[PhilG]

Will could not be MORE right, credit is the devils tool! I too have been down that road and it just sucks your life away, before you know it you have worked 10 years to build a business and pay off equipment and you forget to live life. It sounds like you understand the multiple use tool thing, that is one of the keys for sure, I traded my skidd loader for a 100hp ford tractor and now put up hay,till, cable skid… way more versatile that a skidd.
You can weld, truck, wrench, lots of skills for such a young guy, just work the logging thing into your jobs program and that way you won’t get board doing any one thing to much.
The other things that have worked for me is a good splitter ( super splitter) and a saw mill, value added goes a long way in the wood business, you can suit up and split or saw well over your $200 a day when it’s dumping snow or rain that would shut down logging operations, but then again it would be nice sitting by the fire with your lady and a hot cup of coffee on those day’s wouldn’t it 😉

[PhilG]

Thanks Carl, sometimes its hard for me to treat her like a horse and not a dog 😎

[PhilG]

Hay Carl,
when you say you reward her good response, what all does that reward entail ?
Thanks

[PhilG]

What about just giving them a few $ for the spects and fab them here ?
( the Morgan Anderson )

[PhilG]

Nice Scott, thanks

here is one of the things on my wish list is the small scale electrical range

http://www.build-a-gasifier.com/Gasifier-Kits.html

http://victorygasifier.com/

[PhilG]

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

[PhilG]

Mastication seams to be the trend in CO for sure, only now they seam to be masticating perfectly usable fiber, I loose every job i bid against a masticating operation, it is sad to me that there is not more biomass heating and electric development in a state with millions of dead acres of wood so close to populated areas. I managed to lowball a 16 acre mistletoe ponderosa job because it was 8 miles from my yard, the slash was 2′ tall, 4′ long min. many of the trees were as bushy as a tumbleweed- some took a hole tank to slash ! i would cut the limbs into fire wood and get a cord+- per tree that are now going to heat local homes instead of sitting as a pile of chips on the ground, a lot of work for sure but i figure if i can load and unload 1 1/2 cords every day on my pickup for a drive i have to do anyway the extra hour it added was worth it, there were also some very nice saw logs mixed in, hoping to get at least 20 mbf maybe more and 50 cords+ of firewood , i need to start keeping good records like Carl, Scott and others who so generously share info to us lacking their experience

[PhilG]

Stihl 460 out lasts my 372 by several years, i sure like weight and feel of the 372 though

[PhilG]

i have resawn beech from old barn tear downs, it made nice cabinet doors, i am always surprised how picky people can be about what woods they will and wont use for building products – and then stain the crap out of it so you don’t know what the wood is anyway, i’m limited to pine, spruce, or fir here, (some aspen and cotton wood, but hard to dry stable ), is fresh cut beech hard to saw or dry or resaw ? why isnt it desired more ?

[PhilG]

Lease is good…
I just leased 30 acres for hay, low water year around here for sure, any advise on the normal split for leased land hay, 80-20 ? or dose this make me a share cropper? my improving the land covers this year, but next year I have to do a split on the hay.
i’m doing all the irrigation and cutting out a lot of willows and wild rose, and going through about 100 rounds a day on the critters right now also, it hasn’t been hayed in 4-5 years so parts of it needs some work to get it back.
Around here leasing is the only way for the vast majority of us to get on land, we have 40 acres of dry land that would have been literally 7 to 10 times more if it was pasture land in the valleys. I agree with all that you said, it would be nice to start some networking of getting unused land into the hands of the users affordably, cause as we all know- monthly bills Suck!

[PhilG]

I’m trying to be the last person in earth not to Facebook, to much of a time suck for people like me that are easily distracted, just like I’ve been reading here for an hour and a half, now I’m late for work!

[PhilG]

Jac
we get some plastic barrels over here from blown in insulation, cooking oil and other stuff that is pretty tuff, a couple layers might last a season, about $20 for used barrels, some free.

[PhilG]

Nice Carl !! Very inspiring! That is definitely my goal for next winter. I like your rein control while skiing down the hill, i find when im trying to balance i use the reins a little to much to keep from falling.
Thanks for posting this – i’d like a week in the winter woods with you too:D

[PhilG]

Scott –
Nice quiver! its rare to see another double brander. What to you do with the log wizzards ? i havent seen one of those in years.
Phil

[PhilG]

Heck ya! have you priced new saws lately ? That should be a good running saw if the compression is good, i have a 357 that Ive had for 15 years , still runs great

[Author]

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