Leaving The Rat Race

[Supercharged111]

So with all that's been said, it seems unlikely that this year's cuts will be cared for well enough to do cool stuff with. As for the chipper, you still have to burn the pile, right? If so, it sounds like an extra step. For now we're just burning the brush from each tree as they fall, lighting the fire first thing and keeping it going all day. We made a decent dent today, I expect to do the same tomorrow. I'm now in the process of connecting part of our front yard to the driveway. I don't know how much driveway I can cut out, but it won't be the full width even if I manage to make a full length goat trail. I've also measured and marked to the best of my ability my northern border as this is an extreme rough in in terms of clearing the land. We can finally put eyes on the distances to verify if they look OK.

So earlier today after dropping a bunch of trees, delimbing, and semi-efficiently bucking/stacking, the wife decided to shoot a video of me downing a tree. She picked tree #1 after lunch which was not only the biggest one I'd gone for yet, but also a heavy back leaner. I told her it was going to be a long video and I wasn't wrong. It took me 20 minutes of cussing, pouring sweat, self doubt, and trying to correct the mistakes I made early on to get it on the ground. I prevailed, and thankfully that big b@$t@rd went where I wanted it to. I actually measured this one, it was 70' tall which is a bit more than I would have guessed. Man inches I guess.

So I'll be honest, I've been mostly rocking the wee Poulan saw. It's lighter and easier to operate all day. The Poulan did not get much time on this tree. I knew it was a handful, so after a day or so of not touching the Stihl I fired it up for this bad boy and holy crap, it literally makes the Poulan feel like a child's toy. Even the idle almost has this sort of lope to it, and the way it eats a tree? This is why this saw exists. The Poulan would have taken EONS to delimb this thing, not the Stihl. The difference between the saws is absolutely laughable, but at the same time the Stihl is straight up overkill for the majority of the small stuff I end up cutting down. I wonder what a Stihl bar and chain might be like on the JV saw? At any rate, the Poulan got some time on this tree as the wife wanted to take a whack at it, so we tag teamed the delimbing for a bit and she seemed to enjoy it.

That's a parting shot of her rocking the chaps and helmet. And here's a shot of the wedges that finally took it down.

Don't mind that lone single wedge, he wasn't doing anything. I learned a valuable lesson here. Don't try to lift the whole tree with a single wedge stack! This white pine is soft and they just dug right into the tree. Drive in multiple stacks simultaneously and your life will be easier. Better yet, rig a line and a cumalong and save even more grief. I snagged an electric winch and a couple chains from my uncle tonight. I have more leaners to knock over tomorrow. Hopefully I'm able to work smarter than harder like today, I keeled over a couple smaller leaners with a chain, tow strap, anger and hatred. Had one that didn't pinch the bar, but laid back as soon as I pulled the saw out. I booked it because I wasn't sure if the hinge was gonna snap or not. It didn't, and it fell where it was aimed

 

[CopperNick]

With the chipper, no burning needed post insertion of branch. What comes out is mulch; fine bits and pieces that might make good fire starter but is more for filling in ravines and sloughs. it mostly resembles the debris you'd naturally find on a forest floor. and about the same consistency. Minced fine enough and some weekend farmer would pay you cash to have the stuff for decoration for a flower bed.



Nick

 

[ck80]

With the chipper, no burning needed post insertion of branch. What comes out is mulch; fine bits and pieces that might make good fire starter but is more for filling in ravines and sloughs. it mostly resembles the debris you'd naturally find on a forest floor. and about the same consistency. Minced fine enough and some weekend farmer would pay you cash to have the stuff for decoration for a flower bed.



Nick

Although, I'd caution against chipping too much at a time.

In a large enough pile, depending on clearing volume, and you give a bigger chunk to support lots of wood destroying buggers.

That large deep pile of mulch might sustain a colony or few for a couple seasons, then they turn their eye towards other sources - standing timber with damage soon making for weak infested trees that are a hazard in storms, or, worse yet, that nice big pile of dry temperature controlled lumber about to be erected on the site....

 

[Supercharged111]

Although, I'd caution against chipping too much at a time.

In a large enough pile, depending on clearing volume, and you give a bigger chunk to support lots of wood destroying buggers.

That large deep pile of mulch might sustain a colony or few for a couple seasons, then they turn their eye towards other sources - standing timber with damage soon making for weak infested trees that are a hazard in storms, or, worse yet, that nice big pile of dry temperature controlled lumber about to be erected on the site....

How might a cold winter affect their year to year population?

 

[CopperNick]

So don't pile it. it is mulch. Wander off into the back forty and find a bare spot that could use some encouragement and dump the load there, then spread it out as far and as thinly as possible so it will decompose faster. If the bugs want it that bad, they can durn well get up on their hind legs and migrate to where it is. Alternatively, put an ad in the local community paper, "Free to a good home, fresh mulch. Bring own shovel and means of transport." and see what happens.



Nick

 

[ck80]

How might a cold winter affect their year to year population?

Depends on species.

When we were in New England we burned and dug/destroyed nest areas in the early winter before frost freeze of the ground. Termites don't last well if their nest falls into the 20s. Carpenter ants much the same. So cold snaps overnight freezes were hard on the buggers.

But the nests go into the soil, they just forage the wood debris for food.

That's why builders burying wood debris sucks so much, it provides extra wood source insulated underground away from cold temps.

Also, I like making brush fires anyways.

 

[CopperNick]

In that case, have at 'er, Burn, Baby, Burn. Just be careful about whatever laws on the subject happen to be in effect in the county.



Nick

 

[Supercharged111]

Oh we've been sending the burn pile daily, keeps us caught up on the brush. But the hauling and the burning of the brush is the biggest limfac we have. We're stuck living with it this year for sure. 2 hours after tossing the last log I'm still looking at an open flame. But I digress. The day started with me dropping another 70' back leaner white pine. This time I rigged up the pulley/cable/ratchet strap, made my face cut, my back cut, followed the chain with a wedge, got my hinge depth set, pulled the saw out when I saw there was no lean left, and it started to go. w00t! For like a second, the thing snapped the hunger prematurely, rolled off the stump, and landed 4-5' right of where I aimed it. Here's the stump and log, I'm undecided on if I f'ed up the hinge wood thickness on the one side or if that branch/knot in the one side messed me up?

One thing that's consistently kicked my arse is holding the saw level. My face and back cuts are pretty much never parallel. I'm thinking of getting a camper level to stick on the side of the damn thing because that problem hasn't corrected itself yet. Somehow making that second wedge cut pretty much has, I usually only need minor correction for the face cut wedge now if any. And I'm getting better at keeping the hinge thickness more consistent from side to side too. After dropping that monster right on the wood pile and onto the border of the burn area, I lit the fire for the day. What a chore to get that b@$t@rd down the hatch. I bucked it, but I didn't stack it. Gonna see if the mini-x can save my bacon there, those logs are d@mn3d heavy. After that Indeed downed a couple more jack pines almost as tall and the last one I really screwed the pooch on. I think I concentrated too much on where I wanted the center of the trunk on the ground and not enough on what could catch it up above because that back leaning POS went right into a trove of trees to the left. This was my saving grace right here.

I went with the latter notch method. Problem there was that the hinge hadn't let go. I tried beating it down with the 10# sledge but after shortening the lever arm it was no match for the remainder of the wood so I ended up zipping right through it, downing another 3' section, and then staring the remainder in the face that was nearly vertical. I took about a 4-5' bite out of that in hopes it would fall backwards and it did so I could delimb and huck the rest of that m'fer into the fire. From there it was a couple deadite pines that went in and some fresh hot 2-3" maples that dropped like flies. Dinner with grandma tomorrow so no fire, but will down a few more scrawny little things and stack them in anticipation of a ripper of a fire the following day. Also, tomorrow a reinforcement arrives with a chainsaw so I think I can get back on track with connecting a driveway with this clearing. Also also, did I mention it's been 2.5 hours since I last tossed anything into this pit?

I'm just sitting here with a beer enjoying the low 60s and enormous privacy this has to offer. Also also also, I have a neighbor dog to shoot that never shuts the F up.

 

[PBGBodyFan]

Say yah to da UP eh?

 

[Supercharged111]

Say yah to da UP eh?

Dontchaknow!