Still want to build up my stash for the next couple of years. As I've said before, I have a honey hole at a friend's ranch where I can take my fill of recently downed water oak that he has pushed off into a dry creek bed. More wood than I'll ever be able to use. I went out there today and found a big trunk with some of the larger branches still attached. They had burned a lot of the tree top but a lot was left. Having so much wood available, I can be very picky. I wanted wood from the trunk and big, straight limbs. I cut out a section of trunk that ran between a big, fat, gnarly bottom section up to where it 'Y's' off into the large branches. I got six or seven 20 inch long rounds out of the trunk, which was about 22 inches in diameter.
I know this tree has been down since a summer storm. It was still unbelievably wet. The rounds were so heavy I had to split them into quarters to lift them into the truck and it was still a strain. Each quarter of a round weighed close to 75 pounds, I'll bet. My 10 pound maul and my Fiskar's mostly bounced off the wood. I used two metal splitting wedges and the back side of the maul to split most of the rounds. Water/sap would be squeezed out of the wood where I drove in a wedge. Because the wood was so wet, it was kinda stringy in the center and rarely separated when split, often it kept the wedges tight inside until I flipped the round over on its other end and whacked it with the maul a few times. I got almost a short bed F-150 load. I'll split it further tomorrow and put it in the stacks for 2012-2013.
I should have done this yesterday when the high was in the 60s. It was 85 when I was out there today. 85 in Februrary?? That's just crazy. Two weeks ago the highs were in the 20s!
Here's a picture of the mother trunk:
Just a small sample of some of the splits.
Loaded up for the trip home. About 12 miles away.
I know this tree has been down since a summer storm. It was still unbelievably wet. The rounds were so heavy I had to split them into quarters to lift them into the truck and it was still a strain. Each quarter of a round weighed close to 75 pounds, I'll bet. My 10 pound maul and my Fiskar's mostly bounced off the wood. I used two metal splitting wedges and the back side of the maul to split most of the rounds. Water/sap would be squeezed out of the wood where I drove in a wedge. Because the wood was so wet, it was kinda stringy in the center and rarely separated when split, often it kept the wedges tight inside until I flipped the round over on its other end and whacked it with the maul a few times. I got almost a short bed F-150 load. I'll split it further tomorrow and put it in the stacks for 2012-2013.
I should have done this yesterday when the high was in the 60s. It was 85 when I was out there today. 85 in Februrary?? That's just crazy. Two weeks ago the highs were in the 20s!
Here's a picture of the mother trunk:
Just a small sample of some of the splits.
Loaded up for the trip home. About 12 miles away.