Harvesting a beaver tree

[cutterboy]

Hi all. Below my house, beyond the field there is a beaver pond. At the edge of the field and close to the water stand two white ash trees that are connected at the stump.




  Last year the beavers stripped all the bark off around the base and cut into both trees but left them standing.




  This spring the trees produced leaves, but they were off color and dropped early in late summer. The trees were dying. Since the trees were good sized I decided to get what lumber I could from them. So Sunday I cut one of them down.




  WATCH OUT! When the tree fell the butt end jumped up about 5 feet and over to the left 7 feet.




  I cut three logs from the stem.




  Then I loaded the logs one at a time on the tractor forks,




  and drove them up to my mill.




  I hope you enjoyed my little story. ;D

     Ralph

[locustoak]

aw man...we need the milling pics now!

[treefarmer87]

good lookin ash logs!

[metalspinner]

You better watch out.  I heard those beavers formed a union and you just stepped in on one of their jobs.  They werre just taking a union sanctioned break. :D

Those are some nice looking logs.  Ash is one of my favorate woodworking woods.

[ely]

good save on the beaver trees, even if they file a grievance. ;D

[sandhills]

If you work this right maybe you can teach the beavers to mill the wood for you after they cut it down ;D

[northwoods1]

Those are some nice ash logs Nice pond too, you know there are waayyysss to prevent them beavers from doing that if it were my tree I would have been  >:(, even though I have nothing against most beavers personally

[treefarmer87]

beavers are just like us really they like to fell trees, take all the bark off, and build something with it  ;D

[ely]

i had a couple beavers take the bark off me before. ;D

[cutterboy]

  I just want to let you all know that the beaver union was very upset with me. They demanded I meet with them and so I did. I figured the members of the beaver union were probably the same as union members world wide, so I brought a keg of beer with me. Before long we were all best of friends and were able to come to an agreement. I get to keep the logs and the thick part of the branches and the beavers get the small branches and brush from the top. We shook hands-paws and the beavers got right to work on the top.










   Seriously everybody, every night after I cut that tree down the beavers work on it. They take the small branches and store them under water for winter food. If they keep it up, all that will be left of the top will be fire wood sized branches. :D ;D

     Ralph

[mad murdock]

the great thing of that deal is you don't have to pay payroll tax, or workers comp ;) What a great deal! a win-win for both parties.  They are getting right busy on that job it looks like from the pictures. 8) 8)

[Magicman]

That's what I call busy beavers working together.  Which of you has seniority  ???

[leweee]

  

    Ron is "right on".....beavers aren't directional fallers'






    Nice job cutterboy. ;)

[Jeff]

This reminds me of another brilliantly titled topic from years gone by.

https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,2491.0.html

[metalspinner]

There's a church up the road from here in northern Knoxville called Beaver Dam Baptist Church. :-\

[treefarmer87]

there were some beavers on the creek that runs into our 6 acre lake on the farm. that creek runs thru a 1200 acre tract of westvaco planted pine, it looked like a clearcut 50 yds wide on both sides of the creek, by 2mi long along the creek. someone got mad and took a mini excavator, tore up the dams and shot all of them :(

[Magicman]

I've gotta get the trapper back on my tree farm.  A tree washed over and they took advantage of it.  Now it's a dam under a bridge.  The trapper likes to work during the Winter when the pelts have value, and the Cottonmouths aren't as active.

[cutterboy]

Hi all. Five days after I cut the tree down this is all that is left of the top.




This is great. Not only did the beavers cut all the small branches off the tree, they hauled them all away.

  Im very happy to have these beavers here. The pond they built is in a safe location...can't flood my house or the road. The pond now covers about 10 acres of land that used to be marshy and brushy and couldn't be farmed. It's true that they have killed a lot of trees but I've harvested most of them for lumber and fire wood. The pond attracts a lot of wildlife and I enjoy that very much.

  BTW, I cut the other tree down this morning. Pictures comming soon.   Ralph

[cutterboy]

I don't know what happened, but here is the picture that should have been in my last post.

[treefarmer87]

thats a pretty field in the background