# Get Ready, Get Set



## Rad

And in about three months, at least in Mid Western USA, Go Harvest those Sticks!!!

Actually right now, while the leaves are still on and identification is relatively easy, is a good time to hunt them and mark them for harvest when the sap is down in another few months. I have spent lots of the summer months spotting and marking tree limbs and saplings, for harvesting in the winter months. During my hikes in the woods, while mowing trails, while stubbing fire wood, all are good times for marking your harvest!

Fortunately there is no Government mandated season on tree hunting. 

Good Luck Guys and Girls!


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## AAAndrew

I'm thinking of getting some orange marking tape and writing the name of the tree on it and pin it to the tree with a push pin. A thought.


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## Rad

AAAndrew said:


> I'm thinking of getting some orange marking tape and writing the name of the tree on it and pin it to the tree with a push pin. A thought.


I tie surveying tape around trees I like -- good idea to write the name on it! Thank you AAAndrew!


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## Sean

It is a good time for marking. Once the sap stops running is a good time to cut, less prone to splitting. I think I've got enough sticks

for now. Most of my stock has been on the racks for a couple of years.


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## Rad

Sean said:


> It is a good time for marking. Once the sap stops running is a good time to cut, less prone to splitting. I think I've got enough sticks
> for now. Most of my stock has been on the racks for a couple of years.


Lucky you! I'm working on my last cured stick -- I'm a little behind on the collecting side. I've got a bunch that are about 6 months old, so I'm going to do more collecting this winter to build up my stock! When I retire, I want a good stock built up, because I'll have more time to work on them.


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## gdenby

My stash of sticks is big enough that at my slow pace, I have enough for years. But many of the sticks I gathered a few years ago were hard to identify, having come from trees down for a year or so. Now, sitting w. the bark stripped I can only guess what some might be.

But I want to add some black locust (located), and some hawthorn (found a few, but too small and bent.) And I've come to like sassafras, and I know where to find a bunch of that.


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## Rad

Gdenby: when I tag them, I mark what they are -- otherwise I will forget! I've got a bunch of Sasafras also, but I haven't worked any yet.


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## AAAndrew

I did some yard work this weekend, first one in a long time that it wasn't in the 90's with high humidity. Had to take out two saplings that were growing too close to the gardens (which back onto the woods).

I used by Pulaski ax, a wonderful digging and chopping tool used by forest service and wild land firefighters. A bit of overkill for these two, but I wanted to experiment with getting some of the roots along with the sapling. Seemed to work well, but most likely need something smaller for field harvesting.

The one on the left is Sweet Gum and the one on the right is Tulip Poplar. Man, that poplar's bark practically slid off on its own. I could start a strip at one end and take it almost all the way down. That's some nice stuff to work with. The sapling then becomes soaked with water as it starts to ooze out.

The Sweet Gum was a little more challenging to get the bark off, but still not bad. The bark was really thick around the root. I'll have to think about what kind of knife to use for that. Lots of bumps and hollows that make it even more challenging.

But I liked the results, and next time I'll dig more of the root out first. The sweet gum, after I started chopping, had more of a right angle root that was substantial enough for a handle. That would have been quite nice. Next time.

Sweet Gums grow like weeds as one of the first filler trees when the forest opens up a whole in the canopy, and they spread quickly via root systems. A real killer if you're trying to get rid of one (they'll keep coming back for years with new shoots springing up all around the original stump), but a source of nice saplings if your trying to develop a copse.





  








Two newly Cut sticks




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AAAndrew


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Aug 26, 2013




The one on the left is a Sweet Gum, and the one on the right is a Tulip Poplar. Both saplings...






So, next time you're harvesting a sapling, think about the roots. Probably old hat for most of you, but it was my first time. This fall I'm going to harvest a few more of the loblolly pines around here. I'll see what their roots are like.

Cheers, and happy harvesting!


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## Rad

Ahhhh that fresh smell of the first harvest! Thanks for sharing AAAndrew! My present drying stock are all root sticks -- they make good shillelagh!


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## gdenby

Well, couldn't help myself. The city uses a place in one of the parks near me as a collection point for downed wood that is shredded. I find pretty good stick material there every now and then. Drove by the stack yesterday, but saw nothing. On the way out, tho', I saw a medium sized branch down. Stopped and checked, and saw that it was hickory. There was one section that was not too crooked, so I cut that.

Did a little searching. It appears to be bitternut hickory. Long, shiny leaves w. slightly serrated edges. The bark is unusually smooth for hickory, and I was at first dubious it was indeed hickory even w. some nuts on the branch.

Cut into the bark some. Thin, yes, but tough. Will try to get most of it off before it dries.


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## AAAndrew

Cool! Bitternut is a true hickory, but the nuts are, not to put too fine a point on it, bitter.

Nice find!


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## Rad

Well the time is drawing near! The leaves are turning and the sap is falling -- get those pruners ready!!!


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## AAAndrew

And down here, the more important milestone is the reduction in mosquitoes. If you're not careful, those suckers will carry you away to their evil lairs in the swamps. Did I mention they grow them big and mean down here? (and I lived in Michigan where the mosquito is the state bird)

But down here, as the mosquito numbers dwindle, the orb weavers come into their own. You need a stick to go looking for sticks. Their webs can stretch 20 feet between trees and be 10 feet in diameter. And the spiders themselves are none too small. I heard tell of one local up in the mountains who's trained one to wear a saddle and he rides it up trees looking for the best hickory nuts.

Still looking forward to more stick hunting. Found a nice deserted dead-end road the other day that ends just above the highway. Industrial scrub, I call it. Picked up a nice ash sapling and saw some sweetgum and maple that looked promising. Must get back. Also saw a for sale to develop sign on what looked like it might have been a former orchard that's now overgrown. Might have been pear trees. Need to get a closer look, but it's on a busy two-lane road next to a railroad track where they're doing construction. Maybe around the back....

Yup, harvesting time is nigh.


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## Rad

Sounds like you need a mosquitoe hunting season! lol


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## AAAndrew

Like this?

http://youtu.be/yJaE2VE6zBE


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## Rad

The leaves are starting to fall! I'm getting itchy fingers on my pruning saw! I've marked several trees for this years harvest!


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## CAS14

I have scoped out new hunting grounds around Tulsa. Lyme disease is becoming more common around here, so I don't know whether to brave the ticks or the Brrrrrr cold, as it takes sustained nights of lows below 10 degrees F they say, to kill off the ticks. Maybe if I don't shower they won't like me or the repellant.


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## Rad

CAS said:


> I have scoped out new hunting grounds around Tulsa. Lyme disease is becoming more common around here, so I don't know whether to brave the ticks or the Brrrrrr cold, as it takes sustained nights of lows below 10 degrees F they say, to kill off the ticks. Maybe if I don't shower they won't like me or the repellant.


CAS -- It helps if you have on long pants and boots, tuck your pants in your boots! I would advise against the no shower thing, you'll chase off everyone but still see the ticks!


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## Rad

The leaves are starting to pile up! And the white pine needles are starting to fall --- yuck! A pox on white pine! I hate what they do to my yard and gutters!


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## Rad

I envy you guys down south that get to stay warm all winter! It's getting colder here, and the leaves are falling! I'll be able to see the trees I want to harvest easy, I marked them all with surveying tape!


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## AAAndrew

I did my time growing up in Indiana and then living for 13 years in Michigan. It is awfully nice to have sunny winters. It's not so nice to have to mow the lawn from early March to late November.


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## Rad

AAAndrew said:


> I did my time growing up in Indiana and then living for 13 years in Michigan. It is awfully nice to have sunny winters. It's not so nice to have to mow the lawn from early March to late November.


I'd rather mow lawn than shovel snow!!!


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## Rad

The leaves are going fast! And those stupid white pine needles are piling up.


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## CAS14

Rad said:


> The leaves are starting to pile up! And the white pine needles are starting to fall --- yuck! A pox on white pine! I hate what they do to my yard and gutters!


That's what high school kids are for. They work cheap and their bones don't break so easily when they fall off the ladder!

;0)


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## Rad

I was wondering what they were good for!


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## Rad

The rain is falling and so are the leaves! Soon those little orange surveying ribbons I tied around perspective sticks will show like Rudolph's noes!


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## Lacumo

When harvesting a hardwood branch section or sapling, is waiting until the leaves are turning color and at starting to fall or is it necessary to wait until the leaves are all gone in order to harvest the wood when it's as dry as can be hoped for?


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## CAS14

Lacumo said:


> When harvesting a hardwood branch section or sapling, is waiting until the leaves are turning color and at starting to fall or is it necessary to wait until the leaves are all gone in order to harvest the wood when it's as dry as can be hoped for?


You have piqued my interest in this as well. I am too new to have a personal opinion, but I suspect that you will hear a variety of opinions. A hasty internet search and some personal experiences with "certified arborists" leads me to pursue this further with a degreed arborist. Not one from a "Phoenix U" kind of anybody can do it school, but perhaps an actual university like Iowa State or Texas Tech. Apparently, several bonafide universities offer such programs. I want to know too.


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## Rad

Let us know what you discover CAS! I have always waited until January or early February. But it would be nice to have a professional opinion.


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## CAS14

Adjunct professor - that can be somebody with an unrelated Master's degree. But Dartmouth is a great school. Interesting read pertaining to northern latitudes. It suggests that January-February are optimal, but it seems as if the transition to "true dormancy" isn't so bad. Need to make a call to Iowa State or OSU here in Oklahoma. I once took some soils engineering courses, so maybe one of those guys is still alive and could refer me to the right person.

http://shar.es/EKsc6


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## Lacumo

I'm getting the sensation that now (while there are still some leaves left for me to ID the trees by) is the right time for me to mark the trees I intend to pull wood from and that 90 days from now is the right time for me to go back with my saw and take what I intend to use. Thanks for your research.

Now, I guess for my "phase 2" question... How long is it prudent to season wood that was harvested during "true dormancy?"

Edit: Phase 2 question #2--- I'm guessing "true dormancy" is the time period starting after the last leaf falls off the tree and ending when sap starts to run again in the spring. Correct?


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## CAS14

Lacumo said:


> I'm getting the sensation that now (while there are still some leaves left for me to ID the trees by) is the right time for me to mark the trees I intend to pull wood from and that 90 days from now is the right time for me to go back with my saw and take what I intend to use. Thanks for your research.
> 
> Now, I guess for my "phase 2" question... How long is it prudent to season wood that was harvested during "true dormancy?"
> 
> Edit: Phase 2 question #2--- I'm guessing "true dormancy" is the time period starting after the last leaf falls off the tree and ending when sap starts to run again in the spring. Correct?


I still have too much to learn to answer that. Some people use moisture meters to determine when wood is sufficiently dry. I don't have first hand knowledge about that either. Some say we should let live/green wood cure a year per inch of diameter. Some say that soaking in very expensive solutions will replace the water in the cells and minimize shrinkage. That I have tried but I have not conducted a controlled experiment to determine whether it made a difference. Many recommend sealing the ends of a stick where the drying is most rapid and the associated shrinkage and cracking often occurs. A fair number of discussions can be found here once you have probed the forum a bit.

Last winter was my first to collect. I already completed sticks that were green a year ago and over an inch diameter. I had soaked them for weeks in one of these expensive liquids. Would they have cracked without the soaking? I don't have a way to know. At my brother's place last winter, I cut a fair amount of already dead, dried, and cracked eastern red cedar. Those made some nice sticks. I have cut some dead and dried oak from around here that was not cracked. Some had worm holes and trails, or spalting, that makes them unique and very nice in my opinion. One oak deadwood stick that looked pretty ugly turned out to be a beauty when the bark was stripped off, due to the spiraled vines that the wood had incorporated. When finished, that went to an old Marine and so far a cancer survivor.

We have our sticks. Now for me, the fun part is to make them for family and friends. By trial and error, and by perusing the many examples here, I slowly learn to make them better. Monday, three diamond willow sticks will arrive. If they are good enough, one will go to our Doc of nearly 30 years who is retiring.


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## Rad

CAS said:


> Adjunct professor - that can be somebody with an unrelated Master's degree. But Dartmouth is a great school. Interesting read pertaining to northern latitudes. It suggests that January-February are optimal, but it seems as if the transition to "true dormancy" isn't so bad. Need to make a call to Iowa State or OSU here in Oklahoma. I once took some soils engineering courses, so maybe one of those guys is still alive and could refer me to the right person.http://shar.es/EKsc6


Good artical CAS! Thank you! I guess I wasn't too far off with saying January and early February -- maybe we could do it even a little earlier?


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## CAS14

That's how I read it, that depending on your climate it could be longer. Sometimes my local agricultural extension agent gives good advice but not 100%. That's another local source to check. I will do that, but it will only pertain to my area.


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## Rad

In "The Shellalaigh Makers Handbook" by John W Hurley, chapter four "Seasoning and Shaping" the author states that the best time to harvest the shank is in winter when the sap is down; he further identifies this time as November 1st to February 1st.


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## Rad

"Men fought and men died, and seeing it through it all was no weapon of steel or powder, but the "darlin' ould stick", the Shillelagh."
John Hurley.

The first of November I'm hunting down those Hawthorns!


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## Rad

"Oh! an Irishman's heart is as stout as shillelagh, It beats with delight to chase sorrow and woe;
When the piper plays up, then it dances gaily, And thumps with a whack to leather a foe.". Jim Galvin


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## JJireh

It is possible to over think the process. I take wood when I see something I like. That said I do most of my collecting at Thanksgiving, but that is mainly because where we spend Turkey day is quite near a nice patch of wood and it is good for me to leave the din of a housefull of people (it is also easier to see nice shapes without foliage.) I haven't ever had problems with sap up or sap down wood.
I take saplings mostly 1.5 -2 inches in diameter up to 3 inches, I try to pull the taproot and all and let them sit in my garage for a year in a bucket bark on. I try to leave them as long as possible in case i need to trim ends. I don't treat them in any sauces or dips with 99% success. I keep trying to do more, but time always slips away so I have a huge surplus in the garage at the moment. I will continue to collect them though


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## Rad

JJireh said:


> It is possible to over think the process. I take wood when I see something I like. That said I do most of my collecting at Thanksgiving, but that is mainly because where we spend Turkey day is quite near a nice patch of wood and it is good for me to leave the din of a housefull of people (it is also easier to see nice shapes without foliage.) I haven't ever had problems with sap up or sap down wood.
> I take saplings mostly 1.5 -2 inches in diameter up to 3 inches, I try to pull the taproot and all and let them sit in my garage for a year in a bucket bark on. I try to leave them as long as possible in case i need to trim ends. I don't treat them in any sauces or dips with 99% success. I keep trying to do more, but time always slips away so I have a huge surplus in the garage at the moment. I will continue to collect them though


JJireh: your probably right! And I've also collected sticks year round, but I have had more success with the ones I collected in the winter.
Which ever the case -- it's fun to talk about though, right? 

That being said, I have been surprised with the results of the crab apple stick I soaked in pentacryl -- fruit woods have a tendency to check, but there has been NO checking! And I cut it in March!


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## CAS14

That pentacryl is awfully expensive, but I've kept it in the PVC dip tube and reused it time and again. It doesn't seem to evaporate, and I haven't experienced much cracking of anything soaked in it, albeit I've only been at this since last fall. A few sticks I cut were freshly cut on a transmission line right of way and cut in about October-November. No significant cracks yet. Maybe they wouldn't have cracked anyway, no way to know.


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## JJireh

Sure, don't get me wrong, by proven data the chances increase for issues when wood is collected while sap is up and ambient temperatures are high and dry as the wood tries to cure. By location, I don't suffer too much when taking sap up trees, our springs are moderate and wet and our summers while hot are humid and my garage keeps fairly stable during both. So my sticks can cure fairly evenly. But I also cut long and the root ball end hardly ever cracks so the ends that do, I can trim.

What I am intending to say is this time of year even if the sap is up still, you chances of having issues is decreased significantly by ambient temperatures, unless you take it inside expose it to hot dry temps causing the external wood to dry too fast for the internal wood.

When in doubt always make them long


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## Rad

JJireh said:


> When in doubt always make them long


Always!


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## Rad

I know that November 1st is supposed to be the beginning of stick collecting time, but we still have a lot of leaves on the trees! I think I'll wait a couple more weeks before beginning!


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## CAS14

Rad said:


> I know that November 1st is supposed to be the beginning of stick collecting time, but we still have a lot of leaves on the trees! I think I'll wait a couple more weeks before beginning!


I have so much going on between now and Thanksgiving that I will have to wait as well. I have a new area that I plan to search, located in west Tulsa.


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## Rad

The leaves have hung on for so long that I think I'll be waiting until way after hunting season this year on the the stick harvesting! Probably will wait untill Christmas.


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## cchgn

I'm just thinking out loud here,, after reading the article, now I'm no arborist, but what I'm understanding is that the trees swap one juice for another juice( think about all the wood cells holding sap and water and then what? shrunken cells? empty cells? Hollow wood?) . Now, the sap is a nourishing juice and the dormant juice is a starchy anti-freeze juice, so which would I rather have? The sap.

Also, I'm in Florida where it doesn't freeze, so the trees really don't go dormant.

what I'm wondering is what ends to these means? So, the drying is removing the water, but what's left is a concentrated sap, better perserving the wood cells, imo..

I look for really dense wood, like Persimmon. Then I beat my sticks against trees to pack the molecules and make the wood even more dense.


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## Rad

To each his own! I envy you your Florida weather -- just a little.


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## Rad

GO! I think we can start collecting any time now, at least up here in the northern par of the USA! I don't know about those of you in other parts of the world!


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## cobalt

if you need to prevent sticks from spliting after harvesting they say just cover the ends in a wax. or even a wood glue helps the ends from drying out to fast .have`nt tried it myself as useually get seasoned and straighted shanks from my supplier done have acces to wooded areas,its just farm/fenland here

You people have such a wide range of sticks available to makes me green with envy.

We dont have the forests that you have and nowdays you have to get the land owners permission to harvest them.


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## Rad

cobalt said:


> if you need to prevent sticks from spliting after harvesting they say just cover the ends in a wax. or even a wood glue helps the ends from drying out to fast .have`nt tried it myself as useually get seasoned and straighted shanks from my supplier done have acces to wooded areas,its just farm/fenland here
> You people have such a wide range of sticks available to makes me green with envy.
> We dont have the forests that you have and nowdays you have to get the land owners permission to harvest them.


I've used wax, and I also use Anchor Seal, I have also done the pentacryl dip!


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## cobalt

how succesful did you find it?


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## Rad

cobalt said:


> how succesful did you find it?


All three have worked very well!


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## Rad

Well -- some cedar branches came down in the recent storm and said "take me" -- I've never worked cedar, it will be a first!


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## CAS14

It's pretty light weight, the heartwood exposed by the knots produce a beautiful red contrast to the light sapwood, and I've made three cedar sticks that worked out well.


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## Rad

The day after Thanksgiving I harvested a couple of Hawthorn sticks, some Oakes (root sticks) and some ash and dogwood! Saw several deer - looking forward to opening day of deer season on Monday (first time out for my grandson)


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