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August Firewood Festival
allen griggs
Member Posts: 35,622 ✭✭✭✭
A tropical storm blew through on Wednesday and knocked down a lot of trees. I saw where this red oak fell across the road. The DOT had cleared the road. I went down today, sawed it in to 16 inch drums, and loaded up. I don't have room for this wood in my wood shed but I just couldn't turn it down. 2/3 of a truck load of pristine red oak, just 3 miles from my house.
Comments
Nice
I really like your wood shed Allen! Of coarse free quality fire wood is only free until you get busy. I usually need a few days to recover from the work involved.
Cant beat Free
"2/3 of a truck load"??? Just scamper up that hillside and cut loose another 30 feet of that trunk and make a few trips.
Those could be photos of my setup here. A long handled peavey, big Stihl and a 5# splitting maul (standing in the shed). That's old school. LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!
And I'm beyond jealous. "Big" wood here is an 18" birch tree.
allen you cant have enough firewood where you live.When I lived in that area in the mid to late 70s we had several very bad winters.I dont think winters have been very bad the last few years but its best to be ready.
Cutting firewood in August will bring the sweat out of a man. I see you have a Fiskars maul. If you get a chance, try a Fiskars x27 on the small stuff. I love mine.
Thank you Brookwood. My wood shed is an innovative design. I spend a lot of time on the wood stove forum at hearth.com We spend a lot of time talking about drying fire wood. We all have electric moisture meters. You need to get your wood down to 17 percent moisture to burn in these new wood stoves, generally on red oak that will take 2 to 3 years. Most wood sheds have just a roof and maybe a wall on one side, they rely on ventilation.
My wood shed is not ventilated. Solid wood floor, and solid wood sides, ridge vent blocked with spray in foam. It sets out in the sun all day. It works because it heats up, generally 10 degrees warmer in there than the ambient temp. Water vapor leaves the wood and passes through the wooden walls and floor. Also, at night, the river fog does not swarm around the firewood. And in big rain storms, the wood is not hit with rain.
I can dry red oak to 17 percent in 8 months. My woodshed is so good, and the design so unusual, that none of the guys on hearth.com believe that it really works and nobody else will build one like it. Ah, the price one pays for being a pioneer.
Plus I like the way it looks, it sets just 50 feet from our sun deck. As we sit out on a summer evening, eating dinner and drinking red wine, I get to look at my wood shed.
" just 3 miles from my house."..........hell, this is my back yard.(white ash and cherry)........and I still have 100 acres to go
this is a 3' pine just to the south
Be sure no ones is close to that stump when you cut the log loose.
Heard of a fellow that cut one off and stump stood back up. He got to looking for his 2 kids.
You guessed it.
Yes, that happened to me. ( no kids involved).
18” silver maple blowdown. It bent a brand new 18” bar on my saw.
"Heard of a fellow that cut one off and stump stood back up"..............that's exactly what happened, but I was expecting it, no damage to anything/one.
I don't care personally, but just sayin':
Fallen timber is prime snake habitat. Leaving fallen trees prevents forest land from becoming infested with rodents because of the snakes.
Some dry, forested areas have growth which becomes poorer and poorer every year because all the minerals are being tied up in the wood of the trees and there is not enough moisture to decompose fallen branches and dead trees, until a forest fire turns deadwood into ash and enables the minerals to be reabsorbed by the soil and eventually by the new growth. If people start taking felled trees, the land will suffer from the removal of minerals.