Forest Wonder

The forester in charge of the Region of Waterloo’s woodlots is thinning out the forest behind us, which is mainly soft pine and buckthorn.  Hardwoods will be planted.  He mentioned maples . . . and some acorns!  (Patience.  Not oak saplings, but acorns!)

Today Lloyd and I watched the do-it-all machine at work, called a Fabtek, manufactured in Michigan.  It was operated by a personable young man from Princeton,Ontario.

The machine’s jaws at the top are ready to clamp onto a tree.

The saw at the bottom has cut the tree off (see stump right below it), and the machine hangs onto the tree.

Lowering tree to a horizontal position (being careful not to damage nearby trees).

To left of jaws, you can see that the branches are still on the tree.  Branches are stripped as machine moves tree quickly to the right, and cuts it into logs of desired length.  See yellow blade to right of big tree.  Zip!  Zip!  Zip!!!

Time to tidy up the branches that have fallen onto the ground by “eating” them up and spitting them out as mulch.

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