Firewood

-22 C down in the GTA this morning must've been worse up in your turf. Then it's going back up to +1 before shooting back down. Volatile weather. I've just got into some honey locust either 1 or 2 years split, feels dry burns good but no greying/weathering at all. Bright as the day it was split. Odd. IME locust is nearly like oak in refusing to dry out.
 
I've heard both opinions about locust- dries easy or dries slow.

I'm more toward the 'dries fairly quick' side myself.
 
You folk that are not really sure about when you put up this batch of firwood, verses that batch...WTF? It cannot be all that hard to keep track, imo. We just nail a little tab of paper with the date the rick was stacked in on the end of a upper piece of wood in the stack.

How hard is that?
 
In order to stupid proof it for me I stack in a row, start using this year where I left off last year. Start stacking this year where I left off last year. No documentation required. :|:
 
I'm right at a junction where I used a good portion of a 2 bush cord stack the previous year, then rebuilt the used up portion with green and it sat for another year. So right at this spot in the pile it could be 1 or 2 year seasoned. Another about 1 bush cord stack got mostly used with a tad left near the bottom that has since been replenished on top of for next year. My bigger woodhausen-ish stack got completely used and is all fresh replenished this summer for next year. ps I hate unstacking and moving wood to keep totally organized. Confusing enough? On top of that in my books there's awesome 2 year wood which I find hard to get enough gumption and organization to achieve, and there's choosing lighter hardwoods like medium maple which is for sure on a 1 year schedule, but you lose out on really good burn times. Rule: no gopher wood allowed unless you get it near effortlessly and it's straight in for the shoulder season. And I gotta fit this in a lot inside the city.
 
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  • #359
Roger was in today and took out the hickory....didn't call, lost my number.
He had a helper and saw. Cut the stump off, cut the butt log and set it aside. He evidentally didn't like my woodline. Ripped out 2 leaners and "trimmed" a bunch of low weeping branches with the track hoe too. Lol..... AND filled in the stump hole.

Now I've got the mess from hell to clean up. Oh well, it needed to be done.

By the grace of god, the trunk is 100% solid, now to find a mill that can handle a 32"+diameter log.

Ed 20220112_144725.jpg 20220112_144808.jpg
 
Since most of my stuff is grounded dead falls or standing dead I don't have much concern about drying .However as such I probably spend more time with a file than most people . The weather broke yesterday and it got in the low 40's up from the teens so I got with it .About 3/4 of a cord of cherry, ash and basswood .Nothing to brag about but if you do that twice a week it's not long before you have enough. I might get a spurt of ambition today and get some little dead fall that doesn't need split .That stuff burns too .
 
I had to take two sugar maples out when I moved in the 40 foot shipping box a couple of years ago .Those were below grade and I wore half a chain away doing that .Cut three minutes and file for ten .Those were bore cuts with an 024 Stihl .I was afraid the bigger saws would come back on me and cut off a leg .
 
I didn't get to the firewood today What I started out to do was prune the limbs of the over hang on my 600 foot drive way .Then the damned pole saw refused to start .Next came the cheap azz pole clipper which did good on the maples but not so good on the oaks .There's a lot of difference you know .Two hours later after beating myself to a pulp I gave it up but I got done . Never say die .
 
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  • #366
As a rule l don't cut many live trees either. With my dead Ash supply getting depleted, l'll be starting on "weeping Marys". You know...the 14" hardwood that comes out of the ground 15' in the woods and grows at a 30° angle out into the field. Ya, fun times await, eh?

OTOH, dad is 83, he still feeds his owb. Mom's has been shut down for 3 years, can't keep up with 2 anymore.
When dad is done, l'm done. Soon to be 58, l've done firewood since l was 10 years old.
I'm over it.

Ed
 
We are back to igloo weather again.
I could neither imagine nor afford life without the woodstove.
 
For many years my uncle drove to my grandparents place twice/day to bring in wood and tend the stove.
They had propane, but preferred to only use it for cooking...old habits are hard to break.
 
I didn't know ethanol could gel up and clog a carb
Ethanol can freeze like water, but at a way lower temp. It isn't the issue with our climats. A major problem comes with the moisture took by the ethanol from the surrounding air. It then reacts with the instable products contained in the gas and forms some corrosive agents (amongs other craps like solvents and gums). What can clog the carb is the wrecking of the carb's aluminum body by this corrosion. The salts/oxydes of aluminum take a lot more volume than the virgin metal. That gives a little pitting on the surfaces, no worry in itself, but a big glob of semi translucent stuff protrudes over it, obstructing easily the small drilled holes.
I got that on the brother's genny lent to my daughter. After a winter in a high humid garage, it was acting severly from lack of gas. I ordered a membrane for the gas pump in the carb, but when I replaced it, I discovered that the carb's clogging was the issue. I might as well replace the whole carb, because the cleaning made it better, but not enough to work properly.
 
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