I started a thread in the Projects section for the house construction, but figured I'd post a few action pics here as well.
Collecting cut logs and adding them to the main pile:
Getting ready to skid out a bunch of felled trees:
Here's one pulled up to the main pile:
Lifting it up onto the stack. I really need to get my rears filled. Had it not been for the fact that I'm loading facing uphill, I would have tipped forward (I still did a little bit raising the largest trees onto the pile)
Boy that's a lot of logs!
I'm thinking about finding someone with a logging truck to haul it the 10 miles to the mill instead of me doing it 7 tons at a time with my goose-neck and 3500. I found one guy that will do it for $200 per load. I figure an empty logging truck tips the scale at around 25,000 lbs and is around 100,000 lbs loaded real tight. So that's 75,000 lbs of timber per trip, or 38 tons, which @ $38/ton comes to $1,444. So he can do in one trip what it would take me 5 trips to do, which at his rate would be $40 per trip. Seems like a fair deal even though the mill is only 10 miles away. The catch is that it will be very hard for him to make the 1st turn getting out, from one private street to the other. Also, the neighbors will likely complain about a ~100,000 lbs truck tearing up the blacktop that they paid to put down.
The perfect compromise would be to find someone with a straight logging truck that can do 40,000 lbs per load @ $100 a load.
I would not be able to load anything but my own goose-neck trailer with my tractor, but the Case operator said he would be happy to load up a logging truck using the excavator (the way he operates, it wouldn't take him long at all).