So the utility company is clearing trees around my neighborhood. Looks like they went to town on two of the lots next door. Guess what I'm doing today? (Aside from wishing I owned a truck and could lift massive logs single handedly)
I'm in Columbus too, and have an ash marked for take-down by AEP. Last time I talked to them they said they work on some kind of 4-year rotation so it could be a while before they take it down...but your post has me worried now! I want that firewood and was licking my chops with the free AEP tree work!
Is that some Black Locust I see....yellow chips from a fresh saw cut? And I think I see some Sycamore...the shaggy bark stuff.
The Sycamore may get pretty dry over the summer if you get it stacked in the wind soon, and don't split it real big.
In general, it is best if you can get the owner's permission. It is in the right of way but it is still their property. Kind of funny thing happened to me last year. One of our neighbors got trees cleared in the right of way, and my wife got her permission to get any wood we could. One day I finally got the use of a friend's pickup truck so I went to get the wood. Problem is, even though my wife had met the neighbor lady I never had. She came home while I was loading rounds into a truck she didn't recognize and came after me like a bear. Took me a few calm minutes to explain who I was and who my wife was and she was then nice as could be and said "take all you want." But I learned a valuable lesson about communicating...and even if I get permission like that from a neighbor I like to now also communicate when I will be there picking it up.
They also marked mine in the Fall of 2014 and it was specifically for the Ash removal program. I know that because they also had a hackberry that had been marked for removal since Fall of 2013 and we talked about that tree too which by then had some of the power lines embedded in some upper limbs. They did come out in summer 2014 to take down the hackberry, and we thought maybe they would take down the ash too since it was only 10 feet away. But nope..."Different crew that does that...". I can't complain too much, because I have gotten a lot of AEP-taken-down ash from neighbors the past two years.
It is simple. Any wood that the power company just has to cut along my property is still mine. I own to the center of the road, not just to my side of the right of way. The way property ownership is defined in different parts of the country varies a lot but a right of way is just that, it is not ownership. When I lived in SoCal the utility right of ways ran through densely populated neighborhoods and the space under major power lines were actually used for things like nurseries by their owners, not by the power company. She would have gotten more than an a$$ chewing from me for stealing wood from my property.
I was gonna suggest going after the stuff up top, especially if there's more BL. Start stacking it now, for when you get a stove.
