Cut a load of ash today!(with pics)_Split this weekend 2/12

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rdust

Minister of Fire
Feb 9, 2009
4,604
Michigan
My dad, brother and I found time to get out and do some cutting. My brother has property on the lake(Huron) and has a bunch of ash tree's that are dying or dead. We marked some of the worst off ones during the summer so we headed up today to take those down. Two of them needed to be removed due to them being where his driveway will be one day. He probably has enough ash on the property for a season or two worth of wood. It's a 160-170 mile round trip so it's not getting wood for free but it's helping him out which in turn helps me out. Even with fuel costs being up a right now it's hard to put a price tag on spending quality time with your dad and brother!

Here is dad limbing the first one I dropped.

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I never take pictures of the stump but I've seen people posting them lately so why not. :lol:

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Second small one I dropped.

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We were working in a creek bottom for the next two, the sides were pretty steep which the camera doesn't show. It also created some nice pinch points with the trees spanning the gap. I also slipped on the ice and took a nice ice bath! Good thing I had a change of clothes. :lol:

Here is what is left of a good sized leaner, I didn't grab the camera till we almost had this one finished up. I was a little worried on that one but it fell right where I wanted without the dreaded barber chair.

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Here was the last one of the day, it's a tall one! The leaner was just to the left of this one. This one sucked to work with, it was full of vines which created a tangled mess when it was down.

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Dad just had to pose with this one, took this one with the cell phone.

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Stump shot, hinge isn't text book perfect but it did what it was supposed to do.

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All loaded up, usually this type of load is around a cord or so.

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Couple shots of the lake, looks cold doesn't it!?

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Even with fuel costs being up a right now it’s hard to put a price tag on spending quality time with your dad and brother!
rdust, I couldn't agree more!! I don't look at any of my wood cutting expenses as anything but "the price of admission" 'cause I would rather do that than many things that people pay a LOT MORE for....and add to it spending time with my son and grandson just makes it about as good as it gets. :coolsmile: Oh, and great pictures...I really enjoyed them.
 
Nice pics. That one tree certainly was tall. Nice straight trees.
 
Great pics. Looks like a good day for sure.
Hey Lake Huron looks cold, but not as cold as the south tip of L.Michigan here, it's ice as far as the eye can see these days. North winds have been pretty steady for days. I suppose your ice gets blown away to the east shore.
 
Nice work GREAT STUMP!
 
Good work rdust. At least you didn't have to do this in deep snow but I'll bet that ice bath was not fun!!! lol


You might consider doing what I do many times which is to cut the stump off after you fell the tree. Then you are left with a flat stump. You could do it especially with those trees as you left a pretty good stump. I do that same thing most times. Anyway, it will give you one more log out of the tree.
 
tfdchief said:
Even with fuel costs being up a right now it’s hard to put a price tag on spending quality time with your dad and brother!
rdust, I couldn't agree more!! I don't look at any of my wood cutting expenses as anything but "the price of admission" 'cause I would rather do that than many things that people pay a LOT MORE for....and add to it spending time with my son and grandson just makes it about as good as it gets. :coolsmile: Oh, and great pictures...I really enjoyed them.

Glad you enjoyed them and I agree with you on all points!

CALJREICH said:
Nice pics. That one tree certainly was tall. Nice straight trees.

I have a bunch more of those nice straight tree's to deal with. It was a pleasure to cut on straight tree's for a change. :)

midwestcoast said:
Great pics. Looks like a good day for sure.
Hey Lake Huron looks cold, but not as cold as the south tip of L.Michigan here, it's ice as far as the eye can see these days. North winds have been pretty steady for days. I suppose your ice gets blown away to the east shore.

Yeah, the ice gets blown out due to the west winds, it gets interesting when it's coming out of the east though!


smokinjay said:
Nice work GREAT STUMP!

Thanks Jay, means a lot come from you!

Backwoods Savage said:
Good work rdust. At least you didn't have to do this in deep snow but I'll bet that ice bath was not fun!!! lol


You might consider doing what I do many times which is to cut the stump off after you fell the tree. Then you are left with a flat stump. You could do it especially with those trees as you left a pretty good stump. I do that same thing most times. Anyway, it will give you one more log out of the tree.

I was actually a little worried on our drive out there. When we were about 10 miles west of the lake we ran into some pretty good snow, as we neared the lake it was much less.

I usually do cut the stumps flush, I usually try to make my notch cut high enough so I have a 16-18 inch round left after I cut it flush. Yesterday I left the two big stumps since I was toast by the time we had everything loaded. Carrying those rounds out of the creek bed wasn't much fun. :lol:
 
[quote author="rdust" date="1294649420"]My dad, brother and I found time to get out and do some cutting. My brother has property on the lake(Huron) and has a bunch of ash tree's that are dying or dead. We marked some of the worst off ones during the summer so we headed up today to take those down. Two of them needed to be removed due to them being where his driveway will be one day. He probably has enough ash on the property for a season or two worth of wood. It's a 160-170 mile round trip so it's not getting wood for free but it's helping him out which in turn helps me out. Even with fuel costs being up a right now it's hard to put a price tag on spending quality time with your dad and brother!

rdust; looks like you had a great day for felling and bucking up some trees with your brother and father, nice load of ash. That water does look cold.



zap
 
I don't chop my own wood but I love pic posts and that's one of the better ones.. Thanks for posting it..
 
bren582 said:
I don't chop my own wood but I love pic posts and that's one of the better ones.. Thanks for posting it..

I was telling my dad yesterday that if I didn't have him as a cutting partner I would probably start buying log length loads and just process them in the comfort of my driveway/yard.

zapny said:
rdust; looks like you had a great day for felling and bucking up some trees with your brother and father, nice load of ash. That water does look cold.

zap

Yep, it was cold but perfect weather for doing this kind of work. When I was working on getting ahead I had to cut/split all year, now that I'm ahead I'm a bit more selective. I shot for early spring/fall/winter unless something easy falls in my lap.
 
Found some time to run the splitter this weekend, managed to get it all split and tossed in a heap. Now I just need spring to get here so I can stack it. This was some of the nicest splitting wood I've processed only had to deal with a few nasty knots.

We have some melting going on right now and will probably be snow free by weeks end, I'm afraid to see what my splitting/heaping area looks like once the snow is gone. :lol:
 

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Stump looks Great!
 
rdust, looks good and that warm weather looks like we'll get this week in the east. It was about 35 here today what temps are you getting.



Zap
 
We have some melting going on right now and will probably be snow free by weeks end, I’m afraid to see what my splitting/heaping area looks like once the snow is gone. LOL
rdust, same here! I have a mountain of splits and all the debris that goes with it from splitting. Only problem is, it is all in a big frozen heap that is going to melt this week. Started yesterday with a high of 43. Supposed to be 60 by Friday, Yikes. :bug:
 
I helped a bud buck this ash today; we bucked it then split it by hand. walked around his property then found an oak that had been down for a while but still good enough to burn and I took a truck load of rounds from that. I'm worn out but it sure beats going to the gym!
 

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HardWoodW, that for sure is a good way to get worn out and really beats a gym big time! Don't you just love the way ash splits?! Like rdust stated, it is some of the nicest splitting wood there is. With the hydraulic splitter you can really be fast because on lots of them, once the wedge hits the wood it splits, now! Makes for fast work.
 
Backwoods Savage said:
HardWoodW, that for sure is a good way to get worn out and really beats a gym big time! Don't you just love the way ash splits?! Like rdust stated, it is some of the nicest splitting wood there is. With the hydraulic splitter you can really be fast because on lots of them, once the wedge hits the wood it splits, now! Makes for fast work.

amen on how it splits. we took turns setting up about 5 rounds and seeing how fast we could split them. the huge "x" in front of the wood pile was us seeing how long of a round we could split.
 
I agree if you have the opportunity to cut wood with the family by all means do it. If its fishing or hunting or whatever its just great to spend time with your family. The best thing about cutting wood with family is your getting a valuable resource and the family time as well. Its a win win!
 
drozenski said:
I really hope you dont live in one of these 6 counties

http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,1607,7-153-10370_12145_12204-69875--,00.html


Quarantine on ash. Not to mention that many states now don't allow fire wood transfer of greater then 50 miles.


The whole lower in Michigan is a quarantine area, you can move wood freely in the lower. This state has no hope of stopping the bug in the lower so it's pretty much a free for all. Quarantine Map

Quote from the dnr site. "If you are not moving firewood from a Michigan Department of Agriculture (MDA) Emerald Ash Borer quarantine area and you live in the Lower Peninsula, you legally may move firewood anywhere in the Lower Peninsula. It is illegal to move any hardwood firewood out of the Lower Peninsula no matter where it originated. Hardwood firewood being brought over the Mackinac Bridge will be confiscated. Even though moving firewood in the Lower Peninsula may not be illegal, we encourage all campers to buy local sources of firewood when they camp on DNR lands."
 
Looking good! :)
 
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