Total of our experience-Logging and working in the woods

[Jeff]

We are trying to figure out how many years of experience and knowledge this forum offers in certain areas. This Poll is for Logging or working in the woods harvesting Forest Products of some kind. Could be you have cut firewood, or you may be a mechanized logger. All that experience comes together on the Forestry Forum and makes up the knowledge that we had a group have to offer.

When answering the poll, round to the nearest number, either up or down, what ever is closest. It would be just to much for the poll if we added an option for every year. What we will come up with by rounding will be a very accurate number for our total.

[Wallys World]

I got my first chainsaw when I was 14 years old, wow 36 years ago. I have been cutting firewood ever since. Had a good business for some time selling it, now it has been just for family use and trying to sell bundled. In the last 7 years since getting the mill I have been more on logging for the lumber and using the tops for the firewood. It is nice when you can work on your own land and not have to travel to get logs. (100 acres helps too)

[Paul_H]

Last week was exactly 30 years full time logging.Started in 1978 and things were still pretty rosy in the logging industry.The early 80's were tight but things picked up again until 1997 then it seems it never really recovered completely.
The woods is still my #1 choice of places to work.The people and the space!

[Woodcarver]

I checked 40 years because I started almost that long ago working in the woods with my father hauling logs and whiskey barrel bolts when I wasn't in school. I think I probably accumulated more miles behind the wheel of a truck than a car as a teenager.

Since then it's always been part-time.  Began heating with wood during 70's and more recently have been cutting some pulp. 

 

[zackman1801]

1 year, just a green horn, learning my way into the woods. im only 16 but im getting into the woods more and more. just started cutting for firewood because oil is just do dang expensive.

[sawguy21]

I worked in the woods off and on in the 70's and got hooked. Got into small engine repair and enjoyed working with saws and the loggers. Spent almost five years in heli logging in the late 90's, I loved that but sure hard to make a living in it now.

[breederman]

I was probably 10 years old when I started picking up firewood as it came off of the buzz saw.  It took alot of wood to keep the pipes from freezing in that old house! I skidded alot of logs and firewood down off the hill with a JD 50 when I was a teenager, and been cutting mostly firewood for fun every since then.

[deadeye]

started in the woods with my dad when i was about five,  we lived on a dairy farm and cut forty cord a year plus all the sawlogs we could get out of the trees we downed.  traded a weeks wages with a neighbour  for a homelite xl 12 at the age of twelve.  from then on i've been cutting firewood and brush lines for  people and for the past ten years have been custom logging and sawing. 

[Sawyerfortyish]

I started cutting firewood when I was 17 when I got out of school we put in the sawmill. Seems like it was just last week but it was 1981. Never worked a day for anyone else I worked on the family farm with dad and my brothers and still do. No way could I join the rat race and commute to the city to work. Give me the woods and the farm.

[Corley5]

I've been logging on and off both full and parttime for twenty one years and have been cutting firewood for even longer.  I checked 15 years since I haven't always worked in the industry

[Jeff]

Were already up to 917 years of experience. 

[Frickman]

I grew up in a logging and sawmilling family and started felling timber at age twelve. Before that I'd help carry saws and firewood, probably from age five. I consider age twelve though to be when I started.

[thecfarm]

This is a nice poll that brings back a few memories of just carrying the wood to the truck.I enjoyed my Father in the woods more than out of the woods.We just seemed to get along better working in the woods.

[maple flats]

I started cutting firewood in '73 and my only cutting was firewood til 2003. I cut with dad for his home, our home and my brother's home. We also cut firewood for sale during the winter when business was slow. Starting in 2003 I cut logs to get sawn into lumber for my sugarhouse and the sawyer took sooo looong I bought my own mill. I now do custom sawing on a limited scale, do very little logging (my land only), and I am sawing lumber to build our new (retirement) home. I also have a forest stewardship plan for my woods and do some timberstand improvement, which was new to me in 2003.

[Jeff]

so far we are at a combined experience of 1294 years.

[Don K]

I selected 30 yrs as I was 16 when I first got to use the chainsaw to cut firewood  to sell and use at home. I toted it to the truck a lot longer than that! My grandaddy was a logger so I have spent my life in the woods. I cut paperwood on the side until that industry fell apart for the small man in the south in the early 90's. I heat my home with wood and love to cut down trees. I used to take my mom's Old Hickory butcher knife when I was about 6 or 7 and hack down small trees. If I had all of them now I could never finish sawing them up.

Don

[Gary_C]

Wasn't sure of the years to put down. I have been doing some work with trees since 1964 but not all years. My brother in law and I cut down a large walnut yard tree one Sunday when the Steelers were playing in the Super Bowl with Bradshaw as their QB. The last ten years pretty much full time so I put down 25 years. 

[Jeff]

1671 years of combined experience now.

[TeaW]

Got my first saw at 17 by falling dead elm at 5 bucks a tree, been selling logs and firewood for over 30 years.

[Norm]

I was 14 when the dutch elm disease came through our farm. We had many die that needed cleared. We started out with a two man saw but soon went to an ancient chainsaw that weighed a ton and had a pump oiler for the chain. I'm still amazed we survived dropping those monsters but over a couple of summers cleared out the dead ones. Our neighbor used a wood burning furnace that would take huge chunks. He also had a buzz saw mounted on the front of a AC tractor. Since then I've been doing some kind of chainsaw work off and on.