Drawbar
05-26-2008, 01:32 PM
Well I put my Kubota to good use this weekend. The wife and the baby were away so I did what any self respecting man would do when he has the house all to himself for four days...he went in the woods and cut "firewood".
I put quotations around it because as you will see, I harvested Spruce and Fir...a softwood tree here in Maine. Softwood makes lousy firewood, buts its not like I actually burn this stuff. Despite having plenty of acres, I have found firewood to be too time consuming and too much work.
What I do instead is harvest wood for the local paper mills or sawmill and take the money and pre-buy Propane. Its a whole lot less work because this wood is tree length, and I have a lot better choice on what trees are harvested depending on the markets and what should be removed from my woodlot ethically. If I cut firewood it could only be hardwood trees, and then there is all that cutting, splitting, stacking and trudging out in the cold to get wood in 4 feet of snow thing.
This pile here is about 10 cords of wood and worth just over a hundred bucks a cord. Not bad for two days worth of logging. In the end it will take me another six cord to have enough for a truck load. This works out good because its just enough money to heat my home for the winter.
As for the picture, that is NOT my house. Its my neighbor's. The little girl I will take credit for though. :)
http://www.railroadmachinist.com/images/Woodpile.JPG
I put quotations around it because as you will see, I harvested Spruce and Fir...a softwood tree here in Maine. Softwood makes lousy firewood, buts its not like I actually burn this stuff. Despite having plenty of acres, I have found firewood to be too time consuming and too much work.
What I do instead is harvest wood for the local paper mills or sawmill and take the money and pre-buy Propane. Its a whole lot less work because this wood is tree length, and I have a lot better choice on what trees are harvested depending on the markets and what should be removed from my woodlot ethically. If I cut firewood it could only be hardwood trees, and then there is all that cutting, splitting, stacking and trudging out in the cold to get wood in 4 feet of snow thing.
This pile here is about 10 cords of wood and worth just over a hundred bucks a cord. Not bad for two days worth of logging. In the end it will take me another six cord to have enough for a truck load. This works out good because its just enough money to heat my home for the winter.
As for the picture, that is NOT my house. Its my neighbor's. The little girl I will take credit for though. :)
http://www.railroadmachinist.com/images/Woodpile.JPG