Work Done 2023

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I don't like to split maple.
I haven't split a whole lot of Sugar; I don't get it too often. I have scored a good bit of Red, and it splits pretty easy. If it was a yard guard, though, all bets are off--Even Red can get twisty and tough.
I didn't yet try to split any of these slabs that I rip-cut, but I don't imagine they'll be too tough..we'll see next time I go over there to finish up. Looks like rain mañana, though.
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Another day at the pine pile, 3711 is what I started with and the last wo pictures are the rounds I bucked up today and what's left.

Once I s/s this, our softwood area will be full, 12 face cord. I ended up coming back to the house when the winds picked up and some dead pine branches were coming down.

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Yesterday I got the third quad load of the Big Red Elm for the guy that gave the tree to me, who's splitting it for his SIL. That's about a half cord or so, and there's another couple loads still down there that'll go to my SILs' stacks. It'll go on the front since it's already dry.
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I split more of the pine I bucked up, I put 2 face cord up last fall and 10 this spring for a total of 12.

I have a few pictures in there that I took the weed eater to, my plan is getting some of the pine c/s so next spring it won't be all softwood.

Picture 3740 is the first load, 3741 is the stack finished after three loads, 3743 & 44 is the first area I'll clean up, 3745 is the second area I plan on c/s some if not all and the last two are the area I've been c/s from with some rounds still left.

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I did some bucking up of one maple and split all the rounds from the two maples that came down over the winter, most of what I split 3761 is still standing.

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I did some bucking up of one maple and split all the rounds from the two maples that came down over the winter, most of what I split 3761 is still standing.

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Hmmm, looks like that could have had some ants in it. But I haven't cut all that much hard Maple, maybe ants are less attracted to it? Seems like they would like it just fine, though..
I recall them in soft Maple I've cut a few times..
 
I didn't remember to get a pic of the full trailer, but I hauled a Silver Maple score out to Vista guy's house. I also picked him up a couple of steel wedges to use with the Wood Grenade wedge he got earlier. With the new wedges, he's immediately upped his splitting game to a level he needs, since he doesn't have a power splitter.
Here's what I brought him, on the right in second pic, plus some other stuff he scrounged before.
Third pic is a potential White Ash score. I left the guy a note...

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Hmmm, looks like that could have had some ants in it. But I haven't cut all that much hard Maple, maybe ants are less attracted to it? Seems like they would like it just fine, though..
I recall them in soft Maple I've cut a few times..
That tree has been rotting for years at the base and the winter snows finally took it, no carpenter ants but it did have some smaller ants in a few rounds closer to the base but after splitting it and sitting for a night they were gone today.
 
I didn't remember to get a pic of the full trailer, but I hauled a Silver Maple score out to Vista guy's house. I also picked him up a couple of steel wedges to use with the Wood Grenade wedge he got earlier. With the new wedges, he's immediately upped his splitting game to a level he needs, since he doesn't have a power splitter.
Here's what I brought him, on the right in second pic, plus some other stuff he scrounged before.
Third pic is a potential White Ash score. I left the guy a note...

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Nice, especially the potential of that ash.
 
I hauled all the wood I split yesterday up the hill and out, I did get one load stacked, I'll finish the face cord stack out with some soft maple rounds or ironwood rounds we have.

Picture 3762 is the last load from the first area I split yesterday, 3764 is the maple from the last area I split more maple yesterday, 3763 & 65 are pictures of certain areas on our lot and 3766 is the face cord almost finished.

In behind the face cord stack are almost four face cord that is four or five years seasoned, both will get moved so that whole area will be filled this year so all twelve face cord in that area will be seasoned together.

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A rough wood day for me on my day off. I have 4 sources I am getting wood from right now - wood species involved - s. elm, fruit wood, black locust, and russian olive. I went to 3 of the sources. At the first one (fruit wood), I got denied because the homeowner had an interview via skype and didn't want a loud chainsaw in the background - another day.

The next stop was some elm stumps in a trailer park - kind of tough cutting, with gravel & dirt (and tricky, too). I got a few stumps cut. The big stumps were left. I thought I had an 84-link chain with me - but it was a 72-link chain. I didn't even try the big stumps with a 20-inch bar. I loaded up the 7 rounds of elm. I go to the back of the property to process some smaller elm - and someone has put in a big garden. Now, I can't get to the dead trees. I'm not rolling the rounds 200 feet.

The 3rd stop was a brush/tree pile where a new bank is going in. Yesterday, the excavators said 'help yourself'. The pile has Russian Olive in it, but the pile is tall and tightly stacked - they did too good a job. Maddening, I could see several nice trees in the stack. I managed to get about 20 decent rounds out of the mess, but it was a real pain in the a**. Enough, I loaded my gear and headed home. ;em
 
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A rough wood day for me on my day off.
That's the way it goes sometimes. 😑
The potential Ash score, where I left a note (last pic in post #485,) guy called and said somebody already wanted some wood. But he didn't know how much he'd take, and said he'd call me if there was still some left. On the plus side, he said there was another Ash close to the house that was making him nervous, and he'd call me first when they took that one down. Hope springs eternal! 👍
I texted Vista guy yesterday asking what he was up to. After he didn't reply for a while, I said "Well, maybe they called him into work; I'll go out there and try to shape up his stacks a bit, to take advantage of space not being used."
When I arrived, he'd already started rearranging those, and had also stacked the Silver Maple that we had split previously. It's not in this pic, but is on a plastic pallet on the other side of the yard, maybe a half cord. He'll fill in the remaining gap you see there, with some splits that are fatter at one end, to radius around the corner.
So here's the before (from #485) and after pics; We did some dameege yesterday. 💪 Slow going though, as twisty as some of that yard tree was. The wedges I picked up for him came in handy. He's got a Fiskars ax and an 8# maul. He liked my 6# Fiskars IsoCore maul, so he's got one of those coming to fill the gap in his tool lineup.

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A rough wood day for me on my day off. I have 4 sources I am getting wood from right now - wood species involved - s. elm, fruit wood, black locust, and russian olive. I went to 3 of the sources. At the first one (fruit wood), I got denied because the homeowner had an interview via skype and didn't want a loud chainsaw in the background - another day.

The next stop was some elm stumps in a trailer park - kind of tough cutting, with gravel & dirt (and tricky, too). I got a few stumps cut. The big stumps were left. I thought I had an 84-link chain with me - but it was a 72-link chain. I didn't even try the big stumps with a 20-inch bar. I loaded up the 7 rounds of elm. I go to the back of the property to process some smaller elm - and someone has put in a big garden. Now, I can't get to the dead trees. I'm not rolling the rounds 200 feet.

The 3rd stop was a brush/tree pile where a new bank is going in. Yesterday, the excavators said 'help yourself'. The pile has Russian Olive in it, but the pile is tall and tightly stacked - they did too good a job. Maddening, I could see several nice trees in the stack. I managed to get about 20 decent rounds out of the mess, but it was a real pain in the a**. Enough, I loaded my gear and headed home. ;em
Better days will be heading at ya. 🤞
 
Today I moved and stacked what was a full two face cord of ash (until mother nature brought back the cold weather) to the area we'll be burning from this coming heating season. Two years back I saved out five face cord for a neighbor who got stiffed by their firewood delivery guy but they made it through the winter with what they had.

I saved that five face cord out for the same neighbor for this coming year but they finally received their firewood delivery from a new business before last winter hit so they won't need it. I've moved what was a full three face cord with two more left and then we'll have room for more firewood in that area. I should start moving the last two face cord tomorrow or Tuesday.

We use to burn ten or twelve face cord a year out of an area so come spring time that area would get filled so it seasoned together, we're back to doing that.
 
Finally got up to the cabin this weekend to open it up for the summer. Nice and peaceful...
Did some work on the bathroom and patching on the ceiling and mowed the yard.
Came home Sunday and starting bucking up the latest hoard.
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I started busting up the 'shroomy White Oak. This is an experiment to see how badly I can neglect a grab, and still get something out of it. 😆 Now, if I can't split stuff right away, I at least crack the rounds in half. And I cover it.
I had this stuff in rounds, on pallets, uncovered, for 3-4 years. Then I covered it with sheet metal for a couple years.
The heartwood is still decent, I think; You can see some white fungus spots but it seems heavy, even though it's bone-dry. I'll see when I burn some, just how much BTU it may have lost.
Even some of the white sapwood isn't too bad, but most of it I've had to remove..too punked. This is way more work, and for less wood, than just splitting when it's in good shape.
Here's a pic from before it was covered:

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I got a heaped quad load, not pictured, plus the load in this pic, and I have this yet to split.

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You can still see some grain in this thin layer of white sapwood, and it's still pretty hard and passes the 'thumbnail test.'

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Finally got up to the cabin this weekend to open it up for the summer. Nice and peaceful...
Did some work on the bathroom and patching on the ceiling and mowed the yard.
Came home Sunday and starting bucking up the latest hoard.
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I see a good deal of White Ash in there, but what else?
 
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The work isn't done yet but since we're going with the amount of pellets we bought about a year ago, we won't be buying a ton for the first time since we bought the pellet stove.

The work I'll be starting on is another two face cord of pine starting with the pine in the attached picture, it has been in log form since 2018 so it should be ready by the spring of 2024 if not before.

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I started back up on what's left of the pine in this pile, I bucked up a bunch of rounds and then split & stacked two loads.

I usually have three face cord of hardwood stacked here but I'll put three face of pine in there by the end of the second week of June, hopefully it's ready for spring.

I usually "wood" give pine a full year but these logs were felled in 2018.

Picture 3767 is what I started with, 3769 is when I finished bucking up some logs.

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