Homestead Timber Management Part 1

We're going to

We'll up

Spring Farms and we're going to talk about a subject that a lot of people don't talk about

on the small farm or homestead and that's an improvement for sustainable forestry

My background in last I've grown up farming and logging and done a lot of sustainable forestry work

I work with a lot of farms now, and one of the most neglected things I see on farms hands down is the timber resource

People have this mindset in their head that it's just there. They don't really have to do anything with it, and it's going to be there forever

That's not true. You've got to manage it or you will lose it. So we're going to be looking at, Jay and I are going to be looking at going into this eight acre block of timber here on our property

This has been grazed as cow pasture, so we're going to, there's a lot of damage done

You can graze land. You can graze timber land for silbo pasture if it's done right

With set stocking it, you're going to do some damage to the timber. You're going to see that in here

This is a typical track of upland Appalachian hardwoods. And yes, we pronounce it Appalachia

It's like throwing an Appalachia. So this soil is thin, it's shaly, it's rocky

This is a good site location for white oak, beach, and hickory

You're gonna see that there's a lot of red oak in this track. And one thing that you're gonna see is a lot of this red oak

is what we call in the timber business, we call it swell budded and doughty

which means it's dry rotting from the inside out. And if we don't lose this in about three to five

years, these large trees that are in here are going to blow down and you'll already see some

in here that are blown down. They're basically going to be firewood if we don't utilize them now

So what we're going to be doing, this is going to, we're going to walk through here and just

show you all what the timber looks like before we go into it. We're going to log it out ourselves

We're going to use alternative logging practices, low impact necks. You'll see me using

once we get to part two of this, you'll see me using direction

Felling and bore cut techniques, a lot of really low impact techniques that give me a lot of directional control so I can maintain the health of the canopy and whatnot without tearing up my residual stand of timber

We're not going to use conventional logging equipment in here like what I have used a lot of my career

We're going to use farm tractor, which is appropriate to people on homesteads and even farms that are several hundred acres in size. This farm

right here is a pretty large farm by homestead standards. It's a couple hundred acres in size

The, you've already got a farm tractor. Most of you've already got a tractor, a four-wheel

drive tractor. So you put a forestry winch on the back of it and you're in business. So we're

going to go through here, part one's going to show you site selection, layout and talk to you

about some basic, very basic things of why I'm going to take certain treats. The long-term goal

of this harvest is to increase the quality of timber in this stand

To open the canopy up, I don't want complete, I do not want big holes in the canopy

There's eight acres here on the international scale. This timber here would cut about 15,000 to 20,000 board feet to the acre

It's pretty good timber. It's not outstanding timber, but it's a little bit better than average

If you clear cut it, it cut about 20,000 board feet to the acre

We're going to go, so eight acres times 20,000. acres times 20,000 you're looking at 160,000 board feet in this stand. We're going to go in here and I'm going to take out and it may vary some but I'm going to take out probably approximately 30,000 board feet on the international scale. That's going to this may, it'll really open it up for wildlife. It allows more sunlight to hit the floor, the forest floor, providing more brows and stuff for wildlife. We may fence this and run pastured hogs in here. I may eventually turn this into silvo pasture for cattle. I

I'm not 100% sure which way I'm going to go with it yet. I'm going to see how this responds

Traditionally, I'll use something like this for pastured hogs. So that's probably what we're going to wind up doing with it

One thing that we're going to talk about real briefly in this is site selection and layout

On this particular site, I don't have any water, so I don't have any stream quality issues or water quality issues

That's one of the biggest things in forestry today is maintaining. your water quality. I do not have any streams or surface water anywhere near

this site. So the closest thing period to that is about over a quarter of a mile

away with a lot of grass for a filter strip. And the low volume that we're going to

take out is not going to disturb enough soil to even come close to affecting that

We've got everything in place to protect our water quality because that's number one

So if you look at this where I'm standing right now is the heart of a logging operation

It's called the log landing, or landing for short. All the timber that we harvest is going to be skidded, or we call it skidding in the industry

It's dragging it out by mechanical means to where I'm standing. Then we will turn the trees into logs after we will fall, limb them and top them in the woods

drag the trees tree length to here. Then we will take the chainsaws and cut them into logs to properly merchandise them for the sawmill

They will then from there be loaded onto the trucks from here. here to go to the sawmill. So this is the heart of the operation. And you can see right here I've

got a main skid trail laid out. It's laid out central. This is a pretty easy block of timber

This is about as easy general of a site layout as you're going to get, especially here in the

mountains. I've got a log landing or a main skid trail coming right down through the center of

the timber stand. From here we're going to do a herringbone pattern. We'll have skid trails

set at approximately 45 degree angles to this main road coming in here

That allows us to bring the timber down gently and I will leave trees periodically along

that are going to be what's called rub trees, that I know I'm going to damage dragging

the other trees out Those rub trees as we come out will be harvested and brought out last to protect the residual stand So this is just kind of your site layout

We'll now go up into the woods and start to show you why we're selecting what and just show you

some of the different species that's in here. You can see looking around, the terrain here is extremely mountainous

The elevation ranges anywhere from 2 to 4,000, 2. to in excess of 4,000 feet elevation above sea level

It's all upland hardwoods. So this is what we're going to be harvesting our timber with today

This is the second one of this brand that I have owned

I've owned one size larger than this. This is a typhoon that's spelled Taj Fun, but pronounced typhoon

It's a three-point hitch-mounted forestry winch designed from the ground up to work for farm trappers

This particular model is an EGV-55 AHK, which means it's fully hydraulic

This is a little fancier than most people will need or use on their own woodlot

I manage an enormous amount of timber, so for me, it's what I'm used to

it's what I prefer. The manual ones work superb and are more than which, you know, they're

about ideal for average small homestead or wood lot. The nice features on this particular one

I've got 200 feet of suage cable on here. I've got about 12.5,000 pounds of pulling power

These winches are rated in metric tons, so that would be 5.5 metric tons of pulling power

A metric ton is 2,200 pounds. Some nice features of this. It's got a chainsaw holder on it, so I've got a good place for my chainsaw

If I've got a larger axe with me, which I normally have on here, I just don't today

I've got an axe holder up here, or you could put a pickeroon up here

That way I've got something there for beating my wedges. I've got spots on here to hold my chain chokers, which you'll see those in a little

bit for actually attaching the logs to the winch. I've got multiple spots on here I can hook into

I've got different places I can place the chokers for hanging them to keep them from dangling into the ground

I've got another pulley on here, another rigging point, that if I need to lower my center of gravity for a side pull or whatnot

which is not really recommended for a tractor to do hard side pulls, it's tippy

Don't really like to do it much, but sometimes you don't really have a choice

This gives me that option of hooking this cable down into here with no tools

It gives me just another point. It's a really nice feature. The manual ones come with that as well, all the way down to the 45 size

They make a 35, 45, 55, 55, 65, and 85 is about as big as you generally see in this country

These are made in Eastern Europe. I've had several different brands of these winches over the years

Typhoon is not the only manufacturer. I've owned and or operated several of the other brands

As far as I'm concerned, Typhoon is by far in a way the best on the market

Dollar-wise, if you're comparing a manual winch to a manual winch, they're right in the middle of the pack price-wise

but nothing else even comes remotely close, quality-wise. another really nice feature that you have on these is a trailer hitch

So if we're on the real backside of the farm where we can't get the log trucks in and out

or we're harvesting our firewood wanting to bring it out, I can pull a trailer in the woods with me

with this hitch right here, I can skid my logs out to my little woods landing

buck them, load them on the trailer, and pull them back to the house instead of having

to drag them that far. It keeps my wood cleaner, it does less soil damage, because remember

we're after maintaining water quality so we don't want to disturb any more soil than we have to

We want to leave as light of a footprint as we can. This helps us do that

To my knowledge, none of the other winches offer this. You can see how easily removable it is so that it's out of your way when you're skidding so you don't tear it up

Some of the other features on here, you've got toolboxes on each side

In this case, I've got extra chain treasures stored in here. Now these are not waterproof toolboxes, so don't put something in there that you don't want to get wet

This is by far and away the easiest three-point hitch implement I've ever used to hook up to a tractor

It's the most well thought out, designed, and engineered piece of equipment

But regardless of what brand you get, if you're going to manage your own timber in a woodlock

And you don't have to have a tractor as big as what we have here today. We've got some pretty big, for homesteading and farming, we've got some pretty good size equipment here because, well, at Cold Springs, we own and lease quite a bit of land and manage pretty good chunk of land

So we've got some bigger than, bigger equipment than what most of you will probably be running or need

Most of you will be running a compact tractor in the 35 to 40 horsepower bracket, maybe up to 50 horsepower

You could do what we're doing today with that. You're just not going to be dragging whole trees out

You're going to be taking one log at a time. And there's nothing wrong with that

I've done that too. It works extremely well. They make winches that'll fit those tractors

A type EGV 35 would work really well on that. You're just not going to pull as much as we do in one shot

But if you're not managing as much, time's not as critical for you

That's just the same thing. The safety aspect of this and the environmental impact reduction by using one of these is significant

Because when I winch the tree up to me it allows me to get the butt up off the ground where I not plowing furrows into the ground So I doing far less soil disturbance

Also, if I've got sensitive sites, I don't have to take the tractor down in there

I can sit well outside the area because I've got 200 feet of cable on this case

Most winches come with 150 to 160 feet of cable. This one is 200

So I can reach down into some sensitive areas and bring that material up

material up to the tractor where I can then take it out of the woods, thereby reducing environmental

impact, potential damage to the tractor, increasing my safety and the safety of anyone working

with me. Another big aspect that a lot of people don't think about is what are you going to do

when you get a tree hung up? I don't care how good you are at some point in time, you're going to

hang one tree into another. Without this, it's dangerous to get those down. It's dangerous enough

with a winch, but without one, it's really dangerous. With this, I can be away from the tree

where it's going to fall. I can winch it and pull it down to where it's then safe to work on

and I can work it up from there. Some of the other features on this, this, some of the other

features that I like, and again, you don't have to have this, but it's handy. Now, I've got a couple

of tractors. Every one of my tractors is outfitted with third function on the hydraulics

In other words, I've got third function up front so I can run, I've got a set of wet lines

coming to the front. It allows me to operate this root rate grapple. This is extremely

handy for working in the woods, handling brush, cleaning up on your farm, period. If you're

going to buy and spend the money to have a tractor on your homestead, I implore you and strongly

encourage you to have third function installed on your loader. That generally is going to

run you about $1,500, not including the grapple. That's just for the hydraulics. That's usually

going to run somewhere around that $1,500 mark. It's the best money you'll ever spend. I can do in an

hour of cleanup with brush and debris with this grapple, what three men would do in an eight-hour

day. It's a real back and time saver. I happen to have this matched up to a hundred horsepower

New Holland. This is a T5050. It's 100 engine horsepower 85 PTO. This tractor weighs about 13,000

14,000 pounds the way I've got it ballasted right now. It's our big tractor here on Cold

Springs. We do our heavy work with this. There's some pretty good size timber in there. I

could run this winch on our smaller tractor, but due to the size of the timber on this location

I'm going with the bigger one. The bigger the timber and the steeper the ground, the more tractor weight you want

It's a safety issue. Folks, you don't want light tractors. There's a lot of tractor brands on the market that they have a high horsepower to weight ratio

That's not a good thing. With a tractor, you want the weight. Otherwise, you don't have the stability and you're just, you're literally spinning your tires

Your horsepower is not going to accomplish anything without the weight to get the traction

Hey, I'm Ryan. I'm here on Cold Springs Farm. This is part two of the series on timber

stand improvement and how to manage your wood lot. We're going to talk real briefly about

some equipment selection and then we're going to go up in the woods and proceed with

some felling and what not, felling and whimming. So we'll start off with proper

personal protection equipment. You want good leather boots to provide ankle support, good

traction. When I'm professionally falling timber, this in here lays pretty good, but I'm going to be on and off machinery

So it plays a part in the choice of selection for my boots on this. You definitely want something with a heel

but these just have regular rubber soles. If I'm falling timber all day long, I prefer my cork boots

as we call them out west. These are spike boots. They're special for logging. They provide

absolutely outstanding traction, but they are a pain to get on and off of equipment with it

They chew up your rubber floor mats and you don't get good traction on the steel steps with them

Our saws. So this is a little larger timber. A 70 cubic centimeter saw is preferable for the majority of this

The 75 cc is about ideal for a heavy working saw for a farm or homestead

At some point we'll go into covering saws and proper saws selection later. But for the purposes of what we're doing today, you'll see that I'll be doing a lot of the felling with this MS 440 steel. This is, oh, I've had this saw for a good 10 years. It's cut a lot of timber, both from here to the Rockies. Generally, if I'm production falling with a saw, I'll get about two years out of a saw and they're pretty well done. But this one, it was my backup saw, so it never saw a whole lot of heavy use at any one time. It's got a 20-inch bar, full

chisel chain, half wrap handlebar, which is preferable here in the east, and a little thing

I usually put on a lot of my saws, a little over key holder, so I don't ever have to hunt my key

My saw key, it's always right there. But 70 cc is about ideal for, you know, that puts it just a little over 5 horsepower

That's about ideal for the majority of felling you're going to do back here, just to get all around saw

Here I've got my larger saw that I'll be falling some of the bigger timber width

It's a steel MS-661 Magnum. It is a 91 cubic centimeter saw, 7.1 horsepower

I've got a 24-inch bar with full chisel, full-skip chain on here

Just if you're asked, curious. We'll go into detail on that later. But I'll do some of my larger felling with this

Even though there's not a tree in there, I couldn't cut with that. It's just personal preference

I do do a lot of bucking with this. I've worn out several of these larger stills that are really good solace

Back to personal protective equipment, chaps. This is more of a West Coast style chap

I like them this time of year because they're cool. But you can see they're a shorter chap

They go to the top of my leather boots and that about where they stop These right here give you chainsaw protection you slip believe it or not these if they worn properly and taken care of they actually most likely will prevent you

getting cut, even with a saw this big. This is the second largest saw still makes. It's capable

of running a 42 inch bar in softwoods. In hardwoods, 24, 28 inch bars is about right on it

Chaps will stop one of these big things. If you use, you should, you just to do that. take care of them. When you get these, when you buy your brand new pair of chaps, first

thing you need to do is go take them and throw them in the dryer and fluff them up. If the

material inside is not fluffy, it won't work. And wash them periodically, but do not use bleach

because it'll bleach will break down the protective material inside. When these things start

to get oily and nasty, it's time to wash them. Just wash them with a mild detergent

or something, but no bleach. And again, fluff them up before you use them

This is a West Coast falling setup. You don't see people back here in the east using them very often

I used this for years when I was falling timber in the northern Rockies

It just allows me to carry everything I need right here on me

I've got wedges, felling wedges for tipping my trees. I've got a spot where I can carry a saw key on me

me I can carry a chain sharpener. This is not, this is just a tree counter, not

something I really need back here so much. This is an important piece of

equipment, an emergency whistle. If you're working with somebody on a machine

and whatnot, logging machinery is loud, it's hard to hear. If you need to get

their attention for some reason, either you got hurt or you're trying to prevent them from getting hurt or something like that, you have a chance of them hearing

you shouting, they're not gonna hear you. These big pads, up here. When you pack a saw, they give me some place to carry that and keep my shoulder

from getting cut up. Give me some protection and padding because if you're carrying a saw

with a long bar, it's a lot more comfortable way of carrying it. Again, not something you

typically see back here. This is not something that you have to have by any stretch of

imagination for managing your own woodlot. If you want it, that's great

Not necessary. The necessary items are the boots, the chaps. Grab a hard hat. You've got a plight

Hard hat. Mandatory. Not optional. The majority of your accidents in the woods come from above as far as serious injuries and fatalities

A lot of your serious injuries come from falls from improper footwear and slipping

I've seen people back here in the east sit there and cut in cowboy boots

That is a disaster. Don't do it. You have no traction, you have no ankle support, it's an accident looking for a time and a place

Something that's absolutely mandatory when falling timber is some plastic falling wedges

These right here, I can take my axe when I'm cutting the trees

Once I've started my back cut, I can tip this into the tree and this will help me directionally

follow the tree in the direction I want. It'll keep it from sitting back on my saw

They're plastic for a reason. That way if you get into them with a saw chain, you don't damage your chain, you're not

going to hurt your saw, you're just going to chew the wedge up. I'll probably get one that's, there's one that's seen some chewing

I carry two different styles of wedges with it. This is personal preference

These are just generic wedges from, I think I probably got these from Madsen's online

out of Centrala, Washington. These are K&H wedges here. These definitely came from Madsons

I buy them by the dozen. These are a K&H 10 inch triple taper wedge

You've got the initial taper here, more taper here, and then here. These drive really easy and provide a lot of lift

A one inch wedge in the back of a tree will tip a 75 foot tree six feet at the top

That's how much you can move on. I like these because they're a little thicker, so if I need a little more lift, I've got it

I generally carry four wedges with me. Axe. This is a little two-pound fallers axe

It's a short handle. It came from Madsen's supply out of Centrilla Washington

The pads here, those come from Idaho rigging out of St. Mary's Idaho

But as do, that's a fire extinguisher holder for working out west on Forest Service

land during fire season. This time of year you're required to carry a fire extinguisher

You won't see me carrying one back here. It's pretty much a non-issue

But these right here allow me to beat my wedges. And if my chain does get stuck limning or topping, I have a chance of hacking my

out real quick, but mostly that's just for beating the wedges into the tree

This is a New Holland E57C excavator. It's the largest mini X that you get from New

Holland before going to what they call a MIDI size. Currently it's the largest that New

Holland makes. You don't need this folks for managing your small woodlott. I have this

out here simply because we're doing a lot of cleanup. We've got a lot of really in

invasive species on this farm. In this part of the state of Virginia, we've got a lot of what's called autumn olive

They planted it in the coal on the strip mines. Fish and wildlife planted it years ago as a reclamation project on some of the strip mines in the coal fields, which we're not in the coal fields right here, but we're close

It's extremely invasive. I use this for cleaning up on the farm because they've got a lot of steep slopes that you can't get on with a tractor. I've got grading projects I've got to do here. I've got

I'm getting ready to put in probably close to 10,000 feet of water lines to get the cattle out of the streams

So I do use it some of the woods for building since I've got it

If I didn't have it, I wouldn't lose any sleep over it. So don't think you have to have one of these

It just happened to be sitting here