Yale School Forest

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  • January 29, 2013 at 6:32 pm #44467
    dominiquer60
    Moderator

    Last weekend we went to the Yale School Forest (Yale Myers Forest, as opposed to all the other forests they own). The school put on a workshop for local forest owners with a focus on using draft animals and onsite milling, in this case with a Wood Mizer. We removed 3 decent pines from the edge of an area that is dog eared for a future school garden and next to some sensitive wet areas. Sam felled the trees the day before for to keep Yale’s insurance happy, so we focused on the equipment that we use and how we are able to go into the forest and leave most of it behind in good condition. With a few inches of snow, and temps near 0 the ground near the wet areas was frozen solid and perfectly unscathed by our presence. Conditions were not great because of the remains of the last harvest, but we explained how we work around less than ideal situations, keeping safety and the remaining trees in mind.

    The crowd was about 40 large and though we were asked the horses names by a few people, there were also a lot of good relevant questions as well. The forest manager said that this was a big crowd with mostly new faces, and agreed that the new topics of draft animals and onsite milling were a huge draw compared to their regular wild life and soils talks and walks. We quickly overwhelmed the sawyer with over 2,500 mbf of logs. He was able to saw some out and the group worked on making apple boxes for participants to take home. The rest of the lumber will be used to build a shed roof and outhouses. Part way thru the day the hydraulics went on the saw and try as they may he could not get it to work again.

    We handed out a few cards for woods work and vegetables and hope to get a little business from this worthwhile experience, but I hope that this opens the doors for some research on draft animals in the woods and maybe so work and activities that DAPNet can facilitate.

    Here are some pictures taken by Claire Nowak and Alex Barrett at the Yale School Forest. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/d11nb42qv6pgrnd/IpRVPFcl-a

    January 29, 2013 at 7:31 pm #77196
    Andy Carson
    Moderator

    This is great. I think the concept of doing something value added makes alot of sense and, I think, dovetails nicely with a lower volume outfit. I have some logistical questions. I suspect much of these questions could go either way, but I am curious about the choices made by other who use this type of system.
    Is it envisioned that the boards will be sold directly to the end user? If so, do you find advertizing and low volume to be a challenge?
    What about drying the boards?
    Do you keep and inventory? If so, what do you do for storage?
    Does someone set up the wood-mizer at portable sites in the woods so as to minimize haul distance, or at one site (perhaps further away) where the wood can be handed easier, and boards can stacked and sold without moving it twice?
    What is the environmental impact of processing wood on site?
    Do you hire a sawyer to run the wood mizer, or split time on it? If you were to pay a sawyer, how do the profits compare to selling to a mill?
    Enough questions for now…

    January 29, 2013 at 9:00 pm #77191
    Rick Alger
    Participant

    Three cheers Erika! Sounds like a productive demo and an excellent contact.

    I believe Yale is associated with some huge tracts here in northern NH that are commercially harvested by machines.

    If there is anything I can do to facilitate research on this end please let me know.

    Rick

    January 30, 2013 at 2:06 am #77193
    dominiquer60
    Moderator

    Rick,

    Yes, they are connected to forests in NH and they own some around Keene. We planted the seed we will see if they want to act on it. The suggestion was made to have a part of their forest managed strictly with draft animals so that they had something to compare with their usual harvest methods. There is a grad student that may be interested in taking this on for research. We will see where it goes.

    Andy,

    Some of the focus was on how a land owner may make use of precision harvest and woodlot improvement with draft animals and the other part was hiring a woodmill to get the most value out of your timber, especially if you have use for the wood. It worked because one man who walked away with a card wants his small property managed with the intentions of some of his harvest used for firewood and lumber to make improvements to his camp. His lot is too small to really make use of a machine and the value of the lumber not worth the machine loggers time, but it still has value to him and so does improving his lot. This is what we focused on but yes there are many more questions that can spring from this idea, I am not the person to answer most of them.

    “Does someone set up the wood-mizer at portable sites in the woods so as to minimize haul distance, or at one site (perhaps further away) where the wood can be handed easier, and boards can stacked and sold without moving it twice?”

    We were asked this same question, and given our terrain that day, it made much more sense to bring the logs to the landing. In this case it was the parking lot where there was plenty of room for both team, sawmill, lumber and a pile of logs. Bringing the saw mill into the woods was not an option, there was not enough room for everyone to work safely and the footing was poor, it was not even a consideration when we were setting up for the workshop.

    January 30, 2013 at 12:27 pm #77192
    Jim Ostergard
    Participant

    This may be preaching to the choir but I have found that having a mill on site really works well. I have had several logging jobs where that has really pleased the land owner. They get the wood out and end up having timbers and dimension lumber stacked and sticke for future use. I did a job for a timber frame house project for a sawyer a few years ago. Brought out about thirty thousand bf of pine. It would have made a lot of cheap pulp but if I remember correctly he maybe ended up with about two cords. Great utilization of the wood.
    Maybe we could get Jason Glick to describe a project he did a few years ago. Folks wanted more pasture and Jason set his mill up, brought in his pair, I chopped and two fellows worked the mill. The folks wanted the wood. I thin he produced somewhere around 12mbf and I think it averaged around $ .90/bf. Really not sure of the numbers. All of us on the job made a living wage.

    January 30, 2013 at 3:29 pm #77194
    dominiquer60
    Moderator

    Good example Jim. Sam started logging with horses off the home farm as a way to harvest material for timber frame structures that he was building. This allowed him to get the kind of material that he wanted cut the way he wanted and at a better price for the home/land owners. A couple customers even had him harvest off of their own land, the one couple tells the story of how their house was built to any that will listen, they are extremely happy with the results. It makes so much sense and provides good opportunities for local economies.

    February 1, 2013 at 1:57 am #77195
    dominiquer60
    Moderator

    I met a woman with a chocolate company at the workshop, she has friends in Wisconsin that could easily integrate draft animals in their business.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQZ-ENw-F-w

    http://timbergreenforestry.com/

    February 1, 2013 at 4:22 am #77197
    PhilG
    Participant

    Andy,
    I have done a few jobs like this here in colorado, i try to take up the woodmizer the day before and set it up and get some trees down and limbed , then bring the horses up and skid in a day or two, saw milling is $0.40 a bf, that covers blades and fuel, I stack everything 4′ deep so it can be moved with forks putting 4″ stickers after the pile gets 4′ high so it can be moved in two picks then stack up to 8′ high then start another pile ( if it’s 1x or 2x ) timbers i just stack with tracter or pile up as much as we can and get them out of the way, when I edge on the mill, that becomes the stickers for the boards, cut about 1500+-bf a day,I do inventory every piece down to 1 x 4’s one foot inc.,lumber used by owner of wood, no one resells, not really worth it in SPF (pine,spruce,fir) One job we buck and split with supersplitter, about a cord an hour and 15 min with my teenager (he’ll be driving next year, and towing mill ? scary ) we did about 18 cords of blowdown. These are the most enjoyable jobs by far, it is all I would do if I could get that much work at it, Not great money makers counting travel time, talking and explaining time, planning time, just general interaction with people helping them into making decisions, but worth it in the end on actual working time. I’m doing one this spring as a straight up trade for standing dead Dug Fir, they just want it out of there, 5 miles travel so i think I can saw enough on site and bring it back in my trailer plus some fire wood to make it worth not getting paid upfront for the tree removal, once they see the wood sawn my guess is they will by lots of it back, then it would be .40 for sawing and .60 for falling/skidding, that works good for me if it is a big dead patch that all needs to go (lots of big dead patches in CO. these days:mad:)
    I’ll probably run a newspaper add this summer to see if there is any interest

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