45 Trees, 3 climbers, 3 weeks of residential logging.

[Jomo]

Great work pics Stephen.

Ever tried daisy chaining your speedline loops?

Keeps them more compact n tangle free clipped to your saddle.

I like dead conifers over live ones, lighter wood n way less sap!

Jomo

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Thanks
These have plenty of sap bleeding out of beetle holes and collars. The loop runners are daisy chained at the biners. Each biner has it's own runner. Unclip bottom bine r and good to go.
But yes, the wood gets lighter as you go up.

 

[Jed]

Thanks Stephen. I was really amazed to see the shots of your frends stob going over (toward the loader). Really, really cool.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

YVW and thanks Jed. I think Katy and the HO did a good job of capturing stuff. Especially since Kat really is not all that familiar with my newer camera

 

[CurSedVoyce]

And it kept getting thicker and brushy and I found more tops in there.......Little ones, but tangled through the other three mains.


One of the clean up crews moved in .......

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Using two different color (red & blue) zip lines kept some of the confusion down.. "Ready for 2 on red", "Ready for 4 on blue". The set up is a tad odd in that there is more down time for the ground guys. I usually try to keep them hopping more. With 3 main tops, this was better than all the redirects I would have had to do on each set. Plus the positioning for cutting was easier to achieve. It was tight up there... Once the leaders spread out some, I pretty much went to one line for the rest of climb up and then dropped back down for the next lead. Still used different vectors though.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Next Day, first task was to bind the 3 leaders together at the 100 foot mark. The limbs were not all that in smaller sequences, but the larger groups, tops and chunks were going to create more side load up top. Especially when we were going to drift the tops and chunks over to the General. Interesting when 300 foot ropes are just not quite enough
This is where the Wraptor really shines. Take all your gear, saw etc up with you all at once and get to work. Weight really is not an issue.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Moar.......

 

[MasterBlaster]

That's all you got?

 

[FireFighterZero]

Yer gonna break the internets!

Hell of a good bunch of pictures Stephen.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Ha!.....

 

[CurSedVoyce]

While I was busy above, the clean up, though some was done daily, got really serious. We had tons of duff that had to go. Plenty of raking to do. Just tons of material....
Thankfully we had some gardeners that do the mound style gardens and want the duff to plant in. Sooooooo ... Closer than home and cheaper than the dump. Never went home empty. Just kept moving the stuff towards the street as we cleared an area.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Time to tackle tops!

And unfortunately ..... the camera ran out as we were ready to shhhhhhwinnnnnng them over to the gin pole
Wellllllllll..... We did get some footage of the chunks.. Post some of those up tomorrow.

 

[pantheraba]

Just epic...all of it. Just the Beast tree is a massive job.

 

[cory]

Good way to bid the job, CV.

Those smaller green conifers in the pics, are those young trees of the same species you are removing? Are they healthy for now but may suffer if they don't get rain etc?

 

[gf beranek]

Amazing, Stephen, how well you have preserved the under-story while taking this bull through the china shop. Impressive effort. thank you for sharing!

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Good way to bid the job, CV.

Those smaller green conifers in the pics, are those young trees of the same species you are removing? Are they healthy for now but may suffer if they don't get rain etc?

Thanks Cory.
The young conifers you see are the same species and incense and western red cedar. Some of the young trees of the same species will survive. I do see one on her place that will probably die yet. Cedars are taking a hit too. See what happens now that we have rain.
She will replant as soon as we have a good wet winter. Planting should be done normally now through Feb. if it stays wet.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Amazing, Stephen, how well you have preserved the under-story while taking this bull through the china shop. Impressive effort. thank you for sharing!

Thanks Gerry..
That seems to be our niche. Able to work around the under story so they have something left.
We had another property we had been working over the years that was logged out. 100 trees and they are coming back for 100 more. We tried to keep some of the more drought hearty natives intact (like blue oaks). They smashed a bunch of stuff and made a mess of it. One in particular was an mid age one about 28 DBH and over 60 foot high with a nice spread. Just crushed it with a tree. I could have climbed the tree over it and brought down sections, but that wont sell as lumber.
More acreage on that one (120? maybe) and it is left as a slash and scatter. The property owner may have got ride of the logs and had them felled for free.... But he is spending some money on the clean up and erosion control.
We will be having a presentation on the Tree Mortality Committee they have formed here. They will be using our input for the smaller lots and pictures from this job.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

So now it was swinging things over to the gin pole. Block at 150 feet. 300 feet of rope was a tad short, had to make do and give it a tail. I would have preferred a longer rope. Oh well.. Make do. I had lined out all but two of the largest tops and we swung those over... Then logs.... Plenty of other things going on during this time. Final chipping, some milling. Wood removal. Plenty of raking.. A bed of chips was laid down for the Beast to come to rest on. I was falling her across a leech field and respective plumbing. Just the shear weight of the log was cause for concern. We had also begun to get rains and such so the ground was a bit soft. New field was only a couple years old. The 044 (nicknamed Katy) went for the ride and got it done. Excavator moved the wood..

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Home owner asked out her window if it was ok to come out of the house to take a couple more pictures... I shouted back "sure!"
Gave her a couple goofy shots on my way down

Then it was time to lay what was left of the beast (about 70 feet) into her bed.....
My face cut was giving me some grief... doctored it up and hit target. Ugly... but worked. Log hit the chips and then gently rolled a tad. Excavator rolled it back up on the chips for easy bucking.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Then it was the Generals turn.... And I had room to toss some logs with the aid of the crew pulling... Just had to stay on her side of the line, miss a fruit tree and a bit of plumbing

You can see the plumbing just to the left near the top of the log...

Happy HO

 

[MasterBlaster]

Avatar Change

I hadda do it, bro...

 

[sawman]

dam Stephen, just dam...
like the new avater also...

 

[MasterBlaster]

Dancing a jig!

 

[MasterBlaster]

Sorry guys - I accidentally locked the thread. It's good to go now!