I love green frozen wood (for hand splitting)

[peakbagger]

I have been hand splitting for years, usually 3 to 4 cords. My prior source of wood was red maple, white birch and occasional ash that is all usually easy to split. My new source has a lot of beech that has to go, some white birch and yellow birch. It also has maple and ash but its an old sugarbush that got hammered by an ice storm so I am trying to leave the healthy maples so they will regenerate and leaving the ash until the EAB gets closer. Given the number of beech and limited access I expect I could burn beech for the rest of my life and barely make a dent so in addition to cutting it, I expect I am going to be girdling acres of beech. I do like a mix of wood and expect when I see a white or yellow birch that is in the way or has significant defects that those trees are my secondary wood and if I see maple with a defect or a clump that needs thinning some maple will go in the mix.

I dropped several trees over the last few weeks and bucked them up in place on top of the snow pack. which saves hitting the ground with my chain tip. A lot of the stem rounds were over 12" with the beech getting up to 18". Normally beech and yellow birch can be gnarly stuff to hand split but I was out yesterday roaming the woods with my Fiskars after a cold night and most of the big rounds were popping with one swing. The wood is going to sit where it lies until spring and then I will run my Unimog up the woods road and load it up.

The big caveat with beech and yellow birch is they both take 2 years minimum to season. I am north of the last of the oaks so beech and yellow birch are both about as good as I can get for dense wood. The trade off is its heavy. I have been eyeing a hydraulic splitter but may just stick with the Fiskars as lugging large rounds through the woods to a splitter is a lot more work than splitting it in place and hauling the splits out.

 

[xman23]

I hook my splitter up to the ATV and take it out to the tree. I roll the large rounds and and can vertical split. Get that splitter sooner than later.

 

[zrock]

We did about 4 dumptruck loads the same way. Let it freeze and little to no effort.

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[Easy Livin’ 3000]

I have been hand splitting for years, usually 3 to 4 cords. My prior source of wood was red maple, white birch and occasional ash that is all usually easy to split. My new source has a lot of beech that has to go, some white birch and yellow birch. It also has maple and ash but its an old sugarbush that got hammered by an ice storm so I am trying to leave the healthy maples so they will regenerate and leaving the ash until the EAB gets closer. Given the number of beech and limited access I expect I could burn beech for the rest of my life and barely make a dent so in addition to cutting it, I expect I am going to be girdling acres of beech. I do like a mix of wood and expect when I see a white or yellow birch that is in the way or has significant defects that those trees are my secondary wood and if I see maple with a defect or a clump that needs thinning some maple will go in the mix.

I dropped several trees over the last few weeks and bucked them up in place on top of the snow pack. which saves hitting the ground with my chain tip. A lot of the stem rounds were over 12" with the beech getting up to 18". Normally beech and yellow birch can be gnarly stuff to hand split but I was out yesterday roaming the woods with my Fiskars after a cold night and most of the big rounds were popping with one swing. The wood is going to sit where it lies until spring and then I will run my Unimog up the woods road and load it up.

The big caveat with beech and yellow birch is they both take 2 years minimum to season. I am north of the last of the oaks so beech and yellow birch are both about as good as I can get for dense wood. The trade off is its heavy. I have been eyeing a hydraulic splitter but may just stick with the Fiskars as lugging large rounds through the woods to a splitter is a lot more work than splitting it in place and hauling the splits out.

Sounds like you have a great system. Less stinky gas smell and save money on a gym membership. I'd keep doing exactly what you are doing until I couldn't anymore.

 

[peakbagger]

Bringing the splitter in the woods with an ATV might be a nice option on flat land but the accessible part of the property (near a drivable woods road) is a south facing steep slope littered with rocks. Not so bad for growing trees and good for a future sugarbush but even if I could get a splitter in place getting it level to use it would be a bear. I try to cut on the upslope side of the road so that when I buck the rounds I can give them a kick and they usually end up on the road.

I do have some large relatively flat areas at the back of the lot but I have been unable to even get my Unimog up there due to a combination of a steep slope and wet road bed. I picked up a set of four Pewag truck tire chains that are one step away from skidder chains that hopefully will cure that problem this summer