My Meager Firewood process

[shybuck]

I heat with the wood I buck and split from my woods. My BX and FEL do the heavy lifting for me. I would like to have a grapple some day but for now bringin home what I cut serves my purpose. A few years ago I bought a kinetic splitter after a big oak blew down and crushed my hydraulic one, bent the thing in half. With a two second cycle the splitting is fast. No more waiting for hydraulics to finish the round. Started out with 2 Stihls then a Husky and now I carry around the lightest 50cc Echo. I never cut with out chaps, chainsaw helmet and gloves, and I stop cutting when I'm tired. Then I stack out in the field, let it sit in the sun and wind. I don't bother covering my wood,
the west wind blows down and up my hill constantly airing the stacks out.

 

[Survivor]

I don't want to leave all those branches and tops out in the woods. I pile them all up in big piles and burn then in the winter.

Besides I can't run a saw anymore anyway after forty years loggging. Cancer and heart failure. I have to beg and trade for that stuff.

 

[RCW]

I don't want to leave all those branches and tops out in the woods. I pile them all up in big piles and burn then in the winter.

Besides I can't run a saw anymore anyway after forty years loggging. Cancer and heart failure. I have to beg and trade for that stuff.

I was educated as a Forester and cut a lot of fire and pulp wood.

If it's any consolation, those limbs/tops, etc. do leave nutrients and wildlife cover in the woods.

To take all of them away makes for a nice "park-like" appearance, but sometimes that isn't the best thing for the woods.

Tops and brush are a good wildlife habitat (deer, rabbits, birds), and shelter new tree regeneration.

As a 40-year logger, you know a logging jog doesn't always look great to some folks.

Really, within 2-5 years, the woods can start to really thrive after a logging job for several reasons.

Depends on the type of forest and ecosystem.

 

[Survivor]

We want all that fuel out of the forest!

Most of the stuff I'm cutting is just to get rid of the fuel and burn it safely in big piles in the winter. The firewood is just a side benefit.

 

[RCW]

We want all that fuel out of the forest!

Most of the stuff I'm cutting is just to get rid of the fuel and burn it safely in big piles in the winter. The firewood is just a side benefit.

Got it. Makes perfect sense to get the fuel out of there.

 

[Survivor]

Got it. Makes perfect sense to get the fuel out of there.

Some of the tree crowns are 10-25 feet in diameter. Imagine that lying on its side in the forest! No one is going to cut up all those limbs to get a piddly amount of small pieces of wood.

 

[Hoserman]

Being in Northern Michigan we have a lot of fresh cuts. A couple years ago they used to leave a lot of the tops and small brush for wildlife. Now, with a particle board plant that moved in they take pretty much the whole shootin match,

 

[Survivor]

Being in Northern Michigan we have a lot of fresh cuts. A couple years ago they used to leave a lot of the tops and small brush for wildlife. Now, with a particle board plant that moved in they take pretty much the whole shootin match,

I wish that we had a market like that!