OH_Varmntr's Creek Clearing Thread w/ Pics and Videos

[OH_Varmntr]

Since this will be quite a long job for me, I figure I'd make a thread and keep adding to it. Hope you guys/gals follow along. Should be good stuff.

A friend of mine has a 210 acre farm that's due to come off CRP in the next year or two. It has two main ditches that run through the property which are about a mile long, total. They are going to tile the fields and run them into the ditch once they turn the ground over to farm it.

Here's an overhead view of the property.

Ditches highlighted.

I was asked if I wanted to drop all the trees for firewood and I said of course!

The work started today. We got about 300 yards of the South side done today. Maybe 100 trees today, all sizes. Took about 3.5 hours. I'd like to have stayed longer but neither my buddy or myself wore good enough boots and out feet got wet quick. There's a big hickory at the crossing but they want it left. That's the only tree they want left standing along the ditch after all this. I don't blame them, it's a beautiful tree.

It's been very wet here lately, so we loaded the yard cart and pulled it behind a Yamaha Beartracker atv. Both my 026 and MS360Pro fit in there along with the essentials.

I didn't start taking pics till after we started cutting. Today my best friend was with me for a wingman/cameraman. I'm the only one that cut and he was there for the safety aspect. Once we get it all down I'll go back by myself and cut everything into logs to be hauled out. Until then, I'm using the buddy system for safety.

So far I've found a bunch of shaggy bark hickory, some oaks, a ton of cherry stumps that have 5 or 6 trunks coming off of them, and the rest is stuff I'm not quite sure of. Alot of the hickory's were 5 or 6 trunks too. Must be because of the constant supply of water. Oh, and there's some pears back here too. I'll have to take some close ups for you guys that can identify better than I.

Here's the ditchbank. Well atleast one side of it. They don't care which way it falls, as they have an excavator with a grapple bucket and will pick them out and pile them up for me.

There's a bunch of tall stuff back here. Nothing much over 24" across, though. Used the 026 the majority of the day today. The MS360Pro is just too heavy for me (I'm a lanky guy) to be repeatedly holding sideways to start the cuts. I did use it on some bigger stuff though.

Clumps of trees.

Here's a video of me cutting one with my MS360Pro. About 36 seconds into the video I about fall back into the creek. These trees are all literally on the very bank of the creek. I'm really starting to get a hang of this notching technique. Some overhand the ditch so badly that I can't notch it so I run a borecut from the back of the tree then do a backcut. Does an okay job of dropping them, just leaves a tag I have to go back and cut off.
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Will add another video here shortly. This one scared me a bit. It started to go over then just stopped. Had to cut a bit more to get it to go the rest of the way. Could just be I didn't have the notch deep enough. I couldn't really get to the front of the tree to get a good notch on it because of the bank. I also had to saw about 6' up too. A lot of brush and things in the way.


The only problem we had today was the fact that the dawgs on my saws just aren't long enough. When I'm notching the trees that are 1/2 was down the bank I have to hold the saw up and away from my body in order to start the cut so I don't fall in. It takes a bit before I can get the saw deep enough so the bottom spike will hold and it wears me out. So I'm going to make my own dawgs tomorrow I hope. I plan on going back out to cut tomorrow afternoon so I'll grab some more close ups of trees if I do.

 

[bluestem]

My guess is the clumps of Cherry or Hickories you are seeing are resprouts from a previous cutting, that's usually how they come back, in a shrub form. That's some nice cutting, looks like a nice place to work.

 

[RAMROD48]

Is that the "angled" back cut technique I hear so much about? :eek2:

 

[OH_Varmntr]

Is that the "angled" back cut technique I hear so much about? :eek2:

Haha something of that nature, yes. :msp_tongue:

 

[hanniedog]

I with you on it being wet. Took the Cub Cadet Volunteer back last night to fetch some ash rds and made some nice tracks. I hate hairy assed fence rows and tree lined ditchs always have some branch that breaks or scratches the hell out of something. Got your work cut out for you there.

 

[Ronaldo]

Looks like fun and you get some great firewood in the process. You could use some more help on a project like that,but this will sure keep you busy and out of trouble! Nice saws to use too.

Ron

 

[thenorth]

what does CRP stand for?
john

 

[hanniedog]

Conservation Reserve Program, it's a gov ag program.

 

[thenorth]

thanks, i had an idea it was along those lines......

john

 

[OH_Varmntr]

Looks like fun and you get some great firewood in the process. You could use some more help on a project like that,but this will sure keep you busy and out of trouble! Nice saws to use too.

Ron

Thanks! I'm going to stick with the 026 but take the 360P with me for a backup saw.

It's going to get a heck of a lot of use, and I'm going to throw one of my hour meters on it to keep track of how many cutting hours I put in back there.

I bet it's going to be a lot of hours of cuttin but oh well. Keeps me busy

 

[OH_Varmntr]

More videos.

This one scared me. I didn't notch it deep enough because I couldn't get around to the backside good enough to get a good notch cut. She hinged over but the hinge held so I had to keep cutting through the hinge. Sounded neat coming over though.
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/n7bRWfNGZnA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/cUTGlUVRyAg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/GdfMEMls7Ao" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Did have a few scared today too. I'm glad I invested in this hardhat. I had a chunk of dead limb drop out and hit me square on top of the head. 2" across and probably 3' long. Still twanged my bell a little.

Also had something, I'm not sure what because it happened so quick, fall out of a tree and hit me square in the facemask. Whatever it was was hard enough that it pushed the mesh screen on my facemask in to the point where it hit me square on the nose and made my eyes water. Dang thing probably would have broken my nose, if not more, if I were unprotected.

Stay safe guys!

 

[Kmaxwell102]

That looks like a big job, but should be a lot of fun runnin the saws pretty often! and tons of free wood. Nothing better, have a good one!

 

[jhoff310]

Looks like fun..If you need a hand I'll help you out. Not looking for wood, I have enough to cut next spring at the family farm. Great pics, look forward to seeing more


Jeff

 

[R DeLawter]

Looking at what you have taken on makes me tired. It is good you have some time to get it done and that they have an excavator with a grapple bucket[./B]

You will have your cutting skills developed for sure by the time you are done. Be Careful

 

[OH_Varmntr]

Looks like fun..If you need a hand I'll help you out. Not looking for wood, I have enough to cut next spring at the family farm. Great pics, look forward to seeing more


Jeff

I appreciate that Jeff and will keep it in mind. I've got a bunch of friends, and a totally capable brother, but not many want to help a guy out for free ya know? There's gotta be something in it for them. I buy them breakfast, lunch and beer at the end of the day. Guess it's not enough anymore...

I plan on going back tomorrow for a couple more hours of cutting. I'll take some more pics :msp_thumbup:

 

[rmh3481]

Nice job, I see what you mean about the creek! Try to remember where the off switch is. When the tree starts going over, hit the off and start moving. Also, If you get tired stop, take a rest etc. When your fatigued is when things can get funny real fast.

Keep looking up and stay safe,
Bob

 

[chopperfreak2k1]

looks like a nice big job. lots of saw time and lots of firewood in the end. i'd love to run into a deal like that, you're lucky!

 

[OH_Varmntr]

Nice job, I see what you mean about the creek! Try to remember where the off switch is. When the tree starts going over, hit the off and start moving. Also, If you get tired stop, take a rest etc. When your fatigued is when things can get funny real fast.

Keep looking up and stay safe,
Bob

I try to hit the kill switch before I start moving and most of the time I can get it. It helps wearing these winter gloves that I have because a lot of time I kill it on accident. :msp_tongue:

The only bad thing about wearing these gloves is that I have small hands. I have to remember to keep my throttle hand further back on the handle because when I lift off the throttle with my index finger, my middle finger sometimes keeps the throttle held down.

So I really need to make sure I flip the kill switch. But that's why I won't go out dropping trees by myself. We took short breaks every 30 minutes or so as wel progressed down the treeline and had to move the 4 wheeler to keep up. Lots of water and some energy drinks kept me in decent shape.

I didn't notice how hard it worked me until I woke up this morning. :msp_confused:

 

[zogger]

Way cool project and thread! If I was doing it and milking out the trees like I normally do, that would be freeking years of work!

Anyway, have fun and be even more careful. Beaned twice so far and just getting going means watchout.

Someone is gonna razz ya on "farmer's backcuts", pulling fiber and so on, but you can always counter, the trees are on a farm, and firewood not sawlogs, so it is officially cool!

You are gonna have *so much* firewood when you are done..shazzam.

And your small saw is cutting great, good to see all the work that can be done without having to resort to some 30 lb monster saw.
I bet though, around the first mile done, you'll be strong enough and the muscles built properly for that sort of work to run a bigger saw with the same apparent effort to you. Just goes with doing any sort of work like that.

Major props, man!

 

[OH_Varmntr]

Way cool project and thread! If I was doing it and milking out the trees like I normally do, that would be freeking years of work!

Anyway, have fun and be even more careful. Beaned twice so far and just getting going means watchout.

Someone is gonna razz ya on "farmer's backcuts", pulling fiber and so on, but you can always counter, the trees are on a farm, and firewood not sawlogs, so it is officially cool!

You are gonna have *so much* firewood when you are done..shazzam.

And your small saw is cutting great, good to see all the work that can be done without having to resort to some 30 lb monster saw.
I bet though, around the first mile done, you'll be strong enough and the muscles built properly for that sort of work to run a bigger saw with the same apparent effort to you. Just goes with doing any sort of work like that.

Major props, man!

I think I understimated how much wood I will have when all said and done. Downing it all is the easy part, hauling it out will be the time consuming part.

There's so much here that I'm going to leave more limbs behind than what I normally would. But it all depends on how much help I can muster up.

I was extremely surprised at how well my 026 performed. I modded the muffler back when I got it (for free) and have it tuned it really well. But as you probably heard in the videos, I can bog it pretty easily by leaning on it a bit. It just doesn't have the balls it needs to cut as fast as my 360P so I have to hang around a little longer in the cut to keep the trees going over.

But as work progresses, like you said, I should have the strength to carry the 360P around.

I can honestly say though, I learnt a lot by just watching how these trees came down yesterday. I mean I was smart enough to look at a tree and get a general idea of its falling direction, but about half way through the day the cuts got smoother and progress sped up.