Welcome to the forum jkazak.
Congratulations on your new property and moving to the country. That sounds like a real winner and it sounds like you have some great firewood too.
Please do not get discouraged and do not misread the 3 year thing. We talk here about being on the 3 year plan and that is the ideal. It may take some time to get there but when you get 3 years ahead on your wood you will be amazed at the difference in how the stove puts out heat, the ease of starting new fires and the lack of any creosote in your chimney. In addition, you won't get taxed on this even though it is like money in the bank.
Locust we do not have but have been given a little to try (black locust) and the heat was great. We just did not like the smell. There is a difference between honey locust and black locust. Do you have lots of thorns? Nasty. But honey locust will take a bit longer to dry than black locust. Most that I've talked with say 2 years on the black and 3 on the honey but I also know of several who give black only a year to dry.
But the big thing to remember is that the wood really won't dry until it has been split and then stacked out in the wind to dry. You live in Nebraska so we know you get some good wind. That may indeed speed the drying for you but get is split and stacked asap. When you stack the wood, be sure it is off the ground. We just cut some saplings to lay down and stack on top of them. Here is how we do it. That first picture really shows the saplings that are under the wood. That last picture is some white and red oak that had been laying flat on the ground for over 10 years. It was on a neighboring property and we were lucky to get it. That was split and stacked last May and we'll probably try to burn some of that next year. Normally with oak, we want 3 years in the stack but this one won't need that much time.
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