This Week in the Woods
Sitting on the front porch this afternoon enjoying the vitamin D from the sun as I hear the melting snow drip through the gutters. The hustle before mud season is officially on. This year we set up our Spring jobs to be fairly small so if our season gets cut short we don’t have much wood to clean up before we have to get out. It’s also crucial to line them up to be on roads that don’t get decorated with those orange posters. So far the weather has been very kind to us. The forecast calls for some cold nights this coming week which always makes me a happy man.
We have had the opportunity to work with a great forester from Prentiss & Carlise, Mallory Bussel. We frequently work directly with landowners, but we also enjoy strong working relationships with quality Foresters. Mallory and I toured a nice woodlot up in Winthrop recently. It is fairly consistent with the woodlot sizes in our area, which typically range from 20-60 acres. There aren’t many large tracts of land around the southern part of the state, but we can still grow great pine trees on these small lots!
I’d like to say that the week was an uneventful run of slashing wood day in and day out…. but that’s quite rare to be so lucky. For starters 1/2 the crew has caught the sickness that is invading the population. Nothing that a nap in the loader couldn’t cure though. No sick days for this guy. Wednesday started off great. I was feeling better and getting stuff done. We sent our truck driver, Nate Meserve out to haul a load of chips for another local logging crew, Day Brothers Logging. No good deed goes unpunished…. On the way to the mill, the rear end went in the ole’ Peterbilt. So there Nate sat with a load of chips on the side of Wiley Rd in Norway, Maine. Poor guy. Good thing the old man, Ron Kimball came to the rescue. Hauling chips is certainly not one of his top 10 favorite things to do, but he is committed to the cause. This time of year we can’t let a load of chips sit in a trailer for very long because the moisture content of the chips combined with cold temperatures makes them freeze in the box and they won’t be able to be unloaded on the dumper at the mill. Between my father and Dana Wellman, we were able to continue working through the week and get our product to its final destination.
Ron Kimball getting the job done
Our current job is out in Minot on top of Grange Ave. In our industry, on occasion, due to location and time restrictions, some logging contractors will share jobs in order to best serve landowners needs. This lot in Minot happens to be one of those situations. We are working with forester Jay Braunschiedel from William A. Day Jr & Sons, Inc to complete this project on time for the landowners. Due to the proximity of the lot to our headquarters, this lot worked out for all parties. It is always humbling to be contracted by another logging contractor and we are committed to upholding the highest of standards to best represent them, just as we would expect if we shared a lot with another company. I am proud to collaborate with others in our industry to reach common goals of success for all parties; landowners, foresters, loggers, and mills.
