Sugar maple to process next spring

[John Lehet]

I’ve been clearing sugar maples just up the hill from my land. They’re starting to grow up into my neighbor’s view, and they asked if I’d cut them. This ask came after I already filled the next-winter side of my woodshed with ash from my own land. So I’ve got two rows of this sugar maple on palettes outdoors now, probably more than ‘27-‘28 supply. No more room to store any off the ground.

There are still a couple of decent sized trees still standing in their view for me to take down. No big deal for their view in the winter while they are bare. Weather is getting worse for tree/tractor on the hill work. I’m about done.

I guess this wood is about as dry-green as it’s going to get, late fall. Come spring, sap will fill standing sugar maples with water. Question is, should I lay them down now while they are dormant, buck and haul them out in the spring. Or take them down in the spring during or after sap flow? If I take them down now they’ll have points in contact with the ground, get dirty, absorb some moisture from the ground. Take them down in spring and they are full of sap and heavier. (The trees I’ve taken down so on this terrain so far haven’t had a lot of contact points with the ground, but sometimes. The branch structure of the sugar maple holds a lot of the trunk above the ground when felled, but sometimes there’s a lot of contact with part of the trunk.)

It’s Vermont. Traditionally just before sap flow there is a lot of snow on the ground, and I don’t want to work in that. Recent years though, snow cover is not so dependable. Maybe a third option is to take them down in late Feb before sap flows.

Maybe overthinking it, as they will have plenty of time to dry before they see my stove, but working with heavier logs is a not trivial difference, heavy dense wood. Some lifting strains my back a bit, and then serious weight in the loader bucket of my little tractor can make the machine scary unstable on the hill. I’d like to work with them while they are as green-dry as possible.

 

[Duds13]

As a maple syrup hobbyist, it pains me to hear sugar maples getting cut down!

 

[kborndale]

As a maple syrup hobbyist, it pains me to hear sugar maples getting cut down!

They make excellent firewood.

 

[Duds13]

They make excellent firewood.

Sure does. I've acquired some from others who had tress cut down and were selling the wood at a very cheap price.

 

[John Lehet]

No way anyone is going to get them out of these woods as intact logs. I am also averse to cutting sugar maples. I have a couple of very big ones along the town dirt road on my property, and in October when they are still leafed out and the sun is low, they shade my solar panels. I would definitely harvest more solar annually if those were gone. But they are big, and right along the dirt road, and there are power lines if they fell backwards. And they are beautiful trees. I’ll cut down poplar trees before I cut any of my sugar maples.

But my neighbor’s were pretty upset to be losing their view, so I’m happy to help. My little 4WD Kubota can get between trees and along some paths I cleared. Any real logging equipment in there would have to make a real mess. If they hired an arborist, they would probably leave the wood to rot. So it’s working out.

First house I owned, up behind the house had huge ancient sugar maples. It had been part of a maple sugaring operation until the hurricane of ‘38. It was like a cathedral with the canopy so high, the trunks so thick. I cut all my own firewood in those years, but I never touched those trees with a saw.

 

[Woody Stover]

I'd go ahead and cut 'em now. Ground contact won't hurt, until the weather is warm and the microbes that attack the wood get active.

 

[John Lehet]

Answering my own question, I think I’m going to wait until spring to take them down. The maple I have downed in the last weeks, I’m finding the fibers are already getting a little grabby. I’ve got a 9 ton electric (yardmax) splitter that has so far in the past handled everything I’ve put through it, including some huge hickory logs. But compared to a few weeks ago, I guess these rock maple rounds have already dried a little bit, and the machine is struggling with them more than when they were wetter. Some of the bigger or knottier rounds I’m now having to try to position to slice of an edge, and then another edge, and split it down that way. Three weeks ago I was mostly just splitting them.

I started out hauling out rounds right after cutting and then splitting right away, but then I just got to cutting, cutting and hauling it all out, stacking the big rounds. I think reasonable, as the tractor is going to have a harder time on that slope as we get freeze/thaw cycles on the ground every day now.

I was going to split the rest of the rounds I’ve already cut next spring, but I am going to split as many of them as I can until it’s too snowy to mess around by that wood pile.