Scooorrrrrrrrre!

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Woody Stover

Minister of Fire
Dec 25, 2010
13,121
Southern IN
Saw a tree lying by the side of the road a couple of miles from the house. I went over there to ask, and the guy and wife were working on a Red Maple, the one I saw from the road. They said "Sure, take it. We've got more down the drive, too." :cool: Today I went over to work on the Red Maple, but first walked down the drive to check out the other stuff.

Yeah, there are a few Red Maple leaves on here but most of it is poison ivy! This is the biggest of the trees, at about 24". Got one trailer load. Some rounds from long-dead limbs is dry enough to burn now. There are six or so of the biggest rounds left to get. She is going to load all the rest of the wood below tomorrow, onto my trailer with their skid steer. :)
See my saw in the background? ;)
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Here's a White Ash that's down the slope to the left of the first pic. There's also a second stump and tree you can see to the left in the ditch but I don't know what that is yet, or if it's solid wood.
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These log, which are around 3-4' each, are back by a burn pile (pile of ashes now.) Pignut Hickory and White Oak. Nice! :)
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There's another Pignut lying close by, and the guy said he has another tree on the other side of the house that fell, I haven't looked at that yet. There are several Pignut that look like the tops are dying; I'll give him my number so he can call me when he's tired of looking at 'em. ==c
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Here's where the story takes an ugly turn; His buddy, who the guy told me had as much wood as he wanted already, came over. As this fellow (the hoardin' bass turd) left with a pickup bed full of this Shagbark Hickory and White Oak, I fell to my knees and wailed like an abandoned baby. It wasn't a pretty sight. I think he may have gotten 1/3 of the wood you see here. Of course I'm thankful for what I will get, but still.... ;lol
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I then found this 10", 8-round Persimmon log, which dried my tears a bit....until I got a wood chip in my eye.<>
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They said they had 13 trees taken down; Apparently, they burned about half the wood in the couple days before I saw it and was able to put a stop to the madness.!!! Sonuva pup! Said they had a hard time getting rid of wood previously, but they just had a sign on the road then. That was before the days of craigslist....
So this will probably be a 2 or 3-cord score, all told. Pretty easy pickins on some good wood. :)
 
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Nice save. You can properly cremate it in due time.
Hope you don't get poison to bad. Looks definitely worth the risk though.
Happy Day
 
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I think I pretty much avoided contact with the ivy even though I was wearing short sleeves, and I pulled the vines off before bucking the trunk. Either I'm getting a little less sensitive to it than I used to be or I'm getting better at avoiding contact. ==c
 
Nice score Woody. That ash looks good. You have all good wood. Now stop whimpering;lol
 
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Awesome ..! Good for you Woody ;) Maple some good stuff , Plus its ready !
 
Nice stuff Woody....
 
Nice score Woody. That ash looks good. You have all good wood. Now stop whimpering;lol
I'm better now. The initial shock just got to me at the time. ;lol This place is going to be a good source for the primo woods I don't get real often. We've got quite a bit of White Oak, Pignut and Shag in our woods, but they seldom die or blow down. This score spot was only cleared for the home about six years back and I think they are losing some of the yard trees due to the changed environment of the cleared land, and the drought last year.
Awesome ..! Good for you Woody ;) Maple some good stuff , Plus its ready !
I'm all over any soft Maple I come across. Not a lot of this was dry, just one branch, but that will be several stove loads' worth. If you keep plugging away, it adds up after a while. :) The rest of the Maple will get stacked this fall at my SIL's and be ready for sure by next fall. There was more dry wood today, but not Maple.

Yeah, Pauly, the Ash is clean, as you can see in this pic of the second load I got today (first was a big Maple load.) That Ash feels pretty dry, too. ==c What you can't see is that the bottom of the trailer is covered with Red Maple rounds, except for the back row. You can see a few more Maple rounds up in the RH corner of this pic. Check out the round in the upper LH corner of the back row. That's the tree in the ditch in pic#2. It's a small Pignut with most of the bark off, and it felt like all that wood is ready to go! :cool: There's also about ten feet of a 4" bonus dead Dogwood. I'm leaving that and the dry Pig at my SIL's since her best long-haul wood right now is some Red Oak. You know I'm getting ahead in my dry primo wood stash when I quit hoarding it all for my self and start spreading it around. >>
I've got a couple more loads to go over there, then I'll post a couple pics of the total haul.

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Now that's a nice wood haulin load for sure.....
 
Now that's a nice wood haulin load for sure.....
With heavier wood I don't heap it up that much (trying to take it easy on my poor car,) but that Ash is halfway dry already, not real heavy. :)
 
It takes a lot of courage to post pictures of your wood hauler. More power to you. Proof that you don't need a big truck to be a woodburner.
 
Nice..! Dogwood is some super burning stuff.... Wonder why no one ever decided to name any tree catwood ?? ;lol
 
So Woody I think you are the first with a Perssimon tree that Ive seen so far. 13 trees could easily do 3 cords. Are you getting any of the pignut? what will you end up with?
I just processed 8 trees and got just shy of 3 cords. But I clean up everything. Sounds like your neighbors were too quick to brush pile. But now they know you. You are saving them all that yardwork!!
 
So Woody I think you are the first with a Perssimon tree that Ive seen so far. 13 trees could easily do 3 cords. Are you getting any of the pignut? what will you end up with?
I just processed 8 trees and got just shy of 3 cords. But I clean up everything. Sounds like your neighbors were too quick to brush pile. But now they know you. You are saving them all that yardwork!!
Back in the day, when golf woods were actually made of wood, Persimmon was used to make the best clubs. It's not the most common species around here but there are quite a few. Jams, breads etc. can be made from the fruit, which is delicious. Lotta big seeds, though. The deer love it, too. I've got about a half cord that I need to split, and there's a dead 12-incher across the way that I haven't gotten yet.
Yep, a lot of the wood was burned before I got there but I'll get a few cords. It rained here and I didn't want to mess up their yard, so I've not been back yet. What's left can be seen above in the first pics; Pic 3, pic 4 and in the distance in pic 5. 3 and 5 are the same pile. Mostly Pignut. Like I said, there are several other trees that are dying so I'll probably get that wood as well. Pretty sweet score on some primo stuff. :cool:
 
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What you have to work with is the best you can hope for. That is definitely a good score. I was inspired by all you guys so I stopped at a neighbors and asked about sugar maple that was sitting in his yard since the town cut the trees down. He said the wood was spoken for but that he hadnt seen anyone come get it. He told me to come back in 2 weeks.
So I will.
 
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Nice..! Dogwood is some super burning stuff.... Wonder why no one ever decided to name any tree catwood ?? ;lol
What about Catalpa?? ;lol
 
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