Another week, another Ford Super Duty chapter. This time, off to the Pacific Northwest to hang out with a couple of timber companies. These jobs are always educational -- and this one was no exception. It's amazing how much skill goes into harvesting trees and how much planning goes into when to cut, what to cut and how to re-forest. Their operations make the idea of a couple of guys with chainsaws and some hauler trucks look like a cartoon.
Our hero, bonding with nature. Looks at home.
A typical morning at the office. That big orange thing is called a Yarder and its job is to haul bundles of logs from the valley floor. It yanks 'em like Andre the Giant scooping up toothpicks. Their desk drawer.
Using a jack to fell a tree. An impressive show of precision cuts and then a final nudge to lay a tree down exactly where you want it (and uphill, in this case). A small boy next to some big boys. Loaded on a truck, these logs are so impressive they'd attract a crowd and thus, would be dubbed a "parade load."
Presenting the
Ponsse, a nasty, relentless, forest-eating machine. It goes up grades. It chops down, measures, bucks trees to length and never takes a bathroom break. And lower environmental impact! The next must-have toy in the Hamptons?
Pretending to fit in. Burning a nocturnal retreat from another job. Goodbye redwoods!
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