40" Hollow White Oak Felling

[Nails]

We have been doing some firewood logging of hazardous, dead, rotten and hollow hardwoods lately. This tree was 40" where I cut it. There was a porkupine in the log that crawled out when my brother removed the chokers. I had one crawl out of the stump on me yesterday too.

This tree had a good size canopy with plenty of hazards present. The drop zone was angled across the logging road we were using to skid. We had to drop a small dead pine that was caught in the top to clear it for the fall. Temps were about 15F when we cut this and were well below 0F yesterday. The snow is getting up there too.

I used my newest 660 with a 32" bar. The tree had a slight lean to the lay, but the two biggest branches came back over my head to balance the tree out. Wedging conditions were crap, but threw almost everything we had at it and pounded in tandem to bring it down. We had to drop another small pine that was caught in the top to release the tree for the fall.

That's my brother on his skidder and assisting on the wedges also. I did the falling and our good friend and property owner did the pictures and some limbing/bucking and hooking chokers.

Hope you guys like this since it is my first substantial post.

[Skwerl]

Cool deal! A little low on the back cut, but you overcame that with a couple extra wedges.

Looks cold up there.

[Jonseredbred]

Nice little skidder, that a 440?

[woodworkingboy]

Nice pics, could here the crash even in the snow.

[Nails]

Cool deal! A little low on the back cut, but you overcame that with a couple extra wedges.

Looks cold up there.

On the Humbolt I'd rather be low than high It was -14F the morning before. Today was single digits, made firewood all day. It's affects the equipment and fingers first.

[Nails]

Nice little skidder, that a 440?

You bet. My bro just put new rear tires on it, a new seat, raised the roof 4 inches, put new chokers on, and fixed a hydro leak. Real nice machine indeed.

[gf beranek]

What are you doing working out in that kind of weather?

[Nails]

Nice pics, could here the crash even in the snow.

Thank you. We spent more time on the pictures than we did the tree. We even stuck a section of that pine in the snow for a monopod. It worked slick.

[Nails]

What are you doing working out in that kind of weather?

Having fun mainly. In these parts you have to work in the cold or you just lose too many days a year. Every day you can tough out is another day you gain, though they do get shorter in the winter. I am mostly Finnish so I thrive in this environment. Now out in those Cali-summers would be a different story, lol.

[CurSedVoyce]

Brrrrrrrrr... Looks like cold work to me. I would love to have a skidder like that, really cool machine. Not much good wood for a hinge on that oak. Question.. why would you want to low on the back cut ? Not trying to be critical.. just want to understand your reasoning.