cut and buched wood.

[TaylorJohnson]

Do any of you ever cut and bunch wood for your horses to pull out? I know a lot of you that are in the big timber all the time probably do not but how about some of you guys that have to deal with pulp wood and small bolts? Taylor Johnson

[mitchmaine]

hey taylor, back in the 70’s they started buying 8′ wood. but before that and after for a while 4′ wood was how you sold it. bolts and logs aside. treelength wood wasn’t even a term. the horse and the crawler tractor were comparable at work, but when the rubber tired skidder came out in the 60’s yarding wood changed overnight.
they called it stump chopping around here and you could cut a whole woodlot without yarding in the fall. you would have to pile your wood for scaling and payment. but if you were yarding too you just made a rick and counted in the yard. thats my memory.

i liked to cut four foot wood. easy to handle, and easy to scale. you might be able to move some firewood, but folks around here are used to buying it fit to size now and the processers buy it tree length so…….

mitch

[TaylorJohnson]

Mitch we cut a lot of 100” and 102 ” wood here still. Up were I am at there is very little pulp shipped tree length. I have bunched lots of wood in my life of the 100” kind. Some times I still do for the horses , when I do I put a stick down so I don’t have to fight a chain under it. Cutting and bunching is a lot of work but at times I think it is the way to go in small wood. In stead of pulling out five sticks of wood tree length I am able to pull eight or more or how ever it works out even if it is one additional stick it all help at trucking time.
. Taylor Johnson

[mitchmaine]

exactly taylor, i man could move five feet of wood easy on bare ground and a cord on ice with a scoot. no way could you twitch and keep up that rate after 100 yards.

[Scott G]

When I’m in post/pole (norm) I will usually skid 2/3 rails(poles) per choke. Most of this pole/rail material is what we refer to as “pecker poles” 3-4″d and it just doesn’t work otherwise. Post specs for the mill are 8’3″. skidding out short lengths like that has a high potential of catching, flipping, and cleaning your clock. I’ll usually try to skid those out in 16-24s and ultimately 2-3 stems/chokers on the grab hook.

BTW, all the markets, including post/pole & firewood (usually the “reliables”) have completely crashed. 3 million acres of bug kill coupled with a lousy economy have made the situation beyond ugly. We (region) literally have billions of board feet decked roadside in the northern part of the State with no where to go.

With the market flooded, we are seeing prices paid for material that are the same as they were three decades ago.

Everything is service right now and even that has taken a huge hit due to the economy. I have enough work in front of me (service) but most folks are not that fortunate and are folding and/or defaulting.

In short, it sucks…

[TaylorJohnson]

Scott , I have seen guys get knocked stupid by short wood LOL. You have to run long lines or be up beside your horse / in front of your horse. Never beside it but if you are be on the out side of the hook the logs will be less likely to come into you but will mostly swing away from you. Taylor Johnson

[Rick Alger]

Hey Taylor,

Most of the work I get requires utilizing wood down to 4 inches, so I bunch a lot of 8 foot softwood pulp and haul it out on a scoot. I also bunch four foot hardwood limbwood and scoot it out.

If I wasn’t working in wood marked for only 30 % removal, I would bunch everything and scoot it out. In thinnings, I find it is usually too time consuming to make hot yards for logs in amongst the save trees.

When I get to do full scale harvests, or have room to stockpile, I bunch logs as well as short wood. Helps in managing the landing, and you can head out with a decent load every time whether you’re using a scoot or a forecart.

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