Hunting Birch

[Quebecnewf]

Went in today on the Petit Mecatina River to see if we could get a few birch logs for the kiln. Cut a path up through the woods and cut 5 nice 8 ft logs. Hauled them one at a time accross the river and up through the portage onto the plain. We could only haul one at a time up of the river. Those things are heavy and slippery thank goodness for the new Logrite canthook.

We hauled two on each sleigh to the mill. We have a steep hill that we have to go down and you don't want too much weight on the sled or else bad things happen when you reach those two large bumps at the bottom of the hill.

We now have 7 nice birch on the rack .Hope to get a few more tomorrow.

Quebecnewf





 


 


 


 

[Harvey]

Nice logs QuebecNuef,  what do you plan to do with them ?

[stonebroke]

You grow much nicer birch than we can. Must be the great climate.

stonebroke

[Quebecnewf]

I will saw them up into different sizes 4/4  5/4  and 8/4 and then they go in the solar kiln for the summer and by Sept I will have 800 to 1000 ft of KD Birch

We find here that our birch is one of the fasting growing trees. You can see in one pic some of the destruction done to the fir by a very bad infestation of the hemlock looper that went through here about 8 years ago.

Quebecnewf

[thecfarm]

Always enjoy your pictures of the way you haul logs.I see some trees leaned over,I suppose fir.My soil or something is not right for fir.I did have some in probably an acre or two that grew well and had some size to them.Most get about the size of a softball and will break off about 3 feet high and than fall over.If they don't fall over than they are hollow inside and the ants have a nice home.I cut a lot of it,dead or alive and put it inside the OWB. I have a lot more I want to get rid of.Give something else a chance to grow.

[tyb525]

We have absolutely no birch around here. A few small yard trees with poor form, but I have never seen a wild birch in Indiana except in the south.

[MMFaller39]

Birch is one of the few trees I rarely see in my area. Theres plenty of Red maple, Red oak, white oak, hickory, aspen, locust, pine, hemlock, ash (rapidly dwindling), and the accasional beech.

[SwampDonkey]

Lots of'm here. Traditionally, the white birch is grown for spool wood here but in the last few years they have been buying it for veneer to just like yellow birch. Yellow birch is present in sugar maple and more elevated cedar woods (not the real wet cedar ground), and white birch is present about anywhere in the Acadian forest of the Maritimes. Some sites it grows as crooked as rams horns and other sites it's nice and straight.






Two difference white birch, first in sugar maple forest, second in fir-spruce forest. Both are 18" at breast height. There's another like the second down on the cedar stand, the cedar was cut out a few years ago, left the birch. Might actually be a couple inches bigger. Then there's my 25 inch yellow birch on my cut cedar ground.



Not a dead branch on'r and no epicormic branching. We don't get that epicormic on dominant overstory mature hardwood up here, pole wood and immatures yes.

I'll say though, you fellas sure work for your wood up there on the snow and ice.

[SwampDonkey]

Not suggesting hauling wood from northern Quebec. But for others near the market, I see someone buying white birch spoolwood in Maine.

No. 1  $415.65/mfbm  11" & up 10'6" Min Length, 11'6", 12'6" etc ,Maxi butt 20",  3" of white wood

HARDWOOD PRODUCTS             
Guilford, Maine

Deliveries Mon- Friday 7 am-4 pm

It's worth more as veneer, but no one seems to be buying veneer hardwood around here at the moment. Those local markets pretty much died since the down turn.

[Coon]

We have alot of white birch on our land which consists of mainly spruce and aspen.  The small areas that were logged off a few year back of spruce seems to be populating back up with white birch.  The birch seems to grow fairly straight here too and it has been just the last few years that we have been finding brown cores of any size in the mature wood.  We don't normally see the dark cores in anything under about 15 inch dbh unless the trees have been previously scarred up or diseased. 

Brad.