Just what you need to be doing with a sore back. Go fishing man...rest, hire a 16 year old but dont let them near a chipper...:sorry:
I feel your pain. I just cut about 30 red and white oaks that all were at least 16” dbh and some over twice that off a property I have 25 miles from my home. Plus another dozen or so spruce and pine and a few nice tulip poplars. Had a timber buyer friend look at what I had and he rough estimated the saw logs (10” and above) at 12 to 14 thousand dollars. Another friend who is a logger went in with me at a 50/50 split for the logs and I would cut up the tops for firewood. Then we started finding about ¼ of the trees had iron in them and now I not only have the tops to cut up but also some logs that showed too much black. The biggest saw I own is only a 24” but that isn’t the problem in cutting up the rejected logs for firewood. The problem is a 30” green oak billet 18 inches long weighs close to 500 pounds. Since I am getting ready for my 80th birthday I think I may have bit off more than I can chew (or split). The only good thing is the logger gave me a grapple bucket for my skid steer which will help but splitting is going to take me all Summer. The other thing is we are in the monsoon season here in the north-east and the ground is so soft we are now at a standstill. Won’t be much fishing for this old man this year.I have over 20 cords of downed trees here on my property and I put an ad out there, yours free for the taking, didn't get one contact off that ad, I can't do it anymore or I would cut it up, last winter was a tough one and brought a lot of trees down, so I don't know what I am going to do with it!
