...to see if I smashed you." That's what the operator told me after I videoed his machine cutting trees. I was hugged up against a tree all the time when he was cutting, but it was too close. The warning on the machine says 250 feet, and I was under 50 feet when he had to let go of a black oak. Running wasn't a good idea, so I got really familiar with the tree I was using for an umbrella, and had twigs raining down on my hard hat. I hope to have a little time to watch the loggers this week and maybe we can get some more good video.
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Pretty impressive operation. They could teach some of our tree butchers around here a few things, that's for sure. These geniuses waste as much as they take.
A couple of questions. How is the area replanted, and with what trees?
What happens to the slash? Chipped, firewood or what?
We are harvesting mostly black oak, which grows faster than the white oaks, and is dying off now. We have a pretty good residual stand of white oak, which should be ready in about forty years. Most of the black oak and red oak stumps will sprout, providing a new generation of those species. We will be doing a series of burns over the next ten years to stimulate more oak regeneration. We always have plenty of hickories; they don't need much help restarting. Bush honeysuckle is invading our area, and much of the work during our remaining years will be beating it back with fall herbicide treatments.
The fellow running the harvester piles tops together as he works, so making firewood is going to be easy for us. The wife and I make firewood just about every weekend during the winters. The tops that we don't use make good brushpiles for wildlife. We are hoping that opening up the woods brings whippoorwills back to this woods. We haven't heard any for a couple years, and I think it is because the crowns closed up tight.
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