A wonderful neighbour... Score of serious proportions

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lowroadacres

lowroadacres

Minister of Fire
Aug 18, 2009
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While I am disappointed that our neighbour half a mile over has decided that he will be waiting a few years to replace his uninsurable wood furnace I am very pleassed to be the recipient of his very sizable stash of 4 foot lengths of assorted firewood.

This morning a friend and I will be starting to tackle the task of cutting, splitting and loading our first wave of wood from this stash.

There are at least a dozen cords of wood in this stash and possible more.

It is an assortment of woods ranging from willow to oak and did I say that it is a half mile from our yard?

We will be tucking into this feast with 2 saws and using my friend's Wallenstein processor as a splitter and loader as the chute on the splitter fits nicely into the back of the truck and the trailers we are using.

Because of how long the wood has been down and stacked we know that not all of it will be anywhere ready for this year but there is a sizable portion of it that is close to ready.

Of course pictures will be forthcoming of the before, during and after.

The only wrinkle is ..... It is raining steadily this morning so we are going to be bug bit and soaking wet in the process...... Nothing is perfect but this situation is darn close.
 
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Remember, lowroad.......pics or it didn't happen! Great score, by the way! Sounds like you got a dandy neighbor there!
 
I read somewhere about 4 foot long lengths of wood and how long they take to dry, I guess it was for the outdoor wood boiler crowd? Anyhow, it should be drier than when it was green if it has been seasoning for a couple of years. You may be able to use some of it this year.

Cograts on the score.
 
Thats sounds like a good deal for you. A not so good deal for the neighbor :(

Thats a whole lot of wood... Waiting for pics ;)
 
That Wallenstein will make short work of all that.

Good on ya.
 
Nice score, the reasons are not great, but a nice score none the less.
Gonna make for some nice pictures :)
 
Turned out to be a perfect morning for woodcutting. A bit of wind to keep the bugs down as the rain stopped just as we pulled up.

We are reserving judgement on the moisure levels on the wood for a few days until the surface moisture from the rain dries off.

In relatively short order we were able to get 2 trucks stacked in plus an old truck box trailer full of wood out of the piles. My initial photos are not of great quality but I will have them loaded onto the computer from my phone sometime later today.

The wood is going to largely be shoulder season and daytime "when we are at home to load the stove more often wood" but it appears to be pretty solid still.

Some of this wood has been down for years. Due the the generosity of my neighbour we are not being fussy as we plow through the pile. This score will definitely fall into the gottenwood category.

As far as the Wallenstein helping us it is interesting because the wood is already in short lengths we are cutting on the pile with the processor backed in as close as we can to use the splitter function with the chute moving the wood right into the truck/trailer. The wood is too short to use the winch and cutting guide but it still goes quickly.

This morning I will begin stacking the halfton load and when the 15 year old gets going this morning he will take over the stacking duties.
 
lowroadacres said:
Turned out to be a perfect morning for woodcutting. A bit of wind to keep the bugs down as the rain stopped just as we pulled up.

We are reserving judgement on the moisure levels on the wood for a few days until the surface moisture from the rain dries off.

In relatively short order we were able to get 2 trucks stacked in plus an old truck box trailer full of wood out of the piles. My initial photos are not of great quality but I will have them loaded onto the computer from my phone sometime later today.

The wood is going to largely be shoulder season and daytime "when we are at home to load the stove more often wood" but it appears to be pretty solid still.

Some of this wood has been down for years. Due the the generosity of my neighbour we are not being fussy as we plow through the pile. This score will definitely fall into the gottenwood category.

As far as the Wallenstein helping us it is interesting because the wood is already in short lengths we are cutting on the pile with the processor backed in as close as we can to use the splitter function with the chute moving the wood right into the truck/trailer. The wood is too short to use the winch and cutting guide but it still goes quickly.

This morning I will begin stacking the halfton load and when the 15 year old gets going this morning he will take over the stacking duties.
Click to expand...
I am so waiting to see the pics.......You are really teasing us with promise of pics.....Please hurry....:p
 
Here we go. I hope to have more photos as we go along. The camera phone and the shadows don't do justice to the volume of wood we are dealing with. We pulled out 3 half ton loads on Sunday morning all stacked into the box. Because we are only on a public road for 300 yards we can load very full. We are hoping to get another day of loading out in the next week and a half although there is no panic due to the proximity to our yard and the fact that no one is telling us that the wood has to be gone by any deadline.
 

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I have been too busy to post updates but we just tested some of the wood we got home from the initial cutting and it is testing between 14 and 20 percent on the MM.

Can't wait to get more home and stacked to add to this winter's supply which will allow me to let some of the supply that is borderline on the drying sit until 2013-14 or beyond.
 
We are about halfway through the generous score from our neighbour, we are working on other rounds and lengths on the yard, a new tree service has begun to alert us when they have wood to pick up (2 good loads so far) and my friend with a tree service continues to drop off a load here and there.

Our rough totals right have just topped 15 cords split and stacked on the yard with about 6.5 of that ready to go this season. Once we get the rest of the score from the neighbour's home the "ready to go" totals will likely top 9 and maybe touch 10 cords.\

Will try and take some pictures this afternoon after I unload and sort the latest load of green wood that will be ready for next year.
 
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Man, I had to take a second look there. At first, I was really wondering what was growing in those pots :cool:;).
 
I will post more pics from the haul when we are out for the next load
 
Is that a ramp you have going to your pickup bed? That is interesting.
 
that is the loading chute off the Wallenstein 830 processor.
 
actually the price is very reasonable, under $10,000....divide that between two wood enthusiasts its double what a plain splitter would be, take into account that it eliminates a lot of back breaking labor, that fact that we can process a lil better than two cords per hour, one can accumulate a lot of wood in a short amount of time. sell a few season cords and its paid for itself in no time. Its the second best investment I have ever made, the first was my wood stove.................and for the record my wife isn't on this forum or I might have answered a lil differently
 
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Nice score! Let me know if your neighbor ever wants to move to SW NH. The house next to me is for sale and I would be happy to help him move his wood into the neighborhood :)
 
CageMaster said:
actually the price is very reasonable, under $10,000....divide that between two wood enthusiasts its double what a plain splitter would be, take into account that it eliminates a lot of back breaking labor, that fact that we can process a lil better than two cords per hour, one can accumulate a lot of wood in a short amount of time. sell a few season cords and its paid for itself in no time. Its the second best investment I have ever made, the first was my wood stove.................and for the record my wife isn't on this forum or I might have answered a lil differently
Click to expand...

On a serious note what a machine and what it would save on the ol back priceless.
 
i promise there will be more pic the next time we are out...as for right now it is a solo battle, i am busy at home topping up the sheds for this winter, and trying to organize some of next years supply.
 
CageMaster said:
actually the price is very reasonable, under $10,000....divide that between two wood enthusiasts its double what a plain splitter would be, take into account that it eliminates a lot of back breaking labor, that fact that we can process a lil better than two cords per hour, one can accumulate a lot of wood in a short amount of time. sell a few season cords and its paid for itself in no time. Its the second best investment I have ever made, the first was my wood stove.................and for the record my wife isn't on this forum or I might have answered a lil differently
Click to expand...


I understand the 2 cord per hour but does that also take into consideration the felling of the tree, the limbing and the skidding? In addition, perhaps the video was done to show the winch pulling the log but would it not be better to have the log next to the machine so as not to pull it along Mother Earth?
 
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Backwoods Savage said:
I understand the 2 cord per hour but does that also take into consideration the felling of the tree, the limbing and the skidding? In addition, perhaps the video was done to show the winch pulling the log but would it not be better to have the log next to the machine so as not to pull it along Mother Earth?
Click to expand...

with one person felling and limbing, the other person can continuously process, granted when we are doing it we typically down and limb the trees in the woods and then load the logs by tractor on a 40' wagon and bring them home so we can c/s/s directly into the "seasoning area"
 
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