I got a call from my wife's cousin down the street. He's got several dead or dying BL that he wants to take out. We cut a couple yesterday, but only bucked the biggest one, which we had to drop into his yard. It was a hard leaner. I was concerned about a potential barber chair, and I thought I would leave a center strap holding the tree, then cut that out last. Well, I made the face cut too deep after the top cut came in past the bottom and I had to cut the bottom cut deeper (that is my tendency.) So then I thought "This BL is tough stuff, probably won't 'chair' on me." I went for the entire back cut and it fell OK. Whew!
This was about 24" where I cut it, about chest-high. You can see how fat the hinge was (a good 2") when the tree started to go and I got out of there. I dropped it across a couple of Sassafras logs, one of which you can see cut up on the left. That made for easy bucking of the BL trunk. I split the Sass rounds in half and used them to support a couple of pallets I threw down to stack on.
The wettest bottom trunk pieces metered out at 26%. Some of the upper branches were already brown, not yellow when cut, and a bit lighter, so they'll go into the "burnable this year" stacks.
There are six other BL, including this one (you can only see about half its length.) They are 10-17" but they are tall because they were competing for light. If any have to fall in the yard, I'll buck 'em and move it out. Otherwise, they will wait until later; I need to cut and stack more Ash to stay ahead of the curve on the '14 season.
Besides, that'll give the bark on the BL a chance to loosen up. 
Had the trailer loaded up pretty good. Only had to drive it a few hundred yards, though.
The 5x8 and the quad trailers pictured here are almost all the wood from that tree. That will be pushing 3/4 cord, I would guess.
Here, you can see the Sassafras half-round splits under the pallets. Two per side, they span the cut-outs in the pallets where the lift truck forks go. I'll bring the power splitter down, split 'em, and add to the BL stack that ends right there, which is about two cords so far. The stack on the other side of the quad is......what else, Red Oak stuff.
Here's my boy. The Sass splits were seated into the soil by him placing his ample mass on the pallets for a minute. He's 70+ lbs. at nine months.
He likes to chew on stinky stuff so the BL bark was right up his alley. When I put my gloves down to get the pic, he promptly stole one of them. 
He brought it back later and traded it for a biscuit.
Not only does this pup make a lot of work for me, he also finds more work. He brought me over to show me this Sugar, which left a sour taste in my mouth. He looked at me, and just shook his head and rolled his eyes as if to say "I thought you learned your lesson the last time this happened."
Actually, this is one of the last of my stacks that used single-row support. Most stacks are now being built on standard pallets, with the corresponding wider base, even if I only put one row of wood on them. Once I get far enough ahead, everything will be double-row on pallets. I am trying a few single rows on small dead Sass trunks. Those should be more stable than my initial efforts since the entire log is resting on the ground.
This was about 24" where I cut it, about chest-high. You can see how fat the hinge was (a good 2") when the tree started to go and I got out of there. I dropped it across a couple of Sassafras logs, one of which you can see cut up on the left. That made for easy bucking of the BL trunk. I split the Sass rounds in half and used them to support a couple of pallets I threw down to stack on.
The wettest bottom trunk pieces metered out at 26%. Some of the upper branches were already brown, not yellow when cut, and a bit lighter, so they'll go into the "burnable this year" stacks.
There are six other BL, including this one (you can only see about half its length.) They are 10-17" but they are tall because they were competing for light. If any have to fall in the yard, I'll buck 'em and move it out. Otherwise, they will wait until later; I need to cut and stack more Ash to stay ahead of the curve on the '14 season.
Besides, that'll give the bark on the BL a chance to loosen up.
Had the trailer loaded up pretty good. Only had to drive it a few hundred yards, though.
The 5x8 and the quad trailers pictured here are almost all the wood from that tree. That will be pushing 3/4 cord, I would guess.
Here, you can see the Sassafras half-round splits under the pallets. Two per side, they span the cut-outs in the pallets where the lift truck forks go. I'll bring the power splitter down, split 'em, and add to the BL stack that ends right there, which is about two cords so far. The stack on the other side of the quad is......what else, Red Oak stuff.
Here's my boy. The Sass splits were seated into the soil by him placing his ample mass on the pallets for a minute. He's 70+ lbs. at nine months.
He likes to chew on stinky stuff so the BL bark was right up his alley.
When I put my gloves down to get the pic, he promptly stole one of them. He brought it back later and traded it for a biscuit.
Not only does this pup make a lot of work for me, he also finds more work. He brought me over to show me this Sugar, which left a sour taste in my mouth. He looked at me, and just shook his head and rolled his eyes as if to say "I thought you learned your lesson the last time this happened."
Actually, this is one of the last of my stacks that used single-row support. Most stacks are now being built on standard pallets, with the corresponding wider base, even if I only put one row of wood on them. Once I get far enough ahead, everything will be double-row on pallets. I am trying a few single rows on small dead Sass trunks. Those should be more stable than my initial efforts since the entire log is resting on the ground.
