This crew is getting ready to start shipping logs. The loader hasn’t arrived yet. The skidding crew is getting trees to the processor. The processor is making logs so there will be enough to load the trucks first thing in the morning. I don’t usually get a shot of the processor working by itself without the loader parked beside it.
THE FORESTER ARTIST 
I’ve been curious. With DIY tv shows all the rage at the moment and the rustic look is the “IN-thing” to have, have you noticed a higher demand for timber?
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I really haven’t seen much change in the market of round wood (logs). Lumber sales have improved in general. There seems to be more confidence in the housing market. After the downturn in 2008 a lot of lumber went into the big box stores and away from home construction because people were fixing their homes instead of building new ones.
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Whoa! Checked out that video – never saw this done before, always wondered, but never saw it!!
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I always shake my head when I see a news reporter talk about loggers “chopping” down trees. We haven’t been chopping down trees for 75 years. Today what you find in the woods looks more like something out of Star Wars.
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I definitely believe that now. In watching some of those DIY shows on TV, one can only imagine just how busy you guys really are!!
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Great post
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Thanks you so much Holly!
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Like some sort of mechanical dinosaur!
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It’s true. It makes harvesting smaller trees far more efficient. And that allows us to manage the forests better by having more options to manicure the timber stands. Before equipment like that cutting small trees was more time consuming. Now it’s easier to thin the forests to reduce fire hazard and improve the overall health of the stands.
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Very interesting!
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Things have changed a lot in how things are done in the woods, Equipment like this make the operations faster and safer.
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I guess that is good. I hate seeing trees being cut down but I know they do it to manage the forest and prevent forest fires.
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Think of it like your garden. You have to pull the weeds or the garden languishes. If we don’t thin the trees the forest languishes. During wildfire a thinned forest is more resilient, but an unthinned forest will be devastated. This type of equipment makes thinning more viable. The biggest problem we have in the western forests is too many trees. I know that seems counterintuitive, but it’s true.
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That’s good then that they cut down trees in a controlled manner for the health of the forest.
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The harvests are always done in a planned and controlled manner that provides for the public trust resources like wildlife and water. Sometimes we thin the trees and sometimes we remove most of the from a site, but when we do we replant and protect the waterways and critical habitat.
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That’s very good to know. Thank you for explaining that to me.
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Sorry if I sounded preachy. I don’t want you to think of forestry management as a necessary evil.
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Oh, I don’t think you sounded preachy or that forestry management is a necessary evil. It is really very interesting.
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that is pretty efficient.
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It is definitely more efficient. Cutting small trees by hand was slow and limbing took a lot of time because the small trees have tons of small limbs. A processor can make a tree into logs in seconds, while a timber faller would take several minutes to cut it into logs.
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Chomp chomp!
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It’s a hungry beast alright. Those skidders bring turn after turn to keep it fed!
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