Tales from the woods..

[Nealm66]

In the top of the wood shed thread list there are links for random useful info pertaining to wood gathering and so on. Tick bites and lyme disease, show us your wood shed and cord calculator are a few of them.

Thank you!

 

[Grizzerbear]

Sticky links are a northern delicacy combining pine sap and sausage links. Quite tasty...

Lol too funny

 

[johneh]

Sticky links are a northern delicacy combining pine sap and sausage links. Quite tasty...

We quit using pine gum too hard to get off the teeth found maple syrup better
also works to hold up sticky notes

 

[Nealm66]

Here’s a tale, one time I had to go up on a weekend and finish a short chunk of right of way because we were starting a logging unit on Monday. Right of way cutting is where they are building new roads and need the trees cut so they can pioneer in. I was about 1 mile in and I was running a little 046 and a clutch spring broke.Tipical for this model of saw so I had spare clutch springs in my pack. Problem was , right where it happened was where a mountain lion had been dragging his kill and it stunk like cat. I’ve never ran into anything like that before but I’d heard a lot of stories about those big cats watching cutters from very close distances and many other weird stories so I was in a pickle. On one hand I’m a mile in chopping trees down by myself ( big no no! ) and my chain was spinning at an idle , the other hand, this cat sign was raising the hair on the back of my neck and my only protection is my chainsaw. I finally stopped and put a new spring on but I didn’t dilly dally. Never did see the cat, probably should have grabbed one of the deer antlers.

 

[CatfishHunter]

Good story. The bears and wolves of the Midwest never scare me, but a big cat would definitely put the scare in me.

Back in the day, my wife and I had one old snowmobile. It's five miles to our cabin and we had brought friends with us. We put my wife on the snowmobile who pulled the gear sled to our place and started the fire. This couple and I walked in by snowshoe. We got to our place during the twilight. My wife walked halfway down the stairs to greet us. As we all stood there, catching our breath and facing her/the cabin, my wife calmly told us all to look behind us. Down at the lake, a pack of five or six wolves was following our trail. They got to the dock and paused, looking up at us and then nose back to the snowy tracks. After a minute of contemplating, they blazed their own trail further down the lake shore.

That was a cool way to kick off the weekend. I insisted upon a snowy bonfire that night so that we could sit out and listen to the howls. Fun times.

 

[Nealm66]

Good story. The bears and wolves of the Midwest never scare me, but a big cat would definitely put the scare in me.

Back in the day, my wife and I had one old snowmobile. It's five miles to our cabin and we had brought friends with us. We put my wife on the snowmobile who pulled the gear sled to our place and started the fire. This couple and I walked in by snowshoe. We got to our place during the twilight. My wife walked halfway down the stairs to greet us. As we all stood there, catching our breath and facing her/the cabin, my wife calmly told us all to look behind us. Down at the lake, a pack of five or six wolves was following our trail. They got to the dock and paused, looking up at us and then nose back to the snowy tracks. After a minute of contemplating, they blazed their own trail further down the lake shore.

That was a cool way to kick off the weekend. I insisted upon a snowy bonfire that night so that we could sit out and listen to the howls. Fun times.

That would freak me out

 

[MoDoug]

Here’s a tale, one time I had to go up on a weekend and finish a short chunk of right of way because we were starting a logging unit on Monday. Right of way cutting is where they are building new roads and need the trees cut so they can pioneer in. I was about 1 mile in and I was running a little 046 and a clutch spring broke.Tipical for this model of saw so I had spare clutch springs in my pack. Problem was , right where it happened was where a mountain lion had been dragging his kill and it stunk like cat. I’ve never ran into anything like that before but I’d heard a lot of stories about those big cats watching cutters from very close distances and many other weird stories so I was in a pickle. On one hand I’m a mile in chopping trees down by myself ( big no no! ) and my chain was spinning at an idle , the other hand, this cat sign was raising the hair on the back of my neck and my only protection is my chainsaw. I finally stopped and put a new spring on but I didn’t dilly dally. Never did see the cat, probably should have grabbed one of the deer antlers.

It's probably best to not be traveling through mountain lion country with antlers! Deer love venison! LOL

 

[MoDoug]

Good story. The bears and wolves of the Midwest never scare me, but a big cat would definitely put the scare in me.

Back in the day, my wife and I had one old snowmobile. It's five miles to our cabin and we had brought friends with us. We put my wife on the snowmobile who pulled the gear sled to our place and started the fire. This couple and I walked in by snowshoe. We got to our place during the twilight. My wife walked halfway down the stairs to greet us. As we all stood there, catching our breath and facing her/the cabin, my wife calmly told us all to look behind us. Down at the lake, a pack of five or six wolves was following our trail. They got to the dock and paused, looking up at us and then nose back to the snowy tracks. After a minute of contemplating, they blazed their own trail further down the lake shore.

That was a cool way to kick off the weekend. I insisted upon a snowy bonfire that night so that we could sit out and listen to the howls. Fun times.

That moment when you realize you were being tracked by a pack of wolves! Yikes! I love listening to the forest at night, the owls and coyotes. Love it when the Barred owls start in with each other, I had a screech owl scare the heck out of me a couple times.

 

[CatfishHunter]

This spring I heard a Hermit Thrush for the first time. Beautiful call and very distinct. I kept mentioning it to my wife and daughter, but like Mr. Snuffleupagus (had to look up the spelling), it never would sing when they were around. They thought I was making it up....

Later in the summer, my daughter and I spent a week up there together. I was cleaning walleye out back when I heard the hermit thrush sing. I called my daughter outside, who stood on the back porch and listened. She heard it for a moment before a barred owl in a tree near us hooted loudly. She screamed -- thinking it was a wolf -- and ran into the cabin. The screen door slammed which scared the owl, causing it to abruptly take off from the tree. It left in such a hurry that with a loud crack, it broke the 2" branch it had been perched upon. I stood for a few seconds listening to the woosh of wind created by its wings.

Oh man did we laugh about that. Owls are great.

 

[Nealm66]

A guy I subcontracted for off and on came over to my strip one day, said he was in a pickle and wanted to show me . We were cutting in some big timber that was running about 4’ and 160ish tall. These have to all be laid into lead -nothing can cross or it’s carnage. He showed me a bees nest up about 20’ in the air, big paper nest full of yellow jackets. If he fell it, he would have them to contend with. Couldn’t fall anything else because he couldn’t cross lead. There was only about 30 minutes before quitting time. He was asking me what he should do. I grabbed a big long limb and he took off running calling me a crazy bleep bleep. I swatted that thing off and was immediately getting stung. I ran like crazy and caught up to him about 70-80 yards away in the timber. He was still fussing at me. Then, here they came. Only ever saw wild honey bees track a guy down like those particular angry yellow jackets. I got stung countless times and he ended up without any but was still just flabbergasted at me

 

[CatfishHunter]

I got stung countless times and he ended up without any but was still just flabbergasted at me

You got the job done and came out of it with a good story to boot!

 

[Nealm66]

You got the job done and came out of it with a good story to boot!

Totally worth it lol

 

[MoDoug]

Don't make your backcut at an angle like you have on your pics... It puts the hinge wood in shear instead of compression and can cause the hinge to fail, resulting in a uncontrolled drop.

Thing about your stump is to try and level it up to make it look pretty, don’t go so deep, come up from the bottom with your angle on your face ( make a smile) and clean it out( you left a kicker)

Finally had a chance to drop a tree since the above advice. I did reasonably good, the level back cut worked out well, the smile turned out looking more like I'm about to take a pill. LOL I'm still working on having a nice clean undercut, where the two cuts cleanly meet. Still had a kicker. At least the tree dropped right where I wanted it to when it hit the ground, then it rolled slightly off target when it landed on a branch. It dropped so slowly I had time to take a picture before it hit the ground. Progress!

 

[Nealm66]

Finally had a chance to drop a tree since the above advice. I did reasonably good, the level back cut worked out well, the smile turned out looking more like I'm about to take a pill. LOL I'm still working on having a nice clean undercut, where the two cuts cleanly meet. Still had a kicker. At least the tree dropped right where I wanted it to when it hit the ground, then it rolled slightly off target when it landed on a branch. It dropped so slowly I had time to take a picture before it hit the ground. Progress!

Very nice!

 

[Nealm66]

I hadn’t given it much thought but someone mentioned falling dawgs. They might help a bit. Your stump looks very safe though! Every cut you make can be aimed when falling. If possible, keep trying to get a deeper angle from underneath. It might seem difficult at first but it will eventually give you another level of control. Remember too, you might get a barber chair with the face being shallow like that on a hardwood. Just try to keep it wide enough that it doesn’t close before it hits the ground. Looks good though!

 

[Nealm66]

Been a long time but I dug this thread up because of a job I have tomorrow and this is a kind of a simple but neat trick. I have a bunch of bigger fir trees to cut down, some are dead, the usual wait till they’re completely wicked before you call. Anyways, there’s a cluster of 4 that have room to fall but nothing to tail hold to pull from and if you use a pickup or tractor, you’re trapped until cleaned up. And of course the last of the 4 is very limb heavy and leaning the wrong way so not possible to wedge or pull with rope by hand. So, trick = fall the easy first three and try to stack them. Then go out far enough that makes sense and wrap all three with a strap and block and essentially creating what’s called a deadman for a tail hold to pull from. Hope that made sense ha ha.

 

[Rusty18]

Been a long time but I dug this thread up because of a job I have tomorrow and this is a kind of a simple but neat trick. I have a bunch of bigger fir trees to cut down, some are dead, the usual wait till they’re completely wicked before you call. Anyways, there’s a cluster of 4 that have room to fall but nothing to tail hold to pull from and if you use a pickup or tractor, you’re trapped until cleaned up. And of course the last of the 4 is very limb heavy and leaning the wrong way so not possible to wedge or pull with rope by hand. So, trick = fall the easy first three and try to stack them. Then go out far enough that makes sense and wrap all three with a strap and block and essentially creating what’s called a deadman for a tail hold to pull from. Hope that made sense ha ha.

I never would have thought of that but it’s obvious now. I’m sure that trick will make me look like a genius some day

 

[SpaceBus]

That's a neat trick, I'll have to remember it.

 

[MoDoug]

Been a long time but I dug this thread up because of a job I have tomorrow and this is a kind of a simple but neat trick. I have a bunch of bigger fir trees to cut down, some are dead, the usual wait till they’re completely wicked before you call. Anyways, there’s a cluster of 4 that have room to fall but nothing to tail hold to pull from and if you use a pickup or tractor, you’re trapped until cleaned up. And of course the last of the 4 is very limb heavy and leaning the wrong way so not possible to wedge or pull with rope by hand. So, trick = fall the easy first three and try to stack them. Then go out far enough that makes sense and wrap all three with a strap and block and essentially creating what’s called a deadman for a tail hold to pull from. Hope that made sense ha ha.

So, how'd it go? Did you take any videos or pictures?

 

[Nealm66]

Everything went as planned except I had to delay 5 trees till next Monday on account of my back went to crap lol. Sorry no pictures, unless the folks I was cutting the trees down for took some. Pretty tough to do selfie’s and run a saw. The ones that are left are relatively boring even though there’s houses highway and power lines in the mix. One of the dead ones left comes out of the ground all crooked and would be better left for the more experienced but I’m going to make it look boring. I guess I could ask them to take a couple pics if I remember. Sorry about that

 

[Nealm66]

Man, I wouldn’t mind having one of the dead snags for firewood . It’s maybe 30” and 120’ ish . There were a couple green ones that would have made some beautiful lumber that went into 16” pieces as well

 

[Nealm66]

Oh ya, something really crazy. This guy is one of those type that doesn’t sit idle and has one of those little kabota tractors with the backhoe you always see on sale that he uses for gold mining and landscaping etc. anyways, it has 20,000 hours on it and it only 5 years old He took it in for a cylinder problem and they freaked out lol . Now that might be worth some pics !!

 

[ClintonH]

Oh ya, something really crazy. This guy is one of those type that doesn’t sit idle and has one of those little kabota tractors with the backhoe you always see on sale that he uses for gold mining and landscaping etc. anyways, it has 20,000 hours on it and it only 5 years old He took it in for a cylinder problem and they freaked out lol . Now that might be worth some pics !!

Holy smoke. 20,000/5years = 4,000 per year/52 weeks = almost 80 hours EVERY WEEK for 5 years?!?!?!

 

[Nealm66]

Lol, crazy. I’ll get some pics next Monday. He said the dealership freaked out and said they might not warranty because of the hours and said the motor was only designed forb18,000 which still seems like an insane amount for a little tractor

 

[Rusty18]

If you forget and leave the switch on a cub cadet mower on it will run the clock about 200 hours before the battery dies...or so a friend told me.