Tractors and wood! Show your pics

[Gordon Gould]

We've had almost two weeks of steady above freezing weather - very unusual for March. Mud or packed ice everywhere. But that changed in a hurry last night. 9 degrees this morning with a high today of 16. Made the ground solid so I got the chance to block up some more wood. It's supposed to stay below freezing for a couple more days.

gg

 

[John_Mc]

We've had almost two weeks of steady above freezing weather - very unusual for March. Mud or packed ice everywhere. But that changed in a hurry last night. 9 degrees this morning with a high today of 16. Made the ground solid so I got the chance to block up some more wood. It's supposed to stay below freezing for a couple more days.

12˚F when I got up this morning, but it wasn't cold enough long enough to make things solid again. (That's what get for living here in the Champlain Valley, the "banana belt" of Vermont.) It's a bummer, since I have some crop tree release work to do that is a mile by trails from our house. I'm stuck until things dry out a good bit.

 

[Jstpssng]

I took a ride downstate to see my mother today... in a snowstorm for the first hundred miles. It reminded me that next winter I'm going to have studded snows. Once I past Bangor the sun came out and it looked like a nice day but I'm getting wimpy and it was cold!
Coming back was nice, about 20 miles from home I saw my first flock of robins on somebody's lawn. When I got home there was about 3 inches of fresh snow on the ground and it was COLD. I didn't have to worry about my sap buckets flowing over.

 

[hunt4570]

Pretty cold here yesterday as well, it even turned on the freeze protection on my pool so it was running when I got up, and that doesnt happen till it gets down to 35 degrees. Heck I had to wear a light jacket for a while in the morning!

Nice pile of wood Gordon..

 

[Gordon Gould]

12˚F when I got up this morning, but it wasn't cold enough long enough to make things solid again. (That's what get for living here in the Champlain Valley, the "banana belt" of Vermont.) It's a bummer, since I have some crop tree release work to do that is a mile by trails from our house. I'm stuck until things dry out a good bit.

It's interesting how different the climate is across our small state. 40 years ago this place had a fair amount of nice red oak. I lived just up the road and used to hunt some in here. When the owner passed it was skun off by the next owner. Cut so heavy that a rabbit would have to pack a lunch just to get across. They hardly left an oak standing. It's been almost 30 years now since the liquidation and things are growing back. I try to promote the oak, The red maple, beech, and popple had a head start with there root sprouting and the under story fir that wasn't stunted took off, so the oak needs a little help to compete. I call it micro managing my oak. During the last couple muddy weeks I have been going out on my wheeler with my saw to see what I could do to help the oak which are spread all around here and there. I just do a little at a time to incourage it if it wants to grow. What ever I cut I just let lay. At least for now. Some I may pull out later for firewood.

gg

 

[Gordon Gould]

Pretty cold here yesterday as well, it even turned on the freeze protection on my pool so it was running when I got up, and that doesnt happen till it gets down to 35 degrees. Heck I had to wear a light jacket for a while in the morning!

Nice pile of wood Gordon..

That must have been a killer - I feel your pain..

gg

 

[Gordon Gould]

I took a ride downstate to see my mother today... in a snowstorm for the first hundred miles. It reminded me that next winter I'm going to have studded snows. Once I past Bangor the sun came out and it looked like a nice day but I'm getting wimpy and it was cold!
Coming back was nice, about 20 miles from home I saw my first flock of robins on somebody's lawn. When I got home there was about 3 inches of fresh snow on the ground and it was COLD. I didn't have to worry about my sap buckets flowing over.

As cold and windy as it was yesterday we had our first robins too. About 20 of them landed on the wife's veggie garden spot which is covered by leaves and poked around for about an hour before they disappeared.

gg

 

[deezler]

We've had almost two weeks of steady above freezing weather - very unusual for March. Mud or packed ice everywhere. But that changed in a hurry last night. 9 degrees this morning with a high today of 16. Made the ground solid so I got the chance to block up some more wood. It's supposed to stay below freezing for a couple more days.
gg

15 here in southern Michigan this morning. I cut a bunch of rounds on Sunday myself, but looking at your pile makes my back hurt, haha. If you're going to hold the logs up in the air with a grapple to cut, why not hold it over a trailer, tote, or rack of some kind? Like Sawyer Rob is constantly showing us.
Then you wouldn't have to pick up those huge round off the ground. Just a thought.

I need to issue a PSA here: If you chainsaw suddenly gets louder, maybe stop cutting to inspect it. I figured my cheap aftermarket muffler had simply failed internally, which WAS true, but it also failed on the back side, and blew hot exhaust gas straight at my plastic saw case. My poor old MS310 got hurt pretty bad, melted a spring mount for the chain brake. Gotta Mcguyver it back together, or just figure out if I'm ok running with no brake. Hmmm.

In the meantime, I sort of panicked about not having a good running saw on hand. Hopped on craigslist and found this nice MS311 right nearby, score. All my old MS310 chains and bars transfer right over.

My sandy soil has been thawed out enough to be pretty dry and stable lately. These recent deep freezes actually make it worse in my woods, until it thaws and dries out again.

Despite the current cold, and delayed start of spring, the woods are still coming alive. Pileated 'peckers, king fishers, tons of robins. First green shoots should really pop after the warm rains roll in tomorrow.

 

[Gordon Gould]

If you're going to hold the logs up in the air with a grapple to cut, why not hold it over a trailer, tote, or rack of some kind? Like Sawyer Rob is constantly showing us.
Then you wouldn't have to pick up those huge round off the ground. Just a thought.

That seems to work pretty good if you have the equipment and help. But, I would need a 24' trailer or keep jockeying the trailer around as I cut. I cut my logs up to 24' long and can zing off 18" blocks into a pile pretty quick and easy. Why would I have to pick them up ? When it comes to splitting I just roll the blocks off the pile into my bucket. Then stand in one spot and split a whole bucket full throwing the splits into a rough row for sun drying or into a trailer depending.....

If a block is to big to handle on the splitter I break it down to pieces I can handle using the vertical mode.

I use other methods too but this way seems to give me the best production with the least effort using the equipment I have when working up a pile of logs on the landing.

gg

 

[deezler]

Why would I have to pick them up ? When it comes to splitting I just roll the blocks off the pile into my bucket. Then stand in one spot and split a whole bucket full throwing the splits into a rough row for sun drying or into a trailer depending.....

I use other methods too but this way seems to give me the best production with the least effort using the equipment I have when working up a pile of logs on the landing.

gg

Hey, that works! Yeah having a helper is... ideal. If not, a loader bucket of rounds at a time makes sense to me.

I'm not saying that my own methods are any more advanced. I toss logs into a row/pile, and then cut them up. Then have to pick up all the rounds, too. I toss my rounds into pallets/totes so that I can use forks to either stash them for a bit, or bring more than a front loader bucket at a time over to my splitter. For now, anyway. I have designs in my head of an elevated, sloped "cutting rack" that would allow gravity to help bring all my cut rounds down directly to the splitter deck, in a semi-permanent location. TBD.