Stupid Elm

[mcollect]

I love to see dying elms, as the next spring the morels will be there. For the fire wood splitting is a pain.

 

[seeyal8r]

I find that people who say they don't have much trouble with stringy wood is people who tend to leave certain parts of the tree behind and only bring home the nice straight parts. I've seen the pickups going down the road with a nice stack of rounds and every piece is perfectly round and neat. I ask myself somewhere there is half a tree still there they didn't take. Every tree especially the big ones will have places that are a challenge to split not matter what.

I don't have a problem with stringy wood . . . and I take as much as I can . . . which is why my woodstacks are usually pretty ugly looking . . . but of course, as mentioned earlier . . . I have a hydraulic splitter . . . which sometimes makes the stringy wood even more ugly looking than normal . . . I don't care though . . . I'm not looking to win a beauty contest, I'm looking to heat my house on the cheap and even the ugly wood burns great.

I hear ya.Whether cutting on parents property,elsewhere as a scrounge or the occasional paid job,I take everything I can bring home,from 1 1/2" on up to whatever I can split or rip in half with the saw.Dont care what it looks like either,just as long as its sound & not rotten.This winter's been quite mild so far,just this week finally am burning the last of the ugly pieces,scraps from milling etc &,3-5" deadfall branches/saplings.

For me, and this always happens, I'll start cutting up a tree cutting everything from 1 1/2" and up and by the time I'm finished I'm cutting stuff from 3" and up. I always have good intentions to gather everything but after a couple hours of labor i'm less selective.