We finally started working on a job in Lilliesville, Vermont, this last week. It is a timber harvest of mostly red spruce, with limited quantities of white pine, harwood sawtimber, and fuelwood. We have put together a crew consisting of Brad Johnson with his team, me with my team, Ben Canonica with his tractor and Payeur forwarder, and Kevin Rae chopping.
This week we cleared nearly 1/2 miles of trails in preparation for a crawler leveling and putting in drainage. The improved trail network will be a primary product of the job, providing functionality to this and subsequent harvests, as well as recreational access. We are all working by the hour as we have varying schedules, and we figure that it will be the easiest way to break out how each contributes to production once cutting is underway.
Our other primary product will be an improved residual stand of multi-aged mixed species. A major portion of the current stand is made up of species such as red maple, red spruce, and paper birch. This stand is melded in transition to one of northern hardwoods, so there are areas where the softwood component is being over-topped by hardwoods, while in other areas there is strong red spruce and white pine regeneration.
We are cutting red spruce primarily, as it is the predominant species. A lot of what we are doing will create small openings in the crown of 1/10 – 1/4 acre in size to either establish pockets of regen, or to release established seedling and saplings. In the areas where northern hardwood predominate, we will be cutting virtually all of the spruce on a single tree basis. There are a few sections where pole-sized spruce and white pine are growing in dense mixed stands, where our harvest will concentrate on removing defective trees, as well as generally releasing highest quality crop trees.
Our trails transect the stand in such a way as no skid will be greater that 300 feet in any direction, with most work being done within 100 feet of small landing areas. We plan to bunch logs alongside our main trails so that the forwarder will be able to stop for a full load at any one area(1mbf ish). I opened up an area yesterday where we should be able to yard 10-15mbf of timber into one area, coming from any direction.
Log prices are not all that high, but the owner is very supportive of the intent of the operation, and will be happy with the improvement over potential financial gain. That being said there is enough timber here that we fully expect to be able to cover our costs from stumpage, and hope to still be able to pay them something. The saving grace is that there is a quantity of pretty good hardwood sawtimber that should add something to the bottom line.
Even so, with 4 people working at $35, we figure that we will need to produce a minimum of 5mbf per day to break even on the spruce, with any production over that producing stumpage. We plan to start each day with 4 saws chopping for an hour or so. When logs are ready, we will start skidding while 2 saw chop. At some point mid morning we expect the forwarder to get underway, with the remainder of the day a mix of chopping and skidding by the rest of us.
We have the capability of using teams on carts, single with a skidding arch, singles twitching, and a bobsled, so we hope to have most of the bases covered. There are some very large white pines and a few big hardwoods that may require the sled to move them. I may also haul out some on the sled at the end of the day, but most of the long hauls will be done by the tractor.
So far we have only stacked up a few mbf as most of our work has been swamping trails, but next week we should be able to focus on cutting and skidding. The crawler will come in by the middle of the week, and we should be putting wood on the landing by the end of the week. We do have a few hundred feet of trails that need to be cut while the crawler is there too.
It is interesting getting started like this with so many parties that don’t usually work together. We each have worked with one another in smaller associations, but never all together at once. This week was partly spent learning each other’s work habits, finding limitations with equipment, chainsaw maintenance, pulling down hang-ups, and overcoming horse behavior flare-ups, but all-in-all we accomplished what we set out to do without major complications.
I’ll keep you up-to-date as we move forward.
Carl
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