First Logs

[Baystatetom]

My steers just pulled in their first sawlogs. I think they have pulled more weight for short distances but this was the first time I hooked them to trees big enough to make lumber out of. I cut two hemlocks 16″ DBH and cut two 16′ logs off each. It was a tough spot to get them moving and they worked hard for a couple hundred feet but then just about ran away with them on the down hill slope to my back yard. I feel like this was a milestone for me and my boys. Extra grain for them tonight. (and a beer for me).
~Tom

[Carl Russell]

Awesome Tom….. That must be such a good feeling…

Carl

[jen judkins]

Congrats, Tom. Its addicting, isn’t it!

[Doug]

Well done Tom!

Doug

[Tim Harrigan]

Good load for those boys. How big are they now?

[Simple Living]

Did you have anyone there with a camera?? LOL It sounds like you better get that plow ready for spring, they will be ready for it!!

Gordon

[Baystatetom]

My wife just said “good now you can help me clean up”, and my best friend who logs with a JD 648 grapple said “nice job, you worked all afternoon and pulled out $25 worth of timber”. But I knew you guys would share my excitement, Thanks.
Here is a pic off my phone. Tim they are 1150 each off the tape. I wouldn’t expect them to pull that much all day but for a couple hours they will do fine. I have to rig up a go devil before I do much more to keep the log from digging in so much.

[Baystatetom]

O yeah see that puddle in front of them, they went around it.
~Tom

[CharlyBonifaz]

O yeah see that puddle in front of them, they went around it.

just wanted to keep the log from getting wet :rolleyes:
good looking!

[Rick Alger]

Hi Tom,

I’m with you on the issue of trying to make a go in low-value timber. Be interesting to get a discussion going on this topic. As I see it the value of most standing timber of low to average quality won’t yield enough to fairly compensate the landowner and the logger. It works for landowners who value esthetic forestry highly and are willing to pay for it, but for the people who see their wood as primarily an economic resource, there isn’t enough money in the log checks to pay an animal logger fairly and have enough left for a reasonable stumpage/trucking/forester return.

This topic has been kicked around many times. It usually comes down to pick your jobs and markets carefully. Sound advice. But for someone trying to log full time in an area that doesn’t value esthetics as highly as economic return, That is hard advice to follow.

Any thoughts?

[Baystatetom]

I agree Rick. It will be hard to find landowners willing to sell hemlock and beech at a loss. In this case it is timber off my land that I am going to saw into boards for my own use so it actually saves me money. I am hoping within a year to leave my full time job and go to work for my self. I will continue to act as a consulting forester, and also run my sawmill along with working the steers in the woods. I have a large client base and am well known in my area so I just have to be fussy about the jobs I will take. If a lot isn’t well suited for working with animals I will mark it and put it out to bid. Like it or not draft power in the woods is still a niche. I am placing a bet that there is a big enough niche in my area to keep me busy. I think folks are willing to be green within reason. A lot of folks will take less money or maybe even pay a little out, in order to do the right thing. As long as the $ and numbers are not way to far out of line, I think it will work. I also really see the value of a hybrid system. Working a team along with a machine could really boost production and help lessen the $ gap. Carl really helped me to realize it is just a mental thing. You have to think of your self as providing a service and not as a production logger.
~Tom

[Rick Alger]

Yes, folks will take a little less money to do the right thing. But most of them won’t take a lot less money. I’ve lost half a dozen jobs because people said my bid was so low that the cut wasn’t worth doing. Some of them got a machine crew, others left the woods untouched.

Carl’s model of cooperative logging may well be the way to produce enough wood to justify practicing good forestry in worst-first situations. Back in the day it worked. A friend of mine twitched for two choppers and a yard man. He would switch horses at noon. He twitched 8 cords a day. The wood was cut to four foot pulp and yarded (forwarded) with a crawler and a big scoot.

With modern chainsaws one chopper could probably do 8 cords a day, and with long-length pulp you wouldn’t need a full-time yard man, so it looks like two men(Chopper and twitcher) could come close to producing 8 cords of pulp a day trailside. Two such crews could feed one of those forwarders/porters.12- 16 cords a day would be enough to provide a trip a day for a trucker. And there ought to be enough money to go around, especially if the forwarder could be had at a piece rate of say 15 bucks a cord.

I think this is how Dobbin Forestry operates. It more or less follows Carl’s model. I don’t see why it wouldn’t work elsewhere in New England where there is a high volume of low-grade material yearning to be liberated.

This kind of operation, in my view, would be as much of a service as the typical selective harvest.

Any thoughts?

[mitchmaine]

Maybe we could turn the thought around and see what it looked like? What if two men and a horse let themselves out as a service to skidder crews? On long hitches, supply six or eight stems every 30 or forty minutes so the skidder operator never touched his saw. Just turn and went. Then the jobber could worry about the bottom line, and the two horse loggers could work on a piece rate or something. Worth a thought.

Rick, I’m working here at home, so stumpage is part of the pay. even so, I’m trying to fill the sugarhouse with wood for the spring, so I’m cutting good fir, separating the pulp from the tops, and trying to kill two birds. As far as money, I can work on the woodpile, and maybe make $60 a day bustin my hump for the pulp that piles up, while penny, with a hatchet and a packframe, can browse the tops of the same trees for tips, and make two or three hundred dollars in fir tips for the balsam mill (balsam fragrant pillows?). go figure

[Rick Alger]

Hi Mitch,

Yeah, softwood is so undervalued it makes you want to scream.

I like your idea about feeding the skidder.

Last year I talked with a friend about cutting and bunching with a horse for his grapple. The wood was in a swamp, and he figured it wouldn’t freeze till late January, so I could be stockpiling for a couple months. It might have worked, but he had bid the job as whole-tree, and there was no way I could bunch and pile wood with the limbs and tops attached.

I’m starting a job right now that will soon have a skidder operation nearby on the same road. The skidder guy running the job visited one of my sites a few years ago and we talked about horses and how he could down-size. Be interesting to see if we could work something out. I haven’t seen how big his machines are, and that could be a challenge as I am thinning a plantation on 5.5 ft centers. If he’s got one of the bigger grapples I’d have to take out too many leave trees just to make roads. If he has a small cable machine it might work. It will come down to pennies probably. My take is going to be $50 a cord. Longest skid distance is probably 1800 ft. Avg stem dbh is a weak 7″. So I may not be able to offer enough to interest him.

It is definitely a starvation project, but it is right next door. No trailering. No hovel. No nights away from home.

I’ll report back if anything happens on the mixed power front.

[Baystatetom]

I started chopping on a project today. 8 acre wildlife clearing in a hardwood stand. I am leaving all the nice oak (not many of them maybe 10/acre) and taking everything else. I am guessing it is about a 1000′ skid. I have a friend there with his mid 70s 440A, he takes 7 firewood trees at a time. The log pile looked like a heavy load on a triaxle after a 7 hour day. That’s worth $700 down here now. After we take out expenses I am still pretty happy that, not to mention a few decent birch and ash sawlogs in my sites for first thing in the morning. As we work the skid will get shorter, and the hole to drop trees in bigger. Our production should go up.
My whole point when I started this ramble is we did well with two guys, if you put in another chopper and twitcher we would have had to produce two loads. Would you be just as well off to be slow and not split the profit so many times? If I can keep up with a skidder alone I should be able to bury a horse. I do spend a above average time lopping up tops real small, but maybe not enough to offset the time of limbing spruce/fir compared to soft maple and black birch. The clear cut definitely makes it faster too, once I have a hole its easier then being selective or thinning for sure.
I’m thinking of tackling lots with a few main skid trails to be used with a 4×4 tractor and bunching logs along those trails with my steers. I’ll chop a few hours bunch a few etc. Then I’ll give the team a rest for a day and run the logs all out to the landing with the tractor. Yes, No, Maybe?
~Tom

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