Fire Wood

Well another heating season is under the belt - started the season with zero wood stocked but was fortunate because there were a lot of dead ash trees around so I was able to cut burnable wood during the cold months - when I cut down a standing dead ash tree the moisture in most of the trunk was around 27 to 31 percent - the upper dead branches were around 15 percent - some trees that had fallen down were a little punkie because they were starting to rot - in a few weeks I will start cutting and splitting wood for next winter - each year it gets harder on the joints and back but I'll keep going until it hurts too much

One thing I do is spray the clothes I use when cutting wood with permethrin - to kill any ticks that should get on me - right now there are too many deer where I live - this was the first time that they ate certain bushes because of the lack of food -

Well Joe I am a bit younger than you but have always chopped my firewood by hand and its a pretty good work out. Ash tree's are one of the very best to cut and split as far as I am concerned and they do burn real nice. We have a lot of beech dying up here because of the canker and i mean some very nice big old tree's. Beech is far tougher to split by hand with all the knots and so forth. I get lazy and just cut out the big knots and burn them later in the fire pit. I sure wish we had the same problem with deer numbers up my way, between hard winters, wolf and coyote and just bush to live from our numbers are always pretty low.

Yeah I got lazy, last year I cut nothing the year before I got 10 face cords (3.3 bush cords) of Maple for free and cut another 5 face. I don't burn as much now use to burn 10 face now it's 5. Since I installed the heat pump I only burn wood if it's below -10C (14 F), so I now burn just 5 face.
I had 30 face extra out back but two friends wanted to buy some so I kinda had to sell 3 face (1 bush). Leaving me 27 told them know more but one had a stroke so now I have to sell him a couple each year.
I will put on one more push this year to cut 12 face + after that I should have enough to last 10 years, from then on I will just cut a few here and there.

Only one year did I split it by hand but it took a lot of beer, much more then running a wood splitter.

You don't bother hunting Coyotes?

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Originally Posted by Gilroy

Well Joe I am a bit younger than you but have always chopped my firewood by hand and its a pretty good work out. Ash tree's are one of the very best to cut and split as far as I am concerned and they do burn real nice. We have a lot of beech dying up here because of the canker and i mean some very nice big old tree's. Beech is far tougher to split by hand with all the knots and so forth. I get lazy and just cut out the big knots and burn them later in the fire pit. I sure wish we had the same problem with deer numbers up my way, between hard winters, wolf and coyote and just bush to live from our numbers are always pretty low.

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Spent yesterday afternoon splitting wood with my 8 LB maul. December 11th wind storm brought a lot of trees down in our bush. Mostly ash and a couple hard maple. Yesterday was a huge double leader ash that also splintered a 14" elm on its way down. That was the easiest elm I've ever split. They're so feathery/stringy usually. I would like to have 16 face cord each winter.

I went through about 6 face cords this year. ( I only burn in the evenings, or weekends when I'm home).

Made a contact for my last cord for ash, cut and split for $90.

The family has 65 acres with a lot of standing dead ash. I think I'll try and make a deal for next fall with them.

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Originally Posted by greatwhite

Only one year did I split it by hand but it took a lot of beer, much more then running a wood splitter.

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LOL, that's hilarious!

I heat my house with wood (aside from about $150 worth of heating oil) the last 3 years I've heated on nothing but dead standing ash trees. we find them the best for firewood because you can season the wood in under 4 months in most cases
every spring I cut split and stack 4 bush cords of wood and normally burn about 3.25 this year I'll only have to cut 3 from leftovers over the past 4-5 winters
we use the extra money saved from not having heating costs to fuel the snowmobiles as a family past time

Still burning. Gone thru a lot of wood this winter. Working from home with the stove 15ft from my office makes it easy to feed it all day every day

Pics - Before winter
and current situation
Attachment 43422 Attachment 43423

I have about 4 years worth of wood split and stacked. Just need some ambition to get to down trees. But they make great lookout spot lol
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