Logging

Logging1

Starting off as newlyweds, both Laurie and I had to make many adjustments. For me the biggest of these was I had to start working for someone other then myself. I got a job as a logger, chopper, tree feller, working for the local pallet mill. The mill had the skidder, the trucks and all that was needed to get logs out of the woods. I hired on as a logger, or a tree feller. This was a steady income, one where I would go to work every day, and hopefully at the end of the week I would have a paycheck. This was what was needed being the only breadwinner in the household.2

My job was to cut down and limb up the trees. I had to select the trees that the mill wanted, then cut them in an order and amount so the skidder would have six stems ready each time he came into the woods. The mill had hired two men to work in the woods. A feller, that was my position, and a skidder driver/operator. Between the two of us, we were expected to fill at least one cherry picker log truck a day. (3-4,000bf) The hope was that we would get more then that done. I was paid by the board foot of wood taken off the landing, to the mill. The incentive was to get as much wood out as we could, and to get the trees that would add up the fastest. There are several variables that were out side of our control. The density of the trees in the woods, the length of skid to the landing, the quality of the trees in the woods, the ruggedness of the terrain we had to work in and of course, the weather. On the other hand there were several variables that we could influence. The speed at witch the trees where selected, felled and limbed, the order of the felling and the direction they were laid down in. These things done well could make it an easy day for the skidder, or one where we were at odds all the time. I had been working in the woods for several years. I had learned a lot about how to get a certain tree to go where I wanted it. That is a skill one never becomes too good at. There always seems to be room for improvement. I had to get used to the idea of having six or more trees ready for the skidder each time he came in. I liked to have more then six ready. That way he could pick and choose and also I had some room if I got slowed down for one reason or another. I always liked to have three in one spot. Ideally, that was the spot furthest from the landing. That way he could go and hook on to the three then as he made is way out, I liked to have at least three more he could pick up as he went past. 3

To do this I had the skid road flagged, and I was always going farther in as I worked. I would put three down further in, then come back and lay some in the whole made by the skid road. It was important to be sure that he would be able to get in and out on the skid road. There is a certain rhythm to the work. A tank of fuel lasts about half an hour when working along, cutting down trees and limbing them up as quick as you can. The filling of the saw and getting back to work, all takes time. The sharpening of the saw can slow you down, but if left undone, it can slow you down. It is best to keep the saw out of the dirt so it will stay sharp as long as possible. If the skidder comes in and can’t hook to six trees, that can take time. If he goes out with less then six, that means you have made less for the day then you could have. If the skidder driver has to limb the stems you have down, that all takes time he could be using to get the wood out. Sometimes it is just the way it works out, he has to do some limbing. He pulls the trees out, and there is one side where I could not get to the limbs. There is a trick to that as well. If you take all the limbs on one side, making that side clear, the tree will tend to rotate that way and leave you with the rest of the limbs to take off. But in the woods there are many variables, some which can’t be foreseen. The best hedge against a slow down is to have as many trees down ahead of the skidder as possible. 4

On average, there is about ten to twelve trips a day the skidder can make. This, of coarse, varies quite a bit depending on the speed of the skidder, the skill of the operator hooking up and working up the hitch when he gets to the landing, as well as the length of the skid from the felled trees to the landing. For my part, I liked to have the trees all lying down, slightly at angles to the skid road, with all the limbs off. I liked to have at least eight for him to pick form, and indeed, often times, if he had eight, he would double something up and take all eight of then. 5

It made for a full day of work. I would hope to do 12 tanks of fuel in a day. And I would hope to have at least three trees down and ready for the start of the next day. 6

There are a few tricks to help make it so more wood comes out each day. One thing I learned was to not wait for a ride in on the skidder. If I left my saw in the woods, I could walk in to the woods in the morning. That way when he got in there for the first hitch, I would have it down and ready for him. In places where it was too long a skid for me to walk in, I would have to ride in with the skidder. This way the Skidder operator would have to help me cut down the first hitch. As time went on I got so I had two fuel and lube jugs. This way I had fuel in the morning. I would just leave the full ones on the landing for the skidder to bring in, and send out the empties with him during the day.7

Another trick I learned was running twin saws. This way I would cut down on the refueling time. I could run booth of them out of fuel before I had to stop and refuel. This also meant that I had a running saw when one had problems. I ran two just alike so I could usually get one going by taking the parts off one to get the other going. I would sharpen both at the same time, this way I cut down on the set up time to sharpen two saws. I worked out a method of mating the two saws, putting the bars through the handles, and making them a neat package I could carry over my shoulder.8

One trick I learned that saved a lot of time was to start a show at the furthest point from the landing. To do this the two of us would spend a day when we first got to a new show cutting a road to the back of the show. Then we would start at the back and work towards the landing. This made it so we had a skid road going by the trees that had to come out. I would just work along the skid road. It has to be done a few times to see the benefits of it. But I soon learned that it was a quick way to get more wood out. 9

The job worked its way into a comfortable routine. I would show up on the landing with two full jugs. The skidder driver had a lot of daily maintenance to do first off in the morning. I would head into the woods. It was good to pick a spot for camp early. This was where my fuel and oil jugs would live, my axe and wedges and anything else I might have brought in. It was important to have it be close to where I would be working, but not in an area where it would have trees felled on it. The further I had to walk to my camp, the less money I would make in a day. I was paid for the wood that came out, not for the walking around in the woods I did. 10

The first hitch had to be quick on most mornings. The skidder only had to come in after me, not take a hitch out, work it up and come back in. I always tried to leave a few trees down the night before so I would have part of the hitch ready. It was good if I had the saws all sharp the night before, filled and ready to go. When the skidder was in at the show, I was good if I had enough trees down and ready so I could be right there helping him as he hooked. The time I saved him getting a hitch together was money in my pocket. I would take any limbs off that appeared as he pulled the trees out. Sometimes it was quicker for him to hook one while I was pulling the cable to the next. The skidder driver had a saw on board, but it was always faster if I had the time and was right there to do any cutting that had to be done. Sometimes there was a tree that had to go to make it better for him to grab a hitch. While he was there getting the hitch together we would work as a team. Six chains hung from the back on a holder. Each choker needed to be put around the butt end of a tree. Once he left the show and started out to the landing, he was on his own and I was free to get the next hitch down and limbed up. 11

888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888812

For the first several months I worked for the pallet mill, I was placed on shows where someone else had already been working them. Most of them were shows where the clean-up was needed. It was the sort of jobs the rookie was given. We would go in, the forester would have trees marked that had been missed. We would have to get them all. This had it’s advantages and it’s disadvantages. One good thing was that the skidder in most cases had already been to all parts of the lot. There were skid roads to most areas. This made it quicker for getting around. The forester made the decisions as to witch trees had to go. If they had a mark on them, they went. This made that part of my job easy. Sometimes it would make a hitch cover a lot of ground, but at least I usually had room to put the trees down. 13

One time in particular this made for a bit of a hard time for us. I was working the very last part of a show, getting the very last trees. We had been told that the skidder was going to be taken off the show the next day and we just had to take the last few remaining marked trees. One of these trees was right out near the street. I really didn’t want that tree to go the wrong way. I started out to fell it. I cut the notch very careful, angled it just right. I started the back cut and noticed the tree wanted to go the wrong way. The kurf started to come together and pinch the saw. I got a wedge and put it in, hammering it with the ax, then cut a bit more. The tree still wanted to fall in the street. There were power lines and all out there, I really didn’t want it to go in the street. I put another wedge in it and hammered them in, they went real hard, like the tree really wanted to come backwards. I cut a bit more. To look at the tree it looked like it would fall where I wanted it to. But it wanted to go in the street. I hammered on the wedges a bit more. I asked the skidder to hook the cable on it and give it a little pull, just to make sure it didn’t go backwards. He hooked on and pulled. It still wanted to go back. He repositioned the skidder so he was braced behind an oak tree, that way he could give it a good hard pull. I didn’t want to cut any more on it for fear I would cut through my hinge. The skidder pulled hard, and the tree finally started to go. 14

All of the sudden I saw the problem. I yelled for the skidder to stop pulling, but he was watching the tree and not me. I saw there was a guy wire connecting the top of the power pole across the street to the tree about half way up. I had not seen it, and I guess the forester had not seen it. The skidder wanted that tree to come towards the woods and not fall in the street. He pulled, and I ran. There was a shower of sparks and a blaze of glory as the power pole snapped off and the tree came down, dragging the top of the pole and the power lines with it. A small grass fire started. The power lines were all over the road. The tree had come the way we wanted, but it had sure made a mess doing so. We got the fire out and the tree cut up. We were wondering how to do something about the power lines when the Power Company showed up. It turned out we had taken the power out to two towns. There are some days where every thing goes good. Then there are the days like this one. 15

8888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888 16

After several clean up shows, I was finally given a show of my own. A brand new show where no one else had worked. This property was special to me because it was a peace of land that had been in Laurie’s family. Laurie’s dad, Grampy owned the farm we lived on. Grampy’s dad was Doc Sweet. Doc Sweet had been a doctor in Territown NY in the 1920’s. When the depression hit, Doc Sweet had a profession where he could continue to make money. Doc had been summering in New Hampshire, and when the depression made it so farms were bring sold for a song, he bought the biggest farm in Bradford New Hampshire. The town has two lakes. Todd Pound is the lake right down near the business center of the town. Doc Sweet bought the farm that takes in the whole of the far side of Todd Pound. The Sweet place, as it was called, covers 600 acres and it had not been logged since 1908. 17

Grampy was one of five children. There was Helen who had a General Practitioner’s practice down in New York City. She had no interest at all in the farm. Then there was a son who died in WWII. Then came Uncle Bob. He was a toolmaker. Grampy and Uncle Bob both lived on the farm as boys. They hoped they would inherit parts of the farm when Doc Sweet passed it on. But then there was Luther. He was born when Grampy was 22 years old. He was a “change of life” baby. Back in those days, that was something that was the cause of a great deal of shame. Luther was kept on the farm, and was one of the family’s guarded secrets. Luther was not allowed to go into town or to be seen when people came to the farm. To the outside world, he was not there at all. 18

Well, by the time Doc Sweet died, Luther was the only one left at home on the farm. Luther was made the executor of the will. Luther figured that he was owed something for his childhood as a non-person. When it came time to divide up the estate of Doc Sweet, Luther decided he should have it all. 19

Thirty years after Luther got the farm on Todd Pound, he decided he wanted to move to Utah. This was where I came in. Before he left he wanted to get everything out of the land he could. I was asked to go in and harvest all the valuable timber. I was to leave the land in as good a shape as I could to increase the resale value of the land.20

The trees were verging on old growth limber. The land had been pasture until the westward movement in the 1860’s to the turn of the century. It had grown to the fast growing poples, white pines and birches first. There were still some very big old birches on the place. These are valuable for furniture wood. For the most part the woods had developed in to a mixture of hard woods and big old pines. In some areas the pines had grown so big, there was a new under story of birches growing under the big “King” pines. 21

The landing we choose was about at the center of the lot. It was an old cellar hole from an old building dating back to the very late 1800’s.22

The access to the landing was up the Old County Line Road. This was a no longer used road that followed the huge, double sized stone wall marking the boundary of the county.23