trialanderror
ArboristSite Operative
I got a phone call from someone who's doing some logging right next door. He spoke he works for a company, which i discovered is a subdivision of the sawmill he works for. He said he could see i had some nice looking material right from the property edge and asked if he could quick look through it. i said sure, what's the harm, no equipment no contract, just curiosity.
week later he calls me back, says hey, yeah, you got a nice looking lot, and decent trees. so i i asked what's paying good right now, and obviously his answer is " it all is paying good right now'. Yeah, whatever, typical answer.
as the conversation went on, i kinda hinted how i wanted him to only work with the poplar, as i have probably 100-130 trees that 2 men are needed to reach around, and they're starting to fall over, and on top of that they're choking out everything else around. the buyer kept falling back to how i had some decent maple, oak, pine. granted this property has been logged 4x that i know of, and i t's been strictly hardwood, which i would like to actually keep them around and turn into something instead of having a harvest every 30 years.
as the conversation went on, i discussed how the previous harvests have been quite brutal, sloppy, bruised alot of good trees, and did alot of things not in our favor, obviously the reason it's been a few minutes since it was logged last. he stood up and down how his equipment is good and such, then let it out of the bag the cutter is someone who he doesn't work with anymore, but knows him from the past. (coincidence),
this weekend he wants to actually take a ride with me and scout the woods in person, and talk more. and this is where i pushed him into the biggest red flag. i mentioned again, lets focus on these popular, i'm not hurting for money, your equipment is right next door that you so proudly keep bringing up to make the harvest quick and easy, and you claim 'it's all paying good'.
Then he made the grand red flag hinting statement. " well, you have alot of poplar, but i'm just going to eye ball it and throw you a price, i'm not going to look at every tree. i'll be there forever'
Well, sounds like i need to tell this guy to **-OFF. he wants to cut trees, i don't know his history, the cutter, or the mill. he doesn't want to mark trees, which i prefer double marks, stump and log, as we've been down that headache more than once. and all this talk about how good the prices are and he doesn't want to go out of the way to make me a fair deal?
I've considered buying some paint, borrowing a toy, and taking a week and marking all my own harvest, the trees **I** want gone, not what they want, and having the buyer(s) look, or at that point hire a forester, but now i feel like i'm in the position that i might sting him and chase him away.
strictly hypothetical for discussion reasons, if he offered $30,000 for easy math, and a forester comes in and says oh wow, no, this more like $50,000, if that buyer gets all angry and turns his nose, where's that set me for the next buyer that says 'well, i don't have equipment nearby, nearest mill is here, blah blah blah', and offers me $28,000 for example because i should of taken the bullet with the blind offer?
and then ontop of chip, lumber, veneer, i don't even know what mills are interested in what, or even the market as a whole? I still have to get into googling and downloading a bunch of PDF's and look at stumpage history rates.
i know enough to be cautious and tell people to leave me alone, but i'm also not educated enough to pull the trigger when the market is good and the right buyer is in the area. From what i understand, a buyer isn't in the interest of preserving trees or giving out more money then needed to acquire a harvest. I understand contracts need to be overwritten than underwritten for protection mostly of the land owner. I understand having a 3rd party cutter can completely destroy a woods lot if done sloppy. What's the good in harvesting trees for thinning if they just destroy all the the young growth? regardless if i get paid well?
the ultimate questions are
1, is this guy looking for an easy dollar right next door, and because of that will he just walk away if i really do demand fair market value? or at the least if i show i'm more educated in person then how i played dumb dumb over the phone?
2, because of the variables, should i sniff out a forester?
i'm from west Michigan for area of reference. he's still waiting for me to call him back for a woods cruise, but honestly given how the introduction went, the phone conversation, how i played him to sniff out how he does stuff, who he works for, his methods of harvest, i feel like it's a waste of time
thanks for the input
week later he calls me back, says hey, yeah, you got a nice looking lot, and decent trees. so i i asked what's paying good right now, and obviously his answer is " it all is paying good right now'. Yeah, whatever, typical answer.
as the conversation went on, i kinda hinted how i wanted him to only work with the poplar, as i have probably 100-130 trees that 2 men are needed to reach around, and they're starting to fall over, and on top of that they're choking out everything else around. the buyer kept falling back to how i had some decent maple, oak, pine. granted this property has been logged 4x that i know of, and i t's been strictly hardwood, which i would like to actually keep them around and turn into something instead of having a harvest every 30 years.
as the conversation went on, i discussed how the previous harvests have been quite brutal, sloppy, bruised alot of good trees, and did alot of things not in our favor, obviously the reason it's been a few minutes since it was logged last. he stood up and down how his equipment is good and such, then let it out of the bag the cutter is someone who he doesn't work with anymore, but knows him from the past. (coincidence),
this weekend he wants to actually take a ride with me and scout the woods in person, and talk more. and this is where i pushed him into the biggest red flag. i mentioned again, lets focus on these popular, i'm not hurting for money, your equipment is right next door that you so proudly keep bringing up to make the harvest quick and easy, and you claim 'it's all paying good'.
Then he made the grand red flag hinting statement. " well, you have alot of poplar, but i'm just going to eye ball it and throw you a price, i'm not going to look at every tree. i'll be there forever'
Well, sounds like i need to tell this guy to **-OFF. he wants to cut trees, i don't know his history, the cutter, or the mill. he doesn't want to mark trees, which i prefer double marks, stump and log, as we've been down that headache more than once. and all this talk about how good the prices are and he doesn't want to go out of the way to make me a fair deal?
I've considered buying some paint, borrowing a toy, and taking a week and marking all my own harvest, the trees **I** want gone, not what they want, and having the buyer(s) look, or at that point hire a forester, but now i feel like i'm in the position that i might sting him and chase him away.
strictly hypothetical for discussion reasons, if he offered $30,000 for easy math, and a forester comes in and says oh wow, no, this more like $50,000, if that buyer gets all angry and turns his nose, where's that set me for the next buyer that says 'well, i don't have equipment nearby, nearest mill is here, blah blah blah', and offers me $28,000 for example because i should of taken the bullet with the blind offer?
and then ontop of chip, lumber, veneer, i don't even know what mills are interested in what, or even the market as a whole? I still have to get into googling and downloading a bunch of PDF's and look at stumpage history rates.
i know enough to be cautious and tell people to leave me alone, but i'm also not educated enough to pull the trigger when the market is good and the right buyer is in the area. From what i understand, a buyer isn't in the interest of preserving trees or giving out more money then needed to acquire a harvest. I understand contracts need to be overwritten than underwritten for protection mostly of the land owner. I understand having a 3rd party cutter can completely destroy a woods lot if done sloppy. What's the good in harvesting trees for thinning if they just destroy all the the young growth? regardless if i get paid well?
the ultimate questions are
1, is this guy looking for an easy dollar right next door, and because of that will he just walk away if i really do demand fair market value? or at the least if i show i'm more educated in person then how i played dumb dumb over the phone?
2, because of the variables, should i sniff out a forester?
i'm from west Michigan for area of reference. he's still waiting for me to call him back for a woods cruise, but honestly given how the introduction went, the phone conversation, how i played him to sniff out how he does stuff, who he works for, his methods of harvest, i feel like it's a waste of time
thanks for the input
