Not another pole house

Nah just a lot of trees down.
Thought I show some pics of a typical Autumn at our place. Had a busy day yesterday.


This is my firewood for 2023. The pics don’t give a good indication of size (they look smallish) most are 600-700mm (2’ -2’4") through at the cut and I measured one at 35m long (around 100’) and the rest around that length. So they are quite big. There is 12 in total on the ground
Gives me my annual Adrenalin rush as falling them can be very anxious. Have I judged the lean on the tree right, has the scarf and backcut been cut accurately enough? They be killers if not fallen correctly.
Even after 30 plus years of falling trees I still have a healthy fear and nothing taken to chance.
You can have problems when your in the middle of the plantation with falling trees hanging on others. A situation where many deaths have occurred over the years. I got the falls spectacularly right this year.
You might have noticed the trees were cut from the base of trees cut 18years ago. Most Eucalypti coppice in that they regrow 2-4 trunks on the stumps so the plot is self sustainable for a couple of hundred years at least.
Now to cut and split and dry over 2 summers.

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Noice one mate, I was marvelling at how well the trees were felled, that they were laying in the scarfed direction close to the stump.
Last year I bought a kinetic log splitter which is brilliant. Fast, powerful and dangerous, just like me… :sunglasses:

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I have used a chainsaw for decades but really do prefer to use this tool. Is much less labour intensive and is far more precise. Faster too lol

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How many times can they be coppiced and stay viable? Do you keep one trunk regrowing from the stumps?

Nice plantation you have there. What’s the species?

I used next doors Hydraulic splitter last year and this year previously all split by hand but it got too hard.
Th trouble with the kinetic splitter is you have to lift the rounds up. A big proportion of my rounds I can’t lift. 40kg bags of wheat not problem :slightly_smiling_face: but a 50-60kg just out of my lift capability :woozy_face:
I roll them up to the splitter the tip them flat onto the table which is on the ground

Thank you. Its always a bit of a thrill when it just goes right. Its that first “crack” that gets the heart pumping, then nothing a bit more sawing and away it goes.

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Well done @busso and nice straight timber. If I had tried to do it it would have started a chain reaction of a domino effect. Not so with your job so my hat off to you.
Great to see you back too Wilfred.
Cheers

I am not quite sure on that. Some coppice more readily than others. I have some that in their 3rd coppice. I let the suckers go,some get broken off with the wind, some just drop off but I generally finih up with 3 or 4 trunks. I let them go and remove any later if they are of poor form or growing in a bad direction.

There is a diversity (on purpose) but mainly trees known for good posts or firewood or both.
E.camaldulensis, botryoides, saligna, cladocalyx, leucoxylon, paniculata and gomphocephala would be the bulk of the trees

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They a mainly E.saligna (Sydney Blue Gum) and having a nice straight trunk with no branches until the top 1/4 makes it easier. Multi trunked with many branches are hard to fall where you want them and the old “Widow Maker” branches which twist the tree around to try and fall on top of you. I’ve had my moments. :grimacing:

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What has this got to do with bees? I thought the topic might have had something to do with bees moving into the wall of a pole home.

:thinking: Nothing. Or about as much as gardening. :upside_down_face:

Gives people an idea of the way you can have poles, firewood and a 12 months supply of food for bees.
I waited until the salgna’s had finished flowering (last week) before cutting.
I like diversity and planted many thousands of trees of about 600 varieties of Eucalypti. Some trees did not grow for whatever reason, but most did.
Every tree in that plantation was grown from seed by the good Wife and I, raised and planted out. :innocent:

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Thanks busso. My neighbor has a massive Marri, with 5 large trunks 400-600mm diameter.

Very beautiful but also very weak tree. It looks to me like the root system has to sustain 5 trees.

Well done Busso & welcome back.

About a week ago one of my threads got removed after complaints that it was of a non beekeeping nature. At the same time Free posted a locked topic under the heading on “Non beekeeping matters”.

Because of the complaint, she requested that all of the topics were bee related.

I see the point as far as this topic goes because it’s in the “General Bee Chat” section. Maybe it should be in the Hobbies section, in the lounge.

Cheers

There should be a “Hobbies and Off Topic” category. Not confined to the lounge where everyone does not have access.

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A good thought Wilfred, maybe one for @Freebee2 to set up. I think it could be popular.
Cheers

Hi Wilf, I use the topic “Woodworking & Other Hobbies, Also Stuff we Grow to Eat” to showoff anything that’s not bee related. I even got chipped once by the bloke who complained for being off-topic.

It was funny because one minute he was asking advice, which I & others freely gave. Next minute he’s complaining about us. He chipped Peter & I for talking about the weather once. On that occasion I promptly went to the topic “Let’s talk about the weather”.

Anyway, cheers for now.

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Well you inspired me busso, I dragged the chainsaw out and got chopping.
Fortunately 300mm is my max diameter and is dried before it’s split. I reckon just one of your logs would last me a winter with my little ‘ol wood heater.
I have a few stumps here growing but the growth breaks off too easily for me to want it to get too big. Maybe it’s just the type of tree. How low do you cut the stump down to?
I wish I’d been planting firewood here 20 years ago.

@busso, Last time I had large diameter logs, I did a shallow cut with the chain saw before using wedges to split them in half or even into 3’s, making them easier to handle.

Even in my sub-tropical climate, despite what @Peter48 says, I use a LOT of firewood in my little heater.

300-400 mm

The following 3 photos of are of trees right next to each other.
So you can see the variety nature builds in. As in the human world the strongest survive better after being cut down. :slightly_smiling_face:

This is the photo of a good coppice. E. saligna suually coppice like this. Notice how the suckers actually consume the original stump and become a stable rooted tree. Not usual though for so many to survive and be strong. Age 6-7 years

This is not a great coppice with no trunks of good form. I will leave it go to see what happens by 25 years

This did not coppice at all.

Again these were all cut at the same time.
The dead stump is not a good example of falling a tree. The back cut is far to steep. However it is agood example of how you can change the fall slightly say if the wind is wrong. the front corner has been cut a little ahead of the back corner so the tree will give first there and fall more toward you as you look at the photo. Aren’t you glad or bored you with that :crazy_face:.

Don’t worry about them breaking off . Quite off from 10 -20 suckers you only finish up with one or 2.
Only the very strong will survive to say the size of a stubby cooler.

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I would love the cooler nights like you have Jeff, I have a 4 bar oil column heater but seldom use it and only of a night. A blanket on my bed is usually all I need till the outside temp gets down below 10C. Being up on the hill you would have colder nights than down here near the ocean.
Off topic, remember a few months ago I had hives that lost their queen and were not making a new queen from donated frames. Finally success with adding capped queen cells and it is great to see new brood in them at last.
Cheers

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Peter, I think Wilma & I are just sooks. I don’t think we get much cooler than what you do. We’re only on a hill, not a mountain. Our temps are normally on par with Maroochydore. Maleny gets cooler.

I got called to rob two hives at Bli Bli, near the river that got abandoned a few months ago. The bloke had them about 4 feet off the ground with a stump to stand on while working them. He was worried about floods. The lady didn’t tell me how bad the mozzies were until I get there. One hive was dead with wax moth taking over, however no beetle activity. The other hive had two full depth brood, one fd honey & one ideal. Both honey boxes were full. I didn’t get into the brood, the bees had some attitude but were only tame compared to the mozzies.

When I go back, I’ll be armed with mosquito repellent.

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