Habitat guys pay good money to not have it look like a park. Parks are wildlife deserts.

 

[slowp]

Tell me, would you pay a logger enough for the logger to make a profit to make habitat? Is it possible to work full time, make equipment payments and still be in the black by only doing habitat projects?

What did you do with the merch timber? Can you support yourself by doing that kind of work?

 

[Jim Timber]

I haven't done any of it, but I know several rich hunters who just want the mature trees gone so that it'll regen into habitat. Getting paid isn't even a concern for them. So free tracts have to be worth something.

I'm not a logger, have no intention of becoming a logger, and have no intention of making a living full time doing habitat work. I do happen to know people who do just that though.

 

[1270d]

I have some knowledge of the area around Brainerd. A lot of it is even age management type wood. Jack pine, aspen, white birch. The oak is ugly in most places that I have been.

Nothing wrong with not having merch timber for 70 years.

 

[Jim Timber]

Nothing wrong with not having merch timber for 70 years.

They would've been better off clear cutting with what they left. That's my only issue with it. Other than dropping tops in some of my trees with the hot saw. No buffer on my lot line, they cut right to the very edge.

As for the pine and such. We have a lot of private land which was logged in the 70's and 80's, then planted with red pine and sold for hunting. Those stands are over mature now and need thinning to be useful for wildlife again. I know of quite a few guys looking to have those trees taken out, some of them don't care if they get paid as long as the logger puts in some new trails, pushes the stumps out for food plots, and stays out of areas they've left as sanctuaries.

It's not 7 months worth of work for a crew of 8 with big expensive machinery, but it's enough to keep a couple guys busy if they wanted to.

 

[bitzer]

Great posts miss p and Bob. I think the op has a romantic idea of what a working woods is. Also when you do a shelter wood cut believe me you'll have more critters than you know what to do with. Growth too. Just sounds like inexperience talking. Promoting sunlight promotes growth. The toughest jobs to cut are selective, but they look the most pleasing. If done wrong they can screw up a woods even if it doesn't seem like it at first glance. Like releasing shade species that will take over. Maple/beech woods are a case in point. There used to be oak in there, they just cut it all out, but didn't open the canopy enough to release oaks.

By the way miss P a loader truck with pup can have some pretty tight landings. Usually consists of a back in tho. I know what yer saying.

 

[Gologit]

Parks are wildlife deserts.

Not in every case. I can think of three parks...given time I could probably think of more...that are wildlife havens. All three parks belong to land trusts or county agencies. The parks are managed for multi-use...recreation, timber production, and wildlife and they've been very successful at creating and maintaining a good balance between the three.
You're on the outside looking in. Spending more time actually working with the management side of a multi-use park might do you some good.

 

[Jim Timber]

The parks in reference were the clean floor "neat" looking manicured lawn type.

I'm aware of an atv park that had a timber harvest about 4 years ago, and that's just one of the ones I've been to.

 

[Jim Timber]

Red upper right is my lot, which has 80% or better canopy and needs thinning. Area to the left with the blue dotted lines is the neighbor's place that was cut 2 winters ago.

They left crooked, split, rotten, and small trees in clumps along the outside edges of where the harvester ran. Sadly, I didn't get any pictures when there was snow to show how they just worked around the junk. I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure all they're going to get regenerated will be red maple. Having been in there this past fall, that's what's growing in the openings so far, and will only get faster next year.

To their credit, they left all the slash.

They also said they wanted to remove more, but the swamp to the South of my lot that they were accessing through was getting soft and they feared being left stranded. There's roughly 15 acres of the tract to the North they didn't get into.

 

[Jim Timber]

This is the atv park that was harvested. Lots of straight young trees with space around them, and a few junker's that I would've whacked.

 

[slowp]

You do know that at least in these parts, deformed, rotten, broken top trees are the ones chosen to leave in place for wildlife. Those would be the trees that would turn into snags sooner naturally--another way to mimic nature. We also used to leave clumps of trees for wildlife. Clumps hold up better in the winds and are also easier to yard around than single trees scattered here and there, if the clumps are located in appropriate places by folks who know about yarding. We'd work with the loggers on that one and sometimes move the clump--black out one group and replace it with a better located clump.

You'd probably not realize that the clearcut by a large landowner here did not leave the trees for a seed source. They are only for wildlife. The next crop of trees was planted.

 

[Jim Timber]

We have primarily stump sprout or root system regen: aspen, oak, maple, birch, basswood, ash.

The neighbor's lot is roughly 10% of the block (boxed in by 2 county roads and a lake). There's no shortage of seed either.

I've been trying to find the pics I took of his place that spring from the ground, but I think they're still on my old phone. The aerial was taken this fall right before leaf turn in late September or early October. I widened my driveway about 60% after that shot was taken by the google folks.

 

[bitzer]

You're basically working off of one patch of timber you've seen logged. The loggers may have had good intent or not. Did your neighbor have more than one company look at it prior? Sometimes the edge trees are left cuz you don't know what the neighbors reaction to dropping one over the line mite be.

 

[Jim Timber]

I haven't spoken to the guy about the logging. He's got another 60 on the other side of the lake with his cabin and only bought the parcel next to mine for hunting/investment. I've got a good relationship with my Southern neighbor and he needed my help with a trespasser in deer season last month, so I got a look at the place better when I went to assist. Those two guys have a hunting rights swap, so my South neighbor gets his place for rifle season, and his kids get my South neighbor's place for archery.

I'm not the most well versed on logging on this forum, that's for sure. But I have read a lot of info on the subject and had numerous discussions with timber managers and forestry experts (DNR forestry, County lands supervisor who used to work for Sappi, and another guy who worked for the Nature Conservancy). I still have a lot to learn.

What was left behind was abandoned, or avoided because it was worthless per my neighbor who granted them access. They scalped right up to my survey markers. They also used my land for a latrine. It's a good thing I found them on their way out instead of while working. I probably would've soured that relationship over the trespassing. My land is posted, and both neighbors know it.

 

[slowp]

Why does it matter that they left trees? Why should you care? Since trees sprout from stumps, it hurts nothing, and gives the tweetybirds something to perch in.

Why not add that you stayed in a Holiday Inn also?

 

[Jim Timber]

Why I care is because I was hoping to buy those parcels some day. Now I don't want it.

You might want to take a look at my thread in the photo's section about my swamp road. It looks a little different than the last time you tried mocking me.

 

[Gologit]

They also used my land for a latrine.

Really? They peed and pooped on your side of the line? The bastards.
Next time maybe you can insist that they drag a Porta Potty around the woods with them. Let us know how that works out, okay?

 

[Jim Timber]

Trespassing is trespassing. If you don't own it, stay the eff out!

 

[chucker]

Trespassing is trespassing. If you don't own it, stay the eff out!

a socialist state like California has an open boarder for trespassers jim, so they don't under stand the word or meaning of "NO TRESSPASSING" as well as they probably don't own a danged thing that's worth protecting ...... ?? perhaps one day it really will slide off into the great blue abyss .......