[Scott G]

[Scott G]

How’s it working out for you, Ben?

[Scott G]

Have a blast!  I know you’ll move a good amount of wood AND have great time

[Scott G]

@Carl Russell 40447 wrote:

…we just don’t want to see good people drowning in debt…..:mad:
Carl

‘Been there, done that’, with my mechanical operation. No fun. Use a really sharp pencil…

[Scott G]

Carl, here are some pics of a small-scale pulp operation with the configuration you’re possibly looking for.

http://www.heavyequipmentforums.com/showthread.php?12720-Pulpwood-Logging-Equipment-Old-School-Style

Expecting to get another 20″ on the ground tonight/tomorrow. Loving it!

[Scott G]

Carl,

All of these “smaller” loaders have a mounting plate below the turret (slew) that is intended to be bolted on or welded to a cross member. The three-point rigs just build off of that configuration. That said, if you were to just mount an HD platform off the butt-end of the dozer you would then be able to bolt on the mounting flange. The outriggers are usually mounted to the loader frame itself. So as long as you have enough of a stable platform to connect to and your hydraulic lines are capable of swapping spit, you should be good to go.

I’m all for mounting the loader on the tractor versus the trailer if that is going to be the way you normally run, dozer/trailer. I wish we had mounted the Farmi we have for the County on the back of the Valtra tractor but we didn’t, thanks to yours truly. I regret that decision… It would be so much handier to be able to just back up the tractor to work decks, construct machine piles (slash) etc.

Your dozer-mounted rig would sure be handy for sorting grade/species on the landing as well as loading trucks. Your trucking options would open up considerably as well, and be less expensive, if you don’t have to be joined at the hip with a self loader and pay trucker man to load them for you. Amortized over time, of course.

Hope all is well with you, Bro.

-S

[Scott G]

Glad you and the horses are OK. I’ve been in the same situation before. Never broke the gooseneck, but sheared off the headache rack behind the cab. That headache rack was the only thing that kept the deck-over from shearing off my cab. My personal best was sliding backwards with the stock trailer ~ 100yds down a 20% grade. No damage during that one other than very shaken nerves and I almost had to clean/reupholster the truck seat after that.

I’ve learned since that throwing chains on all four, +/- chains on the brake axle on the trailer as well is a good thing. 10 minutes of chaining up time saves a whole lot of adrenalin.

Once again, glad you and your outfit made out OK except for gluing some steel & a bit of lost time.

Take care of yourself, Brother. 🙂

[Scott G]

Ronnie, I, personally, would avoid the Hudson unit like the plague. I owned one of them about 13 years ago. The loaders are notorious for the slew seal (main boom rotation) leaking due to the main shaft being pitted. Maybe they have beefed up the unit and corrected the seal issue by now. I’ll be an optimist, but…

For the hardwoods your working in, I would recommend a Farmi or another HD rig.

I hope all is well with you in your part of the country, my dear southern gentleman friend! 🙂

[Scott G]

Perfect match! Congrats Ben!! Your horses & ‘bottom line’ will love you…

[Scott G]

Perfect, Erika! Thanks! 🙂

[Scott G]

Helloooo Admin… Are you following this?

[Scott G]

So in absence of any additional forthcoming comments from other members, where do we take it from here? Administrator or …?
-S

[Scott G]

The wrong kind of disturbance…

[Scott G]

The trees are but a partial matrix upon which a forest is built and all of the biota and abiotic components that go with that. “Forest” does not equate to a group of trees. A stand is a group of trees with like characteristics. Unfortunately most people don’t “get” that.

Practicing “forestry” should be the art & science of practicing balanced ecosystem management. The “Golden Rule” (no pun) of maintaining ecological integrity is that you can’t change one component of an ecosystem without affecting everything else contained within that defined ecosystem. The trick is to try to maintain proportionate balance of all components, biotic & abiotic, after a disturbance. Disturbance is an essential process for all ecosystems, from a single tree falling in the woods to a landscape-scale fire/wind event, it’s what enables the system to maintain its’ “sustainability”. For me, disturbance ecology is one of the most fascinating aspects of resource management and lately, has my very focused attention with respect to my specific Rocky Mtn region, especially given our current issues out west. Too many folks are trying to “love our natural resources to death” by adopting a freeze-frame/preservation mentality that omits disturbance whether thats fire, insects/disease, timber harvest, you name it… You can “preserve” a chunk of ground for its habitat potential. You can “preserve” a stand of trees. You can’t “preserve” a forest; …only conserve its resources that are vital functioning components mandatory to maintaining a healthy, vibrant, resilient, & fully functioning forested ecosystem.

Polar opposite to the above “love it to death scenario” are those in the natural resource extraction industries that attempt to tout “disturbance ecology” in their favor as justification for their practices. You can’t continually short-rotation a stand of pine, remove most of the understory vegetation, plow off or severely compact the upper horizons of soil structure, and still be left with a dynamic, resilient, and fully-functioning forest. It will require additional inputs now that there is a deficit. Restoration is simply a one-word term used to define, often incorrectly, attempts at repairing ecosystems that have gotten to a point where they need input or output that is beyond the historical range of variability for that specific system. “Out of whack” if you prefer. They are no longer the perfect closed loop. Southern pine plantation silviculture practices are the absolute epitome of this scenario.

Often folks try to exclude humans from ecosystem function. Impossible. For to do so would be to completely disregard our place as a functioning (albeit lately, non functioning brain-dead) component on this earth. We are not surplus, because surplus does not exist, but we are functioning outside of what are traditional roles/impact would have been historically. Corrective ecosystem balance, of scale, usually occurs through mass disturbance. Despite any/all remedial measures taken, there is always a tipping point. Either the component that is out of balance (us) will “suffer” a mass disturbance to bring balance back to the system or the system will evolve to be something else.

On earth, humans are the ultimate super-predator. Caveat being is that we have a highly evolved brain, …although that definitely comes into question more often than not. We can do wonderful things for the beautifully exquisite macro-system we live in, aka planet earth, or… we can royally screw it up. Unfortunately we seem to be trending more towards the later.

We have room, and forests have the capacity, to wisely utilize the natural resources that we are a part, not seperate, from. It is up to us to use that bucket of gray goo on top of our shoulders to think things through within the context of our being part of a system rather than dominant overall strictly for the gain of our species.

Take home…, you can’t change one thing (i.e. popping that nice tree out of the hole) without affecting, literally, the whole specific ecosystem that you are privileged to be working in. Think before you cut and plan through how not only you can practice “low-impact” forestry, but what the future consequences of your actions, positive or negative may be. Could be you just did a great thing ecologically speaking by harvesting that tree or, conversely, you just destroyed the next great wildlife snag-to-be within that system.

Your decision, choose wisely…

That was way too much random thought for one cup of coffee… 😉

[Scott G]

@Carl Russell 39639 wrote:

Yesterday I was visiting University of Vermont School of Natural Resources and stopped in to see an old classmate of mine who works for USFS overseeing Wilderness in the Northeast…… and he said he had just got off the phone with his colleague in NH who was raving about your work.

Good job all….

Carl

When it comes to procuring quality ecosystem services work for Natural Resource Agencies, word of mouth and networking are everything. Pulling off a great job, in spades, almost always begets more great natural resource projects. You can take my word on that one. Get ready for the gates to open…

Kudos to the DAP team for pulling this off as an unqualified success. I was impressed. Special Kudos to Eddie & Jane for all of the logistics & prep that it takes to pull off a project of this scope & scale. It ain’t easy, and requires a phenomenal amount of time up front, but is the primary difference in ensuring projects such as this sail or fail. E & J have set the bar very high on this one.

BTW, this job was a “real-kick-in-the-ass-great-time” with great people!

[Author]

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