Windfall Salvage

[Steven Q]

Firstly Merry Christmas, Secondly Thank you, I have been a long time reader and learned a lot through this forum and Rural Heritage. This community has guided me through a lot of firsts, from my first team, to my first foal. I am about to embark on another first…. My first contracts, actually worked out perfectly a couple of small woodlots at the end of my driveway, 45 +/- cords of firewood and 8500bf of sawlogs/veneer. Am looking forward to it.

Have an unrelated question at this time, discovered a windfall in our woodlot, measures 27inches @ the rootball, and 19 inches @ 35 feet, a pine,not exactly sure the type red/white… Seems a shame to let this go to waste in the woods. I guess the question is weather or not it makes sense to bring it out? Time/effort wise.

Also how long do I have? The majority of the log is off the ground so it should be good for awhile, just not sure how long.

Thanks
Steve

[Baystatetom]

Where are you? The needles look like eastern white pine and the bark looks more like pitch pine. I am guessing it is neither, and you have a different type of pines then I do. If I knew where you are, I or somebody else on here could narrow the possibilities.
~Tom

[PhilG]

Steven,
time is free, take it out. any time you are using your team it is not a waste of time, watching tv=waste of time, listening to polititions=waist of time,playing video games=waist of time… effort and horse logging is never a waste of time 🙂

[Ridge]

I have taken out many of these type trees. Sawed them for lumber and made good use of them. Seems a real waste to me to leave them there to rot. I hope to take the horses to get one this morning in fact. If I were closer I would be glad to help. Ridge

[Michel Boulay]

Hi Steve,
white pine needles come in bundles of 5 and red pine in bundles of 2, so fairly easy to distinguish. A way to remember is white five letter= five needles. At this time of year the wind fall will keep easily because it is cold and insect won’t be active to go after it, but if left for a year then there will be problems with insects later on.
Depends to on how long its been down? How come it was blown down rot in the butt? Limbing and cutting into lenghts will give an idea what condition it is in. Before doing that looking at the butt right now will tell you if there is any rot, if so cutting off pieces of 2 feet or so will help to find sound wood. then you decide how you want to cut it. Hope this helps.
Mike

[Scott G]

Steve, Boulami is spot on. The pictures are fuzzy, and so is my vison, but it appears as though the needles are long and in bundles (fascicles) of 5. If the cones are mature, they are much to small for eastern white pine. They may very well be first year conlets though and not second year mature cones. I’ll let Carl or one of the other foresters from the NE region give you the definitive as your region’s forests are very distant from mine, in many respects…

As long as it is cold and the wood is basically frozen you’re OK. As soon as it warms up a bit you will start to see some issues with blue stain. Most mills will dock you a degrade for it, other folks, like myself, embrace it as very aesthetically appealing for interior woodwork.

Increments of 2′ starting at 8′ is the norm and then expanding from there – 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20, 24. For each 8′ of length I normally allow for a 6″ overcut. This ensures that you don’t end up with lumber that is less than its nominal length. Mills will dock you back to the next shortest accepted length, not to mention if it is for your own needs there isn’t much use for a 7’6″ stud. Check with your local mill and ask what they are looking for as nominal bucked length and what their requirements for overcut are.

Finally, be careful when you work this tree up. Windthrow often stores a lot of energy and can release that energy when you least expect it as you are happily limbing & bucking along. Be especially careful of the rootwad/stump as you cut it from the stem. They will often flop back into the hole even after being lateral for a long time.

Leaving the tree as large diameter coarse woody debris in your forest is also a desirable option, especially if you don’t have much of that size of material on your forest floor. There will be significantly more life in that tree in a couple of years than there ever was when it was alive & standing.

[Ethan Tapper]

I’ve got to piggy back on this one and ask more about something Scott said… I know that cutting trees off their root balls can be really dangerous. I’ve heard stories of lots of crazy things happening, including topped trees flying back up into an upright position. I’ll be working with my boys doing salvage of this nature (tipped-over trees with rootballs) this winter, and am wondering if there is anything that we can do to minimize our exposure to these risks.

Any help would be appreciated!

[Steven Q]

Hi,
Tom,
I am in Southern Ontario, just outside Toronto. I was leaning towards White Pine as well, but a not sure.

Phil,
Time is free, I don’t have a TV, so I couldn’t play video games even if I wanted, not much into politics, but don’t seem to have much free time….Just going hard trying to keep the ship afloat. Kind of why I was wondering about the value of bring these logs out, I was in Home Depot the other day looking at 2×4’s, trying to figure in my head if I was better giving them my money for their 2×4’s, or getting those logs out finding a method to have them sawn etc… Do like working with my teams, though.

Ridge,
If you were closer I would welcome the help. Where are you located? Do you have your own sawmill or did you hire someone?

Mike,
No don’t think there was a rot, the rootball is large and still attached, I am thinking we had some pretty good winds this year, so it probably came down in one of those storms, it is a pretty wet area at times. I guess I’ll know soon enough.

Scott,
Sorry about the pictures, I had to take them with my phone. I didn’t see any larger cones on the tree, but could have missed them. Could be too late for the staining, as I haven’t been able to get back there in a while and just noticed the tree, it has just started getting cold in this area and even tomorrow it is supposed to warm up and rain.

If the lumber was to get to a mill, opposed to being for my own use, is there any advantage to longer log sizes?

I spent a few weeks last year working in a cedar blow down where a tornado had gone threw, I took a lot of extra time to see what was happening and what was going to happen, no rushing in there.

The woodlot is neglected on property that I rent, the landowners are waiting for the developers to come with big offers, there is a lot of debris on the floor and standing, I figured I could put it to use.

Ethan,
About all I can add is to take your time and be careful, survey the situation a few times until you are comfortable. Cut the stump far enough away from the rootball that if i comes your way, it doesn’t land on you…..Hopefully some others can help you more.

So basically, rough estimate I would have about 790bf of some kind of pine, it may be stained, but should still be usable, I can get it sawn, and save the cost of lumber, or see what it would be worth to a mill.

Thanks for your input, will get at it when some of that free time comes around, or might have to make some time somewhere.

Steve
Not Yet Named Horselogging

[Ridge]

I am located in North Central Pa. I do have a sawmill which is a band mill and is a real good investment. It is a cheaper mill being it is manual without hydraulics. Works great for what I want. I am not interested in doing custom work.I do a little custom work though.
I have had little problems with blowdowns and cutting them. That could be because I have done this type of thing all my life. My Dad did a lot of woods work and we use axe and crosscut saws. It is true that a blown down tree needs a good look-see to evaluate what it might do.There certainly is a need for safety evaluation in all woods jobs. Actually most all jobs.Ridge

[near horse]

The risk with windfalls I’ve heard mentioned usually have to do with the root ball rolling back into the hole after it’s free from the rest of the tree. The hazard was related to kids/dogs climbing in or around the root mass – shouldn’t be there in the first place during cutting but stuff happens. Also, I know of one case where the ball rolled back at a later time well after the tree was released. Obviously, many fo those masses are heavy enough to crush a human or dog …..

[Jim Ostergard]

Near Horse is spot on with the danger. Last year here in Maine a fellow was releasing a blowdown and his young grandson was in the hole. Of course the tragic outcome was of course the death of the grandson.
Jim

[Author]

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