Rotten weather question...

[Ever Green]

Hello, I'm new to forum but it looks great.  I have my own landscape business.  I'm trying to get into logging and firewood sales.  I have a retired forester that helps me with marking.  I wanted a job where I can be in the woods all the time or a lot of it.  I log with a new TN-75 and farmi winch.  My questions is...when it's soft and very muddy...to go into the woods or not?  This is my first job and should be somewhere around 30000 bft.  I'm in western NY and we haven't had winter yet...just lots of rain.  I'm putting all my logs out to bid to the local buyers...I'm getting paid by the board foot.  The logs are just getting covered with mud.  Lots of sippy holes in the woods.  I've tried to redirect water but there is just so much of it .  The more damage I do now, the more work I have to repair in the summer.  Just looking for some help from the pros...

PS  one course away from NYS certified logger...I'm pretty excited about that!  GOL was great!!

[Woodhog]

I have about the same setup that you do for equipment...

I had to buy a forestry trailer and loader to get the wood out without a mess on the roads and the logs...

You can then take loads of brush/junk wood pieces and put in the mudholes/ruts and wetter spots on the main hauling roads, if you try that with just the winch skidding it will just pull the brush all over the place and the holes will bare again..

I put the winch on in the woods and work the dry spots and cache small piles of logs for forwarding to the landing with the loader/trailer combo, I try to wait for an ocassional freeze up to haul the loads out or just fix up the roads with the brush.

With global warming the climate has changed so much that it rarely freezes the ground for winter skidding anymore, when the snow comes it just mixes with the mud and becomes brown/black soup..., we have had no frost in the ground for at least the last
4 winters, this year they closed the highways for log trucks and my logs are just piling up on the landing and the bills are piling up in the mailbox...the road used to close in the spring in middle or last of march now it is closed in January.

or you can be like some the large outfits around here , buy gear with 24 inch ground clearance and watch the mud fly....and tow equipment out of mudholes with excavators etc...

T

[beenthere]

Best to stay out of the mud. If no frost (as in the last 4 winters) then the worst part of 'spring breakup' (when the frost comes out) won't happen and you'll be in the woods earlier. Muddy logs won't sell well. Ruts in the woods won't help drainage and will cause future erosion and will take a long time to heal.
Cut the logs, get the trails planned, and be ready to move logs out when the woods firms up a bit.  Preparations for future logging with water diversions, temp bridges, and logging trails done when the woods is dry would help in following winters if "global" warming sticks with us (Europeans and Asians wish they had some of that 'global' warming this year, as they seem to have been left out 'in the cold'  ).

[thecfarm]

I don't go into the woods when it's muddy.But this is on my own land and I can afford to stay out.I just bought 7 arces back of the old farm.I would love to get in there and cut down the white maple for pulp and also we can see the lower end of our field better,.Hardly any logs in there.Going for almost $100 a cord roadside.But we are getting the wet and warm  weather too.When I do have a wet spot I haul the rocks to it.But this will only be a small area.I myself hates ruts.But it's hard not to get any.Can you drag the winch to smooth out the twitch trails when you are done? TN-75 New Holland?How many hp? Welcome to the forum. I use a tractor too.It's on the bottom of my reply.Be careful please, and take your time.

[Ever Green]

Woodhog...I have a 16 ft dump trailer...thought about taking that to alt landing and filling it and then hook to tractor and take to actual landing...I have about a 1/2 to 3/4 mile haul thru a big field from 2ndary landing...my problem is in the woods...I got this job because they didn't want a big skidder tearing up the place...of course all the wet muddy spots are right wear I need to be...majority of woods ok...but where its wet its wet!!!what did you do for a forwarder/trailer combo?   

My tractor is turbo 75 horse...trying to figure out how to put pictuers in my gallery but, they all seem to be to big...any suggections?.......I think i see snow coming down...if I look real close..

[Woodhog]

With that trip thru the field you will be in trouble, I dont know how you could ever get thru a field with a load of logs on without making huge ruts...

If the whole piece is really wet bottom you might just have to stay out until it dries out...
then you have to worry about fire if it gets really dry....

The piece I am working is very rocky and all wooded, the landing is right at the edge of the woods.. you can go 100 feet and then a wet spot etc., I just brush in these little spots, but you have a much larger problem, if the logs will keep I would just pile them in the woods and then haul out when it dries up...usually in the woods you can hop around with the tractor and winch with out much damage unless it is a real swampy area, if you only make one or two passes over a wet spot it will not rut if its mossy  etc.. but I dont know what the bottom is like where you are working...you can drop the logs from the winch in a wet spot and then take the tractor across then winch them back in this will remove weight from the rear wheels and it might not rut up the spot too bad...

You might be able to mount a loader on that dump trailer pole somehow...

My trailer is one of those European things, Patu 10 tonne with bogies 4 wheels, and the Patu Model 575 Loader on it... it will haul 16 foot logs, I do all Cut to Length.. it only hauls about 1000 feet International scale to a load...usually I only load it to 3/4 full as it hauls hard when overloaded...they are also very tippy...

The tractor is about the same size as yours, Landini 7860 4WD fully protected with skid pan and engine protection panels that come off...I also use forestry chains on all
4 wheels, the rears are 34 inch and the fronts are 24 " wheels...it rarely ever revs over 1000 rpm doing all tasks....no turbo.. but so much power it just rolls along in low range all the time like a tank...

[Ron Scott]

Know your soil types and only work on them during the dry season or during winter freeze up (if you get any freeze up). Do not rut the forest landscape or impede drainage. Stay out of lowland areas and riparian areas of hydric soils.

[Tillaway]

What Ron said.  Ground operations are not allowed during periods of high soil moisture on our forest.  The shovel loggers can work in wetter conditions than anything else... if they have a good operator.  As wet as its been here no one has been doing any ground pounding.  If you do log, you will find that your haul roads will not take the punishment without lots of additional expense to maintain them.

[Frank_Pender]

You got that Tillaway.  We have had at least 2+" in the last 24 hours and it is not stopping.  I know you have been having some good winds in the last couple of days, and we have had gusts up to 40 mph today.  :'(  I know I lost some more timber.  Alice heard some this afternoon, but I have not gon seeking the site.   

[Phorester]

Yep..., basically,  if you can afford to, stay out of the woods if you're making a mess.  That's the biggest complaint we get about logging operations; mud, ruts, and mud in streams.  We need to be making friends among the general public, not more enemies.

If you have to work in soft ground to make your living, set up your operation so you can pick and choose where you go.  Full time pulpwood and sawtimber operators here usually have several tracts of timber bought up.  They will move off one that's getting messy to another one with more solid ground.  That way they still maintain their production but don't rut up the woods. 

A couple of ideas (that you may already know about)....., loggers will usually buy certain tracts that they know they can log without damage in the winter and hold them until then.  Some loggers will just cut trees during the day when the ground is soft, then send in other crews at night when the ground is frozen to drag and load the logs. If you don't have this many people, maybe cut one day, rest or do something else the next day, then come in that night to skid and load.  Can't do this near houses, obviously.  The newer geotextile fabrics, portable bridges,  and new ways of stabalizing skid trails and woods roads can be used in appropriate places. 

I expect you're getting lots of other bad-weather-logging ideas in your certification courses too.