162 Skidding logs with compact tractor

In this video we begin our journey of the off grid cabin build by felling trees to be saw milled into usable lumber.

[@YoungbloodFamilyFarm]

Some really nice straight trees there. With the price of building materials you have me thinking about the big old Cottonwoods out in my woods as well. Look forward to this series

[@tn65s]

You should get a couple of logging slip hooks to make choker chains. Then weld a pair of grab hooks on to the orange hitch bar. The slip hook on one end of the choker and a fot long 1/4 inch rod on the other end to push the chain under the log. Have fun and be safe.

[@docmast4959]

‘Is it…a good day to do this…’🥰😇. Just being facetious facetious. Forgive me please. You are appreciated. . Thank you for sharing and teaching. Love your posts and family Thanks for your classes aka lessons aka teacher.

[@murchlk]

Those trees you felled are quaking aspen. Bit of advice for your build would be to not mill and dry before framing. Aspen can/will warp quite a bit as drying and can easily make for unusable lumber if dried before used. If you don’t plan to build until late summer I would begin milling a week or so before you start framing and build it green. Forestryforum had a lot of info on building with aspen I would hate to see you waste all this time, labor and material with an unusable stack of lumber later this year. Also aspen makes great siding material it takes paint and stain very well.

[@LivingOurAmericanDream]

Thanks for the advice. I’ve never done this before so definitely a learning curve for me. We spent this past weekend milling up some of them. Made around 200 2x4s. Stacked and weighted. I guess I’ll see what happens. I would have bet they were cottonwood but we have lots of aspen here too. Thanks again and if you have more advice keep it coming!

[@LivingOurAmericanDream]

Also, from a weather resistance standpoint I know cottonwood is terrible. How well does aspen stand up?

[@murchlk]

Aspen is bad for contact with the ground. Does very well as siding because it holds paint and stain well. I am currently building a timber framed sugar shack out of mixed wood but mostly aspen it’s all straight off of my WoodMizer. Hopefully you get lucky with what you have sawn, because aspen has so much water in it as it dries it moves and shrinks a lot. If you sawed full 2x4’s you can expect to end up with material closer to a regular 2x4 once dried. Also aspen is not as strong as cottonwood so if building with traditional wall framing you may want to go 12” on center rather than 16 with those 2x4’s. If you plan to use it for board and batten siding like I am do large roof overhangs and think about doing metal wainscot along the bottom of the siding to keep the aspen away from the ground. Makes beautiful interior paneling if you can dry 1” thick pieces it looks a lot better than knotty pine imo.

[@murchlk]

Weigh down that stack of lumber that you have Miller already. When you think you’ve added too much weight to the top of it add some more it will help reduce movement as they dry. Did you sticker them correctly?

[@LivingOurAmericanDream]

The friend who’s mill I am using helped me with the arrangement. We have 1” stickers every 3 feet. For weight I added full sized logs that were too crooked to bother milling. I have a video coming out shortly on the first mill run and the stack we ended up with. I’d appreciate any feedback you have on it. Thanks!

[@LivingOurAmericanDream]

The video of milling session #1 was just posted. Photo of weighted stack is at end of video. Thanks for your feedback.