I really hate this

Al Smith

Mac Daddy
Joined
Mar 6, 2005
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Location
Northern Ohio
For reasons unknown to me I'm slowly loosing my big trees .This 100 plus shag bark is on it's last legs plus an over hundred white oak plus a white ash .

Nice lumber but I'd just as soon have the trees .:whine:
 

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  • #3
Nothing really .I'm at least 30 feet away from the large shagbark with the drive way and not even close in the woods with the ash and white oak .

However any trees that large are old and most likely towards the end of their life spans I suppose .I just hate to lose them on my watch . We're talking a couple hundred years to grow that large .
 
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  • #5
Must be.The oak is a 3 and a half footer .The ash and shag are about 30 inchs and old indeed .

Damned fine lumber I suppose and some fire wood .I'd much rather have the trees but it's not to be .:(
 
Eastern trees have notably shorter lifespans. Probably old age.
 
Al, think about having a consulting arborist come out. Do you notice any surrounding trees dying? LIke your neighbors? The ash in Michigan is all but gone due to some disease. I hope that is not what is happening.

Jay, do you ever get stateside?
 
It's been a number of years since I made it back, Gigi, I'm due for a trip. I'm not particularly partial to flying, until I take my gin and tonic medicine and can relax and get with the program.
 
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  • #11
I think they just get old and die V . The ash must have croaked a while ago but it wasn't EAB that did it in . Fact is I never paid much attention because I couldn't seen the top because it was hidden from view by a large sugar maple growing nearly codominent .

Tom looked at it last night and he didn't think it was the borer that caused the problem .
 
I concur with the old age theory. I have lost white, red, and pin oak that nothing but old age appeared to be wrong. I have some huge ash(probably 4 ft. dbh) dieing back. Hickory doesn't seem to live to old around here.
 
More than likely old age caused by a failing root system. Grinding stumps below ground especially if you can get at least a foot below grade tells the story in detail of a trees demise if you know how to read wood. Seen many a tree with no apparent above ground symtoms for having dead limbs and general overall poor health till they are cut down and you grind the stump. The answer is then obvious.

Trees don't last forever. No sense in getting sentimental about just bite the bullet and get the dirty deed over and done with and make some good firewood or lumber out of them.

The plain Jane common ash borer can also take an ash tree down over time.

We had an over mature Red Oak just fall down into the field last fall. Like you AL, I would have rather had the tree stand but the root system coudn't keep the tree standing anymore and just fell. Fell in a nice spot too. Nice open field, crops were out, no brush or undersory small trees to contend with. Easy pickin's. Nice winter project and some good firewood for us. Darn farmer who rents from us just started helping himself to it. I was pissed. Took all the nice stuff and left the junk without asking thinking we didn't have a use for it. DRR. I made him clean up the mess as I told I would charge him for the wood if he didn't as their was no way I was gonna clean up after them. No sir, no way.

I know it was just a tree, but damn it, it seems like any tree on the ground especially a hardwood like that is fair game to anyone with a chainsaw. I thought this one was safe because it was on our property and felt there was no rush as the crops were out and no one knew it was there. Wrong.

Shoot, even some of our not so nice neighbors decided to help themselves last week to our split wood that we sell for campfire wood to have a little backyard party. Didn't even ask just took it after dark. Would have given them the wood if they had asked but instead just stole it thinking we have so much we wouldn't miss it or that we would mind. I was again pissed off when I saw that. Not the first time something has just disappeared either.
 
Heck man, it's just wood.:P

Jk'ing I know exactly how you feel. To me my wood/log pile is like a pile of gold, I'm not into giving it away. For friends or family, sure help yourself to the split pile if you've asked. But it's certainly not just open to the public.


Ya Al get those suckers down and into logs.
 
Ax Man- I agree with the roots. I have seen fairly young ash die and it is apparent it was root rot.

My son took a bunch of prime hardwood fire wood from my pile to go camping with. The big pile of split willow wan't good enough apparently. I used to bundle up 2 ft. lengths of split willow and get $3/bundle or 2 for $5. Made pretty good money and didn't get ripped off much at all.

I caught a guy cutting a down tree on my neighbors land this past winter. He had only been cutting about 5 minutes when he saw me standing behind him. He left and never came back for the wood!

Another neighbor thought my roadside trees needed to be trimmed for visibility/safety. I told him he could finish the job and clean up the mess.
 
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  • #16
I looked it up and this what I found .

Eastern shagbark can grow to a tad over a hundred feet and around 3 feet in diameter about 200 years which would be about right .Ash a little longer ,maybe 250 years and about as large .

The eastern giants,the mighty white oak can get huge and have been recorded at nearly 600 years old although it's rare .About 300 or so is average .

The 107 foot red oak I took down a few years back had 270-280 or so growth rings and was a tad over 4 feet .

Like every tree the heights are determined by how much competiion the tree encounters on it's journey towards the sky . In town oaks for example might only be 60 or so feet but the put out broad huge canopies and little short trunks but quit fat ones .
 
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  • #17
Most of the time those "wood pirates " only go for easy pickings .

I don't if this applies to every state but I do know in Ohio pirating a marketable prime hardwood can carry a fee of up to a couple thousand a tree payable to the land owner .
 
I know how you feel Al. Since EAB, has hit I'm losing many, many more trees than I like.
You just have to accept the fact that it's out of your control, fire up the saw and start felling. Still doesn't make it easy...........

Ed
 
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