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New member, without a forest, trees, or even a chainsaw..

Started by Deagle, August 10, 2013, 12:14:44 AM

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Deagle

Hi everyone, Ive been watching the forum for a couple of months now, but finally joined! 8)

I also have a question for all the forestry land owners out here:
How did you initially come to acquire your land?

Did you inherit in the family, work in forestry industry and then purchase, or just purchase without any prior experience? or claim by brute force..maybe not.

The reason that I ask is that I'm fresh into the workforce (not forestry related) but I think it would be really cool to own a block of forestry land for both recreation, bragging rights, something to keep me busy and well what else am I supposed to do with this new concept of "income" ???


And to keep everyone else happy, here's a hatchet which I re-handled from a plum tree:


 

beenthere

Deagle
Welcome to the Forestry Forum.
The land we own came as a purchase on land contract for the first 15 acres. Then later added 7 more when a neighbor decided to sell theirs.
south central Wisconsin
It may be that my sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others

terry f

   Deagle, most came from a 401K loan, some from a low interest credit card check, so you could say I borrowed 100% for my 40 acres. I still owe some on my 401K loan, and I've never made a dime off the land, and probably never will, but I would do it again tomorrow. Everything I do up there is to improve my little piece of heaven, and after 9 years it probably doesn't look like much has been done, usually just me (with a bad back) and a chainsaw, but nothing I would rather do. Its 60 miles away, and I envy the guys who have it in their back yard. My advise is to put this new found income to the biggest plot of land you think you can afford, and put that hatchet to work.

Deagle

Interesting, I had to do some research on the 401k (I'm in New Zealand.. wheres Ianab).

Part of the reason that I like the idea of a forestry block is that I dont like to be tied down in one place too much, but a bit of forest? sounds good!  8)


m wood

I paid for mine twice.  Once when I bought it in '99, then again when I got divorced.  She got the house and I got the woodlot...I couldn't be happier.  I had to pay her for it though, and I did that by raping my ira's and rollovers...just before the market crashed in '08 ish.  Her house is now in foreclosure and I own my woodlot free and clear.
Mark
I am Mark
80 acre woodlot lots of hard and soft
modified nissan 4x4/welding rig
4x4 dodge plow truck
cat 931b track loader
Norwood mark IV
4' peavy
6' peavy
stihl 034
"her" wildthing limber saw
ALL the rustic furniture  woodworking stuff
check out FB

Raider Bill

I bought the original 69 on a whim. It was the compulsive buy of the century :D I sold off 4 acres. Since then I bought another 16 acres then about a year later I got 60 more bringing the total to 141.
I live 624 miles from this land.

I used savings, loans and always try to at least double my monthly payment.

Welcome to the FF!

Quote from: m wood on August 10, 2013, 08:50:25 AM
I paid for mine twice.  Once when I bought it in '99, then again when I got divorced.  She got the house and I got the woodlot...I couldn't be happier.  I had to pay her for it though, and I did that by raping my ira's and rollovers...just before the market crashed in '08 ish.  Her house is now in foreclosure and I own my woodlot free and clear.
Mark

I love a happy ending!
The First 70 years of childhood is always the hardest.

Deagle

Thanks for the stories everyone!

Raider Bill,

How well does it work out living so far from your land?

mesquite buckeye

Bought my 80 from my dad 21 years ago. Bank loan. Paid it off in 10 or 11 years. Only 1400 miles away. ;D
Manage 80 acre tree farm in central Missouri and Mesquite timber and about a gozillion saguaros in Arizona.

Deagle

Quote from: mesquite buckeye on August 11, 2013, 01:41:17 AM
Bought my 80 from my dad 21 years ago. Bank loan. Paid it off in 10 or 11 years. Only 1400  ;Dmiles away.

:o thats a fair bit of travel!

WildDog

Welcome to FF...We got a loan 10yrs ago for the 700acres where we live it has expanded to include 9 acres in the main street of town (spoke to the agent this morning, the 9 acres is now for sale) We hope to sell both in the very near future to get closer to the in-laws. They are only 90 kilometres away but too far for child minding etc. Our farm has reasonable stands of millable timber, alright grazing but not a lot of arable ground. Where we look at going will be the opposite, more farming and easier managed. I will miss the hunting and fishing on this farm, but it won't hurt for the younger kids to experience a little more civilisation :)
If you start feeling "Blue" ...breath    JD 5510 86hp 4WD loader Lucas 827, Pair of Husky's 372xp, 261 & Stihl 029

Peter Drouin

 Work very hard and saved your money. And welcome to the FF
A&P saw Mill LLC.
45' of Wood Mizer, cutting since 1987.
License NH softwood grader.

clww

Many Stihl Saws-16"-60"
"Go Ask The Other Master Chief"
18-Wheeler Driver

Raider Bill

Quote from: Deagle on August 10, 2013, 06:05:50 PM
Thanks for the stories everyone!

Raider Bill,

How well does it work out living so far from your land?

it's a major pain. lot of interstate driving.
The First 70 years of childhood is always the hardest.

jmouton

just watch out for the geese  crossing the road   , raider bill



                                                                                                     jim
lt-40 wide ,,bobcat,sterling tandem flatbed log truck,10 ton trailer, stihl 075,041,029,066,and a 2017 f-350,oh and an edger

terry f

     If you are young and single, raw land could be a fun and good investment, if you are young and married, you should probably think about housing first. A young single guy can live about anywhere in anything, wives not so much.

mad murdock

Quote from: terry f on August 11, 2013, 07:23:23 PM
     If you are young and single, raw land could be a fun and good investment, if you are young and married, you should probably think about housing first. A young single guy can live about anywhere in anything, wives not so much.
that there is some good advice!
Turbosawmill M6 (now M8) Warrior Ultra liteweight, Granberg Alaskan III, lots of saws-gas powered and human powered :D

mad murdock

We bought our tree farm on '05.  Sold the home in town that we lived in, plowed that loan into this place, the owner gave us a 6 mo land contract, which allowed us enough time to do a re-fi, so it is our primary residence, on a 30 yr mortgage.  Nice thing about timber is that as a primary residence, they don't value the trees in the mortgage, they are all cream, and in the PNW coastal rain forest, trees grow really really nice! If I could get another 30-40 acres, I could afford to tend to the tree farm full time and quit playing with helicopters for good. Welcome to the Forestry Forum deagle!
Turbosawmill M6 (now M8) Warrior Ultra liteweight, Granberg Alaskan III, lots of saws-gas powered and human powered :D

thecfarm

I inherited this land,about 170 acres. Built a house and I am living my dream. We brought back 7 acres of the old farm land. Probably was 1000 acres when my Grandparents owned it.Than my grandmother started to sell some of it. I was not living here until 2000.But I was never no more than 20 minutes away. If you do plan on working your land I would suggest buying hand tools and leave them there. It's a bother to bring shovels,rakes,crowbars,chains, and etc over to the land and than have to unload all that when you get home. Or forget something at home.  ::) I had and have 2 of everything now.
Also nice to have a building to sleep in too.
Model 6020-20hp Manual Thomas bandsaw,TC40A 4wd 40 hp New Holland tractor, 450 Norse Winch, Heatmor 400 OWB,YCC 1978-79

Deagle

Quote from: terry f on August 11, 2013, 07:23:23 PM
     If you are young and single, raw land could be a fun and good investment, if you are young and married, you should probably think about housing first. A young single guy can live about anywhere in anything, wives not so much.

Yeah thats what I'm thinking. In my work (especially while I'm just getting started in industry) i figure the less I'm tied to one place, the better I will be prepared to take up any opportunities that come my way.
If I have trees.. well they'll just keep doing what they do best anyway.

Quote from: Peter Drouin on August 11, 2013, 07:06:21 AM
Work very hard and saved your money. And welcome to the FF

Thanks for the advice, thats the plan for the moment. although I have found some small stands (with its very own derelict shack) for as little as 35,000USD nearby... perhaps I should set my sights a little higher...

enigmaT120

We got our house in '91 on 4 acres for 75,000, then two years later the timber company we bought it from put up the surrounding 28 acres and we got it for 17,000, some money my wife had left over from selling her house in town.  Our place had been purchased from the previous resident by the forest company and clear cut, then they separated out the 4 acres with the house and sold that first.  I never did learn why they did it that way. 

The down side is that my job then moved even farther from my house, so that I have a 50 mile one way commute, but I'm not willing to move or find a closer job.  I can retire in a few years, about the same time I should be able to make some commercial thinning sales from the re-planted forest land.

Ed Miller
Falls City, Or

terry f

    Mad Murdock and Enigma, how long does it take to make a tree over there worth putting on a truck, and how long for a 30" hundred foot plus doug fir.

enigmaT120

Terry, that varies a lot even over Western Oregon.  Most of my place is rated site class I or the upper end of II and I should get about 140 foot Douglas Firs in 50 years.  You can get site class maps off the USDA web sites if there's an area you want to investigate.  It's complicated to operate their web sites, but there is a lot of stuff on there.

I've seen some awfully small logs on trucks but I don't know where they are going or what the land owner is making from a load of them.  The stuff I'm pre-commercially thinning and making firewood for myself is almost as big as what I see on trucks.  Yeah I waited too long on the thinning!  But some places down in the Willamette Valley I've been looking at stands of fir trees and they seem to be barely growing.
Ed Miller
Falls City, Or

mad murdock

Terry, Enigma has it pretty square.  A lot depends on management.  If you are diligent about managing invasives, and keep competition down till you get crown closure, ad fertilizer when and where needed, you can get rotations in as little as 35 yrs, on average I would say 40-65 yrs, depending on all the variables over here.  For sure by 65 years with even minimal management hands on, you will have nice trees in the 26-30" dbh and 120-140' plus height.  There is one Timberco around where Enigma is in Polk County and Benton county primarily, they have a lot of stands that most years are putting on 4-6' of new leader growth every year for the last 5 10 years or so.  Surely that slows down a bit as the trees mature, but one thing for sure, this coastal mountain region grows trees like nothing I have ever seen anywhere else i have been.  Ianab can maybe chime in on this next statement, but I have heard from other foresters who have spent time in NZ that they have phenomenal tree growing ground there among the kiwis as good as or better than in some cases than the best class I ground we have here.  I have heard that it has something to do with the near century of sheep farming, then over the last 40-50 yrs or so a lot of that land has been turned over into timber, and that is the ground that is really outstanding.  Similar things happened here in Oregon, especially around Linn and Benton counties, and I am sure most of the coast range, a lot of farming went on in the hills from settlement of the Oregon Territory thru the early depression years, then as the depression wore on and we got embroiled in WWII, a lot of peoplel moved off the farms, and into towns.  A lot of the private timber ground was bought up as mostly grassy unkept farm ground, and planted in the late 30's through the 50's and put into forest production.  It is quite a remarkable thing, you can see a lot of old deurogotpye photos taken of these areas when it was farmland, and not many trees on a lot of the lower hills, probably a comparison between then and now, and I would say 75% of the timberground today used to be open farm ground in most of those areas, especially around blodget, summit, and Eddyville areas.  getting on average 80-120 inches of rain a year helps the trees to grow quite a bit quicker than over in your patch of heaven, Id say.
Turbosawmill M6 (now M8) Warrior Ultra liteweight, Granberg Alaskan III, lots of saws-gas powered and human powered :D

terry f

    Thanks guys, 4 to 6 feet would be unheard of, but so would 120 inches of rain, we would all be flooded out. Most of our moisture comes as snow, and that doesn't make much difference when it comes to growth. We can have six foot of snow on the ground in march that comes off fast and little spring rains, and its a bad year. If we have little snow and some good rains, especially late, its a good growing year. This year is scary dry, I don't think I'll have any of those six foot leaders this year.

GATreeGrower

My great-great grandfather got about 1,000 acres during Reconstruction through land grants and working for Dodge Timber which later became Georgia Land and Lumber Co.  He became an alcoholic later in life, lost the farm, and committed suicide. 

My great-grandfather never took a drink in his life because of this.  He worked his butt off, served in WW1, and bought all the land he could during the Depression when land was so cheap.  He gave my grandfather and my great uncle 200 acres each to start farming on.  The 200 acres is still in my family partnership today.

My grandfather and his brother pooled their resources and bought and sold a lot of land through timber exchanges and farming profits.  They lucked out with the Soil Bank Act in the 50's and saved a lot of money planting trees that way.  In '85, the year I was born, my grandfather was able to buy back the original 1,000 acres, now planted in slash and loblolly. 

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