Thought I would post some pictures of my latest clearing job.
So I thought some would say wow were did the trees go and I would say in those neat piles of trees. Just to knoe this thinning project was 140 acres of trees all hand fell, in 14 days by me and one other guy and piled in 10 days.
Looks like you had a nice view from your office on that job. It's kinda hard to get a perspective of the work you did from those pictures. Do you have any before pictures?:drinkup
no I did not think to take pictures before I did the work. Those are on the very last day I have one more small piling job to do, I already cut the trees but still need to plie I will take some before and after pictures then. Thanks for the reply
With the snow cover, it doesn't look like any work has been done. :beatsme Looks like and undisturbed hillside.
That's a mean looking d6 you've got there.:thumbsup Until i realized the how big the piles were compared to the truck, it was a little deceiving.
nice work! i just finished off a select pine beetle job here... 1100 tree's from 4"-24" butts in a green stand spread over a section and a half of mixed terrain... its hard to tell from pictures the scope of a job like that but the piles you stack up are a dead give away! all that cat skidding must make for some loooong days tho?
bout how many trees did you push over, Justin?
There was some lomg days when it was really cold, And I wish I would have done the before and after, with the snow and the ground being frozen there will be very little distrubance, so there will not be as many weeds come in, the landowner did not want the trees push over because it harder on the soil, the pictures are of about 40 of the 140. Th e third picture the trees that are standing in the draw behind the piles are close to the same as the ones that I cut, but the differance is in size the ones I piled were a little bigger because there is more water running down there. The thing I need to do is take better pictures to show better detail of the trees and the work that has been done. The main reason for these thins are to improve native grass stands for turnout of livestock.
Justin, Will you have to go back and burn the pile's?
so if you didn't push over the trees, how did you knock them down Justin?
Depending on where the piles are from the road, they will be cut into firewood, If I can get the dump truck, and backhoe to them easy enough, the rest will be burnt, and all the trees were hand fell by me and one other guy.
How did you hard fell them? Was it with an axe and a chainsaw? Must have been hard work, Justin? What kind of trees were they? How big and old were most of them?
So the customer wants the stumps to remain in the ground?
The felling was all done by chainsaw, the majority of the trees are less than 60 years old and from 4" to 32" on the butt. The trees are called juniper and they have grown out of control because of fire suppression. the work is hard, but I like the type of work that is involved, from the chainsawing to the cat skinning. As far as the stumps are concerned the landowner does not care if they are there or not, being that no farming is going to be done around them and that the ground is just range land and no further development will be done aside from broadcasting some seed by hand.
Must have been a good workout to chainsaw them all down man, keeps you healthy and in good shape. awesome work there, Justin.
Thanks for the replies, and it is a good work out lugging a saw around, since I started to do this kind of stuff for myself, I am better shape now than when I was in my twenties. I still weigh more but I am alot stronger.
Justin, If you have a hardtime burning what leftover. Once you get a fire started,use a backpack leaf blower and 2 or 5 gallon sprayer with diesel. Run the leaf blower on low and spray the diesel on the fire. Hotter the fire get's increase the blower speed. Be careful or you'll blow the fire thru the pile.
That sounds like one awsome home made flame thrower. That is a really good idea, a far as a sprayer, like a weed sprayer? On the job I am on right now the trees that are to rotten to cut down we are burning them with a propane torch, they go up like a roman candle when they hit a pack rats nest I will try to remember to take picture of the trees we are burning when they really get to going. I am not a pyro but the bigger the fire the better!!!
Justin, Common ole everyday weed sprayer. Another trick I've learned, tie a piece of flagging tape on a tree limb and watch which way the prevailing wind blow's. I alway's lite my pile on that end. Using the leaf blower the fire goes from one end to the other quicker. I have alway's used a loader and root rake,that way all the stumps aren't on one end. Track hoe and loader with a root rake make and awesome combination. Good track hoe operator can get a tree on the ground quicker than you can fart. Loader can pile and grub behind the hoe. Hoe doesn't tear up a lot of ground and can also fill any hole's as it move's forward.
The only problem with using rubber tired equipment is the terrain and the the big equalizer the money. I am going to use the leaf blower and weed sprayer. And if to many beers get in to lighting fires I probably mix the diesel with gas and then post pics of me being dumb drunk and burnt
Another trick you can use is to put a sheet of corrugated steel on top of the fire. It will deflect the heat back down and radiate it towards the rest of the brush. Not needed if everything is dry, but it sure helps build the core heat of the burn pile if things are a little damp.