Loggers on the ranch

Last year I decided I wanted to turn 20 acres of pine trees into pasture.  I had been told by a logger that the trees weren't big enough for harvest, so I decided I would rent a bulldozer and clear it myself.  I called a local rental company and told the guy what I wanted to do and that I wasn't sure what I'd need to do the job.  He offered to stop by after work and have a look himself to see what I needed.  When he came by he took one look at it and told me I would save a lot of and maybe make some money if I had a logger buy the lumber from me.  He put me in touch with a logger and that's when my logging odyssey began.  

The logger came to the farm and walked through the property and we signed a contract for him to log the property and pay me a modest sum of money.  He would clear the 20 acres clean of all trees and leave anything he didn't want in a big neat pile.  Having previously expected to have to spend thousands of dollars renting a bulldozer, this seemed like a good deal to me.  He said he should be able to start in about 6 weeks. I got ready to open the fence and move the bison to a different pasture.  He said he'd give me a call a couple of weeks before so I could get the bison out of that area and open the fence alone the road.  

A year later, yes, it took a whole year, he called and asked if they could come over the next day and open the fence and start working.  I said that I would open the fence and they could start in two days.  

In the weeks prior to that it had been very dry and I was hoping they could get the logging done when the ground was dry to minimize soil damage.  Then, a week before they came, the remnants of hurricane Beryl came through and saturated the ground.  Then, as they were starti the remnants of hurricane Debbie dumped even more rain.  Everything turned to mud and their tires dug in sometimes 3 feet deep. 

While they were cutting I would periodically walk the fence in that area to cut away any trees that fell on the fence.  For the most part they did a good job keeping large trees off the fence.

There was one large tree that did fall on the fence and shattered a fiberglass post.  I had to bring out the big chainsaw to cut this log. 

One issue I had with the loggers was their tendency to leave trash on the ground.  In the above photo they left a pair of large fuel or hydraulic oil filters laying on the ground.  

Another example of random trash they left in another location.  

The evening they finished all the cutting I walked up to the road area where they had their equipment parked to confirm they were preparing to leave and noticed they had dug a pit and filled it with old 5 gallon buckets that had been used to hold hydraulic oil and diesel fuel.  Each bucket still had about an inch of oil or fuel in it.  My guess is that they intended to throw the rest of their trash in there in the morning and then cover the hole.  I'm typically someone who will hold my temper in favor of the big picture.  I'm not saying I'm a pushover, but I'm also not a hot head, but seeing what they were planning to do brought me close to that point.  However, I decided against doing anything foolish and, instead, removed the buckets, brought the tractor out there, filled in the hole, and brought the buckets back with me in the tractor front end loader.  I was planning to take them to the dump the next day, but a neighbor wanted the buckets so I gave them to him.  

In addition to removing random trees from the fence, I also spread grass seed in the freshly logged areas during the evenings.  This was critical for stabilizing the disturbed soil and preventing weeds from taking over.  Some of the seeds were spread with the tractor mounted seed broadcaster shown in the above photo.

The vast majority of seeds were spread with this smaller body mounted broadcaster powered by a hand crank.  This incredible tool worked wonderfully and was the only way I could access the areas too muddy for the tractor.  

By the time the loggers left I was happy to see that some of the seed had already started sprouting.  This is a relief as the hurricane season is no where near over and the risk of erosion is serious.

Over all, if you don't count the attempt to bury garbage on my farm, I'd rate the job they did as ranging somewhere between okay and not good. They were supposed to pile up the trees they cut but didn't want, but, as can be seen in the above photo they didn't always do that.  In fact I'd say they probably left 60 to 70 percent of those trees out there.  About halfway through the job the logger called me to confirm he could cut through my other fences to cut trees in other parts of the property.  I had to remind him that he could NOT do that and the contract was only for the 20 acres.  I know they had to deal with bad weather which slowed them down and they were probably under pressure to finish and thats probably why they left a lot of trees unpiled, but it's still annoying.

Ultimately, I'm just happy it's done and the bison weren't spooked into breaking through the fences in the process. The uncertainty of how the bison would react and what the loggers might do has weighed on my mind heavily since last year.  Now it's done and the bison are okay and I'm relieved.