Am I the only one to do this?

Although I don't need to scrounge firewood, it seems every time I drive down the road or ride my bike I can't help but see all the firewood going to waste. There are dead trees all over the place. Here it is mostly ash and elm but several cottonwoods too. A couple days ago I spotted some huge hard maples and an oak the were right by the road.

I've often wondered why more folks don't knock on doors now. They could even mark the trees so they could tell the difference during winter if that is what they need to do. Sad to see so much just rot away when so many need the fuel. I'd bet most of it could be had for nothing except clean up the brush when done.

Around here people are happy if you will just take the stuff that the town won't, anything over 6". My pleasure.

You mean like this?

http://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/39884/

I sold my truck and bought a Jetta Diesel when the prices of gas went sky high 3 years ago.
I could scrounge then, but not now....
I'm not going to put any wood inside my Jetta or my Sienna van.
But I may talk myself into putting a hitch on the van.
There is a lot of dead standing elm on my road - most of it is 6" - 16" at the butt, with some bark already fallen off.

What do you guys do - just fall it and haul what you want, or do you clean up all the branches too?
(I'm sure most of the people won't cut it down or cut it up for me - they'd "let" me cut it up, I'm sure.)

Since I've been posting here, I've been noticing a lot more wood. My wife and I were running errands yesterday and taking the back way through an industrial part of town. I never noticed that tree service building with a bunch of rounds right near the fence. I may have to stop by sometime and inquire.....

. . . and then once in a while you get the member here who puts up a post about how they feel it is entirely within their right to take the wood off other's land since clearly they didn't want it or need it and by doing so they're doing the landowner a favor . . . and yes BS I realize you're not talking about this, but rather wondering why folks who truly are scrounging for wood don't at least ask folks if they could take the wood.

I have plenty of wood for the next 2 -3 years at least. I still look at all the dead and dying trees around me that I would like to take down. I don't think we ever stop looking for making excuses to scrounge for more fire wood.

Random Regional Scrounging Observation: Craigslist in CT has a lot of posts for free firewood. Not so much in VT. Amazing the difference in the number of people who burn from state to state.

There seems to be an economic effect as well. You almost never see scrounging opportunities in wealthier neighborhoods.

What really bugs me are folks who need to save some dollars and then end up buying wood from some supplier who doesn't understand what seasoned wood is. They could save many more dollars by taking a drive out in the country and spotting all that dead stuff that is still standing.

Another thing is these folks wait until the last minute to look for wood. I see it over and over; folks unloading green wood in the middle of the winter....and then complaining about that dumb stove they bought because it won't burn wood worth a hoot.

Not everyone has a truck and/or trailer to haul scrounged wood.
Not everyone has the space to store several years worth of wood.
Not everyone can afford to buy their wood that far in advance.

And maybe not everyone should be burning wood?!

When driving around here it's hard not to notice dead ash tree's everywhere! Since I've been gathering wood I always notice people's wood piles now. I find myself not paying nearly enough attention to driving sometimes when I'm checking out tree's.

Sad but true. In our consumer world, the idea of putting work or energy into something that is going to save you money in the future doesn't make sense to a lot of people. I am amazed at the abuse I take for burning wood and having a garden.

I wonder what most people would do if the economy ever really got bad.....like the the depression back in the thirties??

Would add to your list:

Not everyone has a supportive spouse/family that will tolerate wood stacked in the yard.

(I can get away with a years worth (4 cords) but then my husband puts his foot down. Kids balk at the work of helping out....I know- I should just let the fire go out and then see what they are all saying....but someone would probably just turn the heat on.)

I love wood burning and the heat and do not want to create waves here so I grit my teeth and force myself to drive by scroungible (sp?) wood. Must say I do 'smuggle' as much in as I can but it is not easy hiding wood. :lol:

I've wondered the same thing. One thing for sure is that it wouldn't be pretty. Probably most would wait around for the government to do something....like borrow a few more billions from China....

There is couple hundred tons around here as well. Waiting for sept.1 to get back in full swing again

One could wish it was only billions, our government works in trillions these days...

There are some folks around the corner from me that have had these big oak rounds sitting out next to the road for a long time. I asked them once if they were keeping it or could I take it away for them. They indignantly indicated that they were going to burn it of course, but it has been sitting there rotting for many years now. It used to annoy me to see it there everyday, but of course it is theirs to do with what they please.

IMO it's a lot to do with legal bullcrap! People these days just don't want to take the chance letting someone on their property running a chainsaw, etc to remove trees unless they are bonded, insured, etc. Although I have never knocked on doors, I have had the opposite of being asked to take down trees that need a professional service due to location or size. One problem I can see is the disposal of the brush; if you are lucky enough to have someone say just make a big pile over there then make sure you buy them TWO cases of beer! I see tons of wood just rotting in the parks around my area and they would as soon arrest you than to let you take that out of the "natural" environment. Seems like it would be good forest management to remove the dead fire load from an area and encourage better growth of the remaining trees, but hell, that's just my uneducated forest management opinion; you need to have multiple meetings of various government agencies and waste time/money for someone to come out and do a study that has the same results! :zip:

I see wood laying around on the side of the road from time to time, but unless I know the person, I don't ask them for it. I don't like to bother people. If I had wood that I wanted to give away, (never happen) I'd put it down by the road and put a free wood sign on it. If I know someone and I see that they have wood laying in their yard, I'll definitely ask them for it.

Our city and city parks have a certain amount of dead trees fallen each year. I ride by and drool over the wood thats right there for the taking, but when I call the city manager or the park district, the answer is the same: "If you injure yourself with your saw on our property, you can sue us, so we can't allow you to take wood off. We can only hire a professional tree service to do the job, then you can buy the wood from them.

So instead of getting their downed trees cleared for free, our tax payers are paying tree-service companies to clear the tree, and then wood-burners are paying them AGAIN for the wood.

Private land-owners probably feel the same. Its the legal liability nightmare we're in that prevents them from doing the right, and common-sense thing.

Lawyers run the world!

Try having chickens but then they have some fresh eggs and all of a sudden your not so crazy.