TIMBER!

The property I inherited is primarily wooded, with only 13 acres of farmable land.  We've known for years that we would need to clear a large amount of timber to incorporate The Dream, my recent post that you can read here if you haven't already.

We recently completed the timber clearing/thinning.  That project wasn't anything special...  People buy and sell timber everyday.  But it's the first time I've ever done it, and I consider it blog-worthy! 

I met with several timber companies, who all heard about our dream and our desires for the land.  I was looking for just the right person who could envision our dream and help guide the harvest to ensure our wishes remained intact.  You could say I was waiting for the candidate to use all the right words:  "keep the mature hard woods", "thin out the understory", "make the place look like a "park".

Those words were indeed uttered by Andy Anderson of Palmetto Pulpwood and Timber.  Being an avid outdoorsman, Andy spends as much time outdoors than indoors whether hunting or working.  He knows and appreciates our natural resources and aims to preserve them at all costs.  You may be thinking, how do cutting down trees and preserving natural resources go together?  Believe it or not, taking trees down is beneficial not only to the surrounding trees, but also to the wildlife that lives in the area.  It may be a year or so before the benefits are appreciated, but all vegetation and wildlife continues to thrive and grow faster than if it had been left untouched.

There were many wonderful walks through the woods, as we marked trees we wished to keep.  This is a difficult process considering the size of the tract, but we felt we had a pretty good idea of what we wanted to keep.  But it seemed everytime we were there, we were marking more!  I started worrying that all our marking would make our contract with Palmetto Pulpwood and Timber null and void!  But, once again, Andy appreciated our efforts because the trees we marked gave him a clearer idea of the aesthetically pleasing look we were going for.  Good thing we kept a roll of timber tape close at hand.




timber tape marking a tree we wished to keep

A contract was drawn up and signed, and then we had to wait for the weather to play on our side.  Luckily the land is sandy, therefore, has good drainage and shouldn't be too much of an issue for the very large, heavy equipment should we have some rain.  Once the perfect time was determined, things moved along pretty fast.

The project began with one piece of equipment coming in, and cutting out a large section (known as the deck). The cutter, as it’s known, cuts each tree and then holds onto them until there’s a half dozen or so trees. They are then placed in piles based on type of tree (hardwood or pine), long wood or fuel chip. 




the Cutter blade located close to the ground so as to cut the tree as low as possible

 

 

the Cutter "arms" that grab the trees as they're cut so several trees can be cut at once

 

 

the Cutter

 

Each pile is collected and dragged to "the deck" by a skidder where the long wood piles are fed through a limb stripper by the loader before being loaded onto a long wood trailer which are then taken to a lumber mill. 

the Stripper

 

 



the Loader

The fuel chip piles are fed by the loader into a massive grinder, or chipper, that reduces trees to mulch, which is blown into the back of a tractor trailer and then hauled to the mill.

the skid, the loader, and the chipper

It's a loud process, but it's amazing to watch how precise these massive pieces of equipment can be.  But that's also a testament to the gentlemen behind the controls!



lumber "chips" being hauled off to the mill

 

 

The Dream

Pardon my absence!  I've been a little busy.  Building a house is a time-consuming process.  That’s a really silly, very obvious comment….  But when you’re actually doing it, it’s a realization that stops you in your tracks, especially if you’re on a limited time frame. 

Building a house is also a dream that often never comes to life, for you're always waiting for the right time and place to come along.  As I get older, I realize Carpe Diem should be my mantra!

My family and I returned from Morocco to South Carolina exactly 18 months ago.  My husband is currently serving a 2 year assignment with Army Central Command (ARCENT).  The first 9 months of the assignment, he was deployed.  Needless to say, a house building project should be done together so nothing was accomplished during his absence.  Not that I couldn’t have made some decisions, or gotten some of the work started, but let’s just suffice it to say that two heads are better than one when making decisions about the home where we will spend the rest of our lives. Hence, the “limited time constraint”. It’s almost time for my husband's next assignment, and we haven’t even broken ground yet!

 

Let me back up a bit.  When we started dating almost 30 years ago, our dream was barely a thought. We were young, inexperienced, and had the door to the world opening before us.  We were on the move, not to mention we are owned by the US Army so we have to go when and where they tell us!  Stay in South Carolina?  No way!  Not when we had the opportunity to see the world!  So off we went to faraway lands, both domestic and foreign.  But our dream kept popping up.  There were changes, there were new ideas, there were new hopes, and there were new military assignments that kept us on the move, so the dream had to wait.  However, we held to it tightly, because it was our future, our goal.

My parents were always aware of our dream.  My father gave the dream his blessing before he passed away back in 1987, and assured us that anything is possible with faith in God and hard work. And so, through our entire marriage, my mother was often reminded of our intentions….to return to South Carolina, build a home, and start a cattle farm.  The first step to reality occurred two Christmases ago when my mother deeded the land to me.  Were it not for my dear parents, who were true stewards of the land, the dream would still be just that, a dream.

Join me here, as I try to post as regularly as possible, the many hurdles and victories involved in building a home in a rural community on undeveloped land.