Tree clearing technique?

I've also got a grinding head on one of my excavators and there is no way I'm going near these dead ash with it, even with a complete fabricated steel rops guard covering the entire cab and steel sheeting blanketing the whole machine, until the trees are down on the ground, I'll pass and I've ground off at ground level five foot diameter tree's before and shoved them over with the grinding head, then mulched the whole tree up and ground the stump into the ground a foot or so with my grinding head, just to bump or tap these things, will bring the top over on your machine, they usually break off about half way up and come over you without warning or one next to you will topple over you as your watching the one your working on. Most of these are about 10 feet spacing in about any direction. I'd thought to use the head to shoot larger limbs off the box elders from around the outside perimeter into the dead ash to try to knock them down or hammer them somewhat and knock the stuff down that way. If you do it right you can sling human body size stuff a couple hundred feet into the timber, but you have very little control for aiming the chunks, we mainly do it along timber boarders to save having to grind it all up, mainly couple hundred pound limbs, just shoot it farther into the timber just to get rid of it, and let it rot down there to save time. I can reach up about 20 feet with the grinding head and can cut with it upside down to notch the tops and then still shove them over to break them off, grinding with the head upside down also shoots the chips and debris up and away from you, which aids in knocking off limbs on tree's behind or around the one your grinding on. If you can get the top to stay connected to the trunk by shoving it over, and get it to roll over and lean next to the trunk, then you can grind both the top and trunk together from where it broke off all the way to the ground, saves having to chase the tops and limbs that way and is also quicker to grind the whole tree to chips.

Its been raining here the last few days, again, and we went today to look it over some more, I'm not even considering grinding it, not wanting to track up to any of it with anything I own or have to fix or pay for and in all reality, mother nature can do the work for me and when it gets to the point of being safe, I'll deal with it then, my crew has worked hard to talk me out of this job until it is safer to do and today they might just have convinced me to just wait it out, and let gravity take do its thing, there are enough other things to do the way it is, I'm not sure we can get everything else done anyhow before spring, why take on even more still, that and I doubt anyone else will do it so it'll be there next year or the year after that or basically whenever I feel safe doing it.

RE: forklift.
I could see that working, but really only on flat ground. They tip over at the drop of a hat, outriggers or not.

I have a friend who was using a telehandler to bear against a cottonwood. The tree tipped to one side as they started the back cut and tore the boom in half. Lucky it didn’t land on someone.

The longer reach telehandlers are designed to lift and carry only, if you push with them, you'll only make that mistake once, after you shove the boom and cylinders together and mangle both and pay the bill or buy the whole boom assembly new, doubt you'll do it again.

Not sure most are aware of this or not, but when ash are grown in close proximity to one another, they grow straight and tall, its very likely the first large limbs are at the 40 foot mark or higher yet, most hang out away from the tree upwards to 20 feet or more in all directions, then those trees closest to the outside of the timber or ravine have a tendency to lean or hang towards the light, which is outward, not a lot, say at the top 5-10 feet. So when you track up, drive up or anything else, your literally driving under the top which already leans over your head, and the larger branches [those large enough to kill you on impact] and the whole top already lean far past your head, to give it an even gentle wiggle or nudge, probably isn't the smartest thing you can do and live to tell about it. They are in a ditch or ravine, the wind hardly at all or ever really affects them or even hits them, hence the reason they are still standing for this long, if they were in the open or near a hill top, they'd have been down years ago, so the longer they stand, the worse they rot and the more dangerous they are.

Now maybe I'm being too harsh here, but it was all completely preventable by the landowner, I believe the term for it is management, many have heard of this term, but seldom use it when it comes to timbers or non farmed acres such as waterways, field boarders, fence lines, pastures, etc. The thing that should have happened the second ash bore hit was sell everything that was an ash tree or give them away, cut them down or grub them out, whatever it took to remove those large mature tree's so it wouldn't be an issue. But to come to the owners salvation here somewhat and knowing the family, his kids, [glorified tree huggers] wouldn't ever let that happen, about like most who know nothing about trees or timber, so they stood there and nothing was done with them. The next issue is the box elders, why only chemically kill them and not after they were dead remove them?? again it gets back to the kids and family who didn't know he was the one who killed them off in the first place so how could be remove them once they were dead??............... then one day the mother called them all and told them you know what, a dead tree almost fell on dads combine and quite possibly could have killed him.....................wow reality just hit, they in fact would have killed their dad and felt guilty about for the rest of their lives, and their mother would have known without a doubt why those trees are still there due to [I'm guessing here now] they voiced their opinions for the last 40 years. So now something has to be done in the NAME of safety and to save face not only within the relation and rest of the family, but the whole neighborhood and community, after all who wants to be remembered for the one who inadvertently killed their dad by hugging tree's??

My crew brought this whole discussion up yesterday when trying to talk me out of doing it for now.

Crane with wrecking ball, though, most cranes are not designed as rough terrain machines.

I'll agree, let nature take its course.

Det cord!
Really, could you clear a couple lanes that way then safely use a drag chain?

There you go! They won't sell me det cord but tannerite I can buy anywhere.
Bore a hole, stuff it full, step back and have some target practice with a high-power rifle.....boom.

I'd never given that a thought to use tannerite, my kids use that for target practice all the time. I'm not sure you'd get enough shock wave from it to knock the tops or limbs off the tree's, maybe we need the military to do explosives drills and set some shape charges, they could level everything within minutes.

I still remember as a kid my dad going to the hardware store and buying dynamite by the stick and we'd go home and he'd blast stumps and an old cement footing on a building we needed to expand and take an old wall out of. As a kid I thought it was the coolest thing ever to blow stumps out in the timber.

“I still remember as a kid my dad going to the hardware store and buying dynamite by the stick and we'd go home and he'd blast stumps”

Me too. When my dad passed, he still had a “powder license” card from the 70’s, I ran across. It was used for blowing choker holes under felled old-growth.

I still have mine, I can still transport powder if I wanted.
"Loggers 2" the best choker hole installer ever invented. We used most of that during the winter to shoot holes in frozen snow/ice.

I was one of those teenagers allowed to hold public office at age 18. VERY small town, I was elected Selectman, dubious honor. At 19, the Chair of the board got in a spat with the Town Clerk & resigned. I became Chairman of the board. Another Board member was an old man, often held a page upside down pretending to read it.
We have three culverts in town crossing Otter Creek. The Creek flows a good lot of water & beavers are opportunists, preferring to block a culvert. One culvert was 9' tall, maybe 12' wide. beaver would block it again in two days.

Then, town elected officers could buy dynamite. The dealer seemed suspicious first time a kid in a rusty Volvo bought dynamite & caps, but my papers were in order, & I had the statute book with me.

I recall one day, we spent an hour with pipe & a long wooden dowel working 8 sticks to the bottom of the culvert. It improved water flow a bit, but did NOT open it up. Tony suggested the other forty sticks go next. It took hours to set the charges.

The entire road lifted a few inches, then settled with no visible damage to the pavement. The culvert was CLEAN! I feel there was mud & sticks miles away, but probably not.

Beavers blocked it so I had to repeat (with less dynamite) next weekend. Finally put six sticks in the beaver house. We were trouble free for a few years.

We've spent a fortune in recent years building a cage around each culvert that can be cleaned with an excavator. We had a contractor upgrading one yesterday. A beaver could be seen checking out the work.

You should be able to clear that land with the dozer and skidsteer. The bigger trees might be a little tough.

It takes a lot of det cord even at 100 gn to take a tree down.

We opted for the burn down method, was cheap, somewhat easy and safe and didn't take all that long, but the best part was, as the tree's fell, the impact on frozen ground took out the bulk of the dead stuff, that and when a lot of them fell down, they knocked over and knocked limbs off the worst stuff that was the most dangerous.

All we did was make the farmer provide us with ample numbers of good dry corn stalk round bales, basically whatever number I wanted I got, used a dozer to shove the bales one at a time down near a tree, cut the strings and since the bales were bone dry, they literally blew apart and fell into a nice pile I could just move around the tree trunk, or it they were in too bad of shape, we just left the bale as close to the tree as we could, then cut the strings. In my state the DNR has a provision to use flammable devices [not junk tires] but anything else, like waste oil, cruddy diesel fuel not good enough to do anything else with, gasoline that has been watered down, you name it, its allowed. The catch is this simple statement, you can use the stuff for the purpose of starting the fire, you can't use the fire as a reason to burn the stuff up and get rid of it.

So we took a five gallon bucket of old waste oil, slopped up the truck of the tree first, shoved the round bale up to it, lit it up and walked away and waited it out, as in we did this to a couple dozen tree's spread out up the ravine and lit them up, called in a controlled burn and let it burn overnight. There was just enough snow cover to contain the fire and keep it from spreading and once the tree's burned through enough, they fell over. Between the impact of them hitting frozen ground, and colliding with other tree's, they knocked enough down to actually make it safe to work around the rest. Now granted we did this quite a few times, not sure how many we lit on fire, must have been 50-60 tree's over the course of a few weeks, but it was enough to allow us to work and get near those that were not an issue to take down with either a feller buncher or else an excavator. Used an excavator and thumb to pile the stuff up and just kept burning till we were pretty much done.

Granted there will be stumps to remove this coming year, but the bulk of the tree's and dead stuff is down, burned up and gone and nobody got hurt, not even close to getting hurt and none of my equipment was damaged either. The only real pain was to keep going and checking on the progress of things all the time and to actually throw the waste oil on the dead tree trunks, kind of a sloppy messy ordeal, but in the end and in the dead of winter, the stuff burned really well.

I just told the property owner, next time around, either sell that crap when it has a little value, or give it away or call before its so badly rotten we can actually clear the stuff safely and save everyone the grief and headaches.

safe is good! The waste oil and diesel, I remember wearing some of that myself.

Randy88 said:

We opted for the burn down method, was cheap, somewhat easy and safe and didn't take all that long, but the best part was, as the tree's fell, the impact on frozen ground took out the bulk of the dead stuff, that and when a lot of them fell down, they knocked over and knocked limbs off the worst stuff that was the most dangerous.

All we did was make the farmer provide us with ample numbers of good dry corn stalk round bales, basically whatever number I wanted I got, used a dozer to shove the bales one at a time down near a tree, cut the strings and since the bales were bone dry, they literally blew apart and fell into a nice pile I could just move around the tree trunk, or it they were in too bad of shape, we just left the bale as close to the tree as we could, then cut the strings. In my state the DNR has a provision to use flammable devices [not junk tires] but anything else, like waste oil, cruddy diesel fuel not good enough to do anything else with, gasoline that has been watered down, you name it, its allowed. The catch is this simple statement, you can use the stuff for the purpose of starting the fire, you can't use the fire as a reason to burn the stuff up and get rid of it.

So we took a five gallon bucket of old waste oil, slopped up the truck of the tree first, shoved the round bale up to it, lit it up and walked away and waited it out, as in we did this to a couple dozen tree's spread out up the ravine and lit them up, called in a controlled burn and let it burn overnight. There was just enough snow cover to contain the fire and keep it from spreading and once the tree's burned through enough, they fell over. Between the impact of them hitting frozen ground, and colliding with other tree's, they knocked enough down to actually make it safe to work around the rest. Now granted we did this quite a few times, not sure how many we lit on fire, must have been 50-60 tree's over the course of a few weeks, but it was enough to allow us to work and get near those that were not an issue to take down with either a feller buncher or else an excavator. Used an excavator and thumb to pile the stuff up and just kept burning till we were pretty much done.

Granted there will be stumps to remove this coming year, but the bulk of the tree's and dead stuff is down, burned up and gone and nobody got hurt, not even close to getting hurt and none of my equipment was damaged either. The only real pain was to keep going and checking on the progress of things all the time and to actually throw the waste oil on the dead tree trunks, kind of a sloppy messy ordeal, but in the end and in the dead of winter, the stuff burned really well.

I just told the property owner, next time around, either sell that crap when it has a little value, or give it away or call before its so badly rotten we can actually clear the stuff safely and save everyone the grief and headaches.

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I don't know what species or size of trees you are talking about but this sounds like a huge waste of timber.

Willie B said:

I was one of those teenagers allowed to hold public office at age 18. VERY small town, I was elected Selectman, dubious honor. At 19, the Chair of the board got in a spat with the Town Clerk & resigned. I became Chairman of the board. Another Board member was an old man, often held a page upside down pretending to read it.
We have three culverts in town crossing Otter Creek. The Creek flows a good lot of water & beavers are opportunists, preferring to block a culvert. One culvert was 9' tall, maybe 12' wide. beaver would block it again in two days.

Then, town elected officers could buy dynamite. The dealer seemed suspicious first time a kid in a rusty Volvo bought dynamite & caps, but my papers were in order, & I had the statute book with me.

I recall one day, we spent an hour with pipe & a long wooden dowel working 8 sticks to the bottom of the culvert. It improved water flow a bit, but did NOT open it up. Tony suggested the other forty sticks go next. It took hours to set the charges.

The entire road lifted a few inches, then settled with no visible damage to the pavement. The culvert was CLEAN! I feel there was mud & sticks miles away, but probably not.

Beavers blocked it so I had to repeat (with less dynamite) next weekend. Finally put six sticks in the beaver house. We were trouble free for a few years.

We've spent a fortune in recent years building a cage around each culvert that can be cleaned with an excavator. We had a contractor upgrading one yesterday. A beaver could be seen checking out the work.

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A few good #330 conibears and someone with the ability to set and check them would keep the beavers controled.

charles walton said:

A few good #330 conibears and someone with the ability to set and check them would keep the beavers controled.

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In recent years that's exactly what the Town is doing. Somehow a few survive, Next year it begins anew.
We've built mechanical means to clean out culverts, tried screens, cages. Recently, we added a second pipe running upstream, so far so good. Mount Tabor has about 33,000 acres nobody would object to a dam. It's a shame these overgrown rats have to block culverts.

Charles, you should have raised you hand sooner, it could have all been yours..............all you had to do was show up and remove it..........for free of course, plus sign a liability wavier. Now since you didn't do that, I'll extend an offer to you, I know of plenty more in equal shape and quality as these trees you can have for free as well, now to be fair, they can't be hauled on any log trailer, they are too far gone and rotten for that, doubt they can be chipped or mulched either, think you missed that by a few years or more as well.

Now I know the argument can be made they should have done something before the tree's got that bad, but that argument would have to be made to the property owners, not me, I've had that conversation hundreds of times over the years but did me no good and in the end I did what I was hired to do, dispose of it all how the landowner wanted it done and got paid very well to do it. So in my view, I turned something nobody wanted into cash that went into my bank account or I did what the customer wanted in order to get paid for services rendered, the last I knew it was called business.

Randy88 said:

Charles, you should have raised you hand sooner, it could have all been yours..............all you had to do was show up and remove it..........for free of course, plus sign a liability wavier. Now since you didn't do that, I'll extend an offer to you, I know of plenty more in equal shape and quality as these trees you can have for free as well, now to be fair, they can't be hauled on any log trailer, they are too far gone and rotten for that, doubt they can be chipped or mulched either, think you missed that by a few years or more as well.

Now I know the argument can be made they should have done something before the tree's got that bad, but that argument would have to be made to the property owners, not me, I've had that conversation hundreds of times over the years but did me no good and in the end I did what I was hired to do, dispose of it all how the landowner wanted it done and got paid very well to do it. So in my view, I turned something nobody wanted into cash that went into my bank account or I did what the customer wanted in order to get paid for services rendered, the last I knew it was called business.

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I missed the details that the timber was dead,my bad.