The Descriptive Process

[northmanlogging]

Detonated a crazy leaning alder today,

It was roughly 100' tall which is crazy for alder, straight ish up for about 30' then hung a hard left towards the neighbors fence line, then straightend out a little bit before turning back towards a pile of leave trees. In all I think it covered 40' of ground and blocked the falling of a at least one load of good timber.

So the plan was to hand a swing line in it and a second line back to the missus and pull it as far away from the fence line as possible. Problem with that is there where no branches for the first 60', and it was leaning to hard to climb, I don't own one of them throw ball sets, but I do own a bow (that I haven't shot in at least a decade...)

Anyway tie some fishing line to an arrow and take careful aim... close my eyes and release... it worked!!! first try really... 2 hours later... and pulling 200' of 1/2 cable around everything is all set. wrapped a chain around the base for luck and fired up the saw.

Problems started as soon as I started the gun cut, didn't even get to full bar depth before she started sitting on it, managed to get some semblance of a face in her, but nothing as deep I would like to put in an alder. then I swing around to the back side, and start my usual coos bay, ******* thing started making scary noises as soon as I put the offside angle cut in, didin't even bother with the front of the coos, just dogged in and went like Hel. made it maybe 2" into the back cut and she started to pop and sneeze, ran like a little girl, Could hear the poor missus redlining even over the saw Idling...


in all a 14" stump had roughly 10" of "hold" wood, the bastard chaired a bit even with the chain wrapped and the bit between the stump and the rest of the wood just shredded, spitting the core out at me...

It was a good day... my hands haven't shook like that since the last time I got shot at.

 

[treeslayer2003]

I know nuthin about alder, never even seen one. having said that,
what if ya made a shallow face and gutted the heart?
may be a dum ? like I said never even seen an alder.

 

[Metals406]

I know nuthin about alder, never even seen one. having said that,
what if ya made a shallow face and gutted the heart?
may be a dum ? like I said never even seen an alder.

There was enough compression it was trying to pinch him out early in the face. He may have tried to bore it thru before a face -- but who knows? Hard to say without standing there.

Alder has a bad wrap for chairing.

 

[slowp]

Alder will chair more and faster on a cold day. That's my experience. We've had some chilly mornings. That might have been a factor, or not.

 

[northmanlogging]

hind sight being what it is and all, I could of bored the face, but I really don't think it would have done any good on this one, just too much crazy tension on it, the bit of a coos I did put in helped a little bit that side more or less stayed in one peice, the near side to some extent as well, the center is what did most of the shrapnel production.

To put this in some perspective most of the alder I've ever cut a guy (or gurl) would be lucky to get 50' of log out of, this one if I buck it right I should get near to 70' before the first branch, they may have a little sweep to em...

It was frosty this morning, but this one tree was blocking two days of work for me...

 

[slowp]

Some kind of evil Bambi or Flower decimated my little cedar trees. They might still survive as a bit of green is still attached. I thought we had a truce! No mas. I'm done feeding them cedar. Rabbifravitzwoodii!

 

[Jabuol]

Cutting snags on a burn salvage sale. Driving two hours, packing in, and then getting blown out.

 

[Trx250r180]

hind sight being what it is and all, I could of bored the face, but I really don't think it would have done any good on this one, just too much crazy tension on it, the bit of a coos I did put in helped a little bit that side more or less stayed in one peice, the near side to some extent as well, the center is what did most of the shrapnel production.

To put this in some perspective most of the alder I've ever cut a guy (or gurl) would be lucky to get 50' of log out of, this one if I buck it right I should get near to 70' before the first branch, they may have a little sweep to em...

It was frosty this morning, but this one tree was blocking two days of work for me...

I have had good luck just pushing over the alders with a machine if i think they are going to fall on something important ,16 inch or smaller should push over fairly easy with your skidder blade ,nice thing about their shallow roots i guess ,a few bumps with something semi heavy they uproot

 

[northmanlogging]

me thinks you overestimate the missus... the winch could tear a tank in half, the blade has to rely on traction... poor traction...


Speaking of which, poked a hole in another tire today, wait it was the same tire, and the same spot as last time...

 

[Metals406]

Sucks to poke holes.

 

[madhatte]

Just a cursory whine for me today: not a fan of wetland delineation. PITA, y'all.

 

[treeslayer2003]

Just a cursory whine for me today: not a fan of wetland delineation. PITA, y'all.

get that almost every job here.....go thru a lot of blue flagging.

 

[OlympicYJ]

Well I should be seeing plenty of that this summer. Yuck! But I knew what I was setting myself up for lol Although I'm gonna have an HCP to learn not just the regular Forest Practices...

 

[northmanlogging]

oh is that what the blue tape is for?

 

[northmanlogging]

oh is that what the blue tape is for?

 

[OlympicYJ]

oh is that what the blue tape is for?

Blue ribbon is usually used by the DNR and the Feds, think feds use blue. Most private just uses pink to denote harvest boundaries. Usually the buffer goes around the wetland crap so you don't see different colors of ribbon along a boundary. However sometimes striped ribbon of some sort is used to mark Initiation Points of streams or other features that have to be treated differently. To come back to your question it all depends on the landowner. It's been a long time since I've done any layout so things could have changed or I'm just talking out my keester.

 

[slowp]

On FS land, blue is the unit boundary. They used to use yellow flagging for clearcut units, but since clearcutting kind of stopped here, there's a ton of yellow flagging in the warehouse.

 

[northmanlogging]

I think ya missed the joke... as in I thought the blue tape marked all the good timber, and thanks mister forester for pointing it out to me...

 

[OlympicYJ]

My "am I alive today?" side was showing yesterday so I must have lol Yeah might I add go Hawks! Disclaimer: I'm not the biggest football fan but I was yesterday lol

 

[slowp]

Not a real complaint. I am actually enjoying it, because I don't have to go anywhere tomorrow. The White Death is here. Not the usual heavy, gloppy stuff. Nope, this time it's like east of the mountains snow. Tiny, light flakes being blown about by the east wind we've had for two days. I believe some of the Oregon guys--PAcity and Spotted Owl may have a lot more of it in their backyards.

I'd guess a couple inches so far. Stay tuned.