A Wild and Windy Day For Cutting Firewood!

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quads

Minister of Fire
Hearth Supporter
Nov 19, 2005
2,744
Central Sands, Wisconsin
We're under a wind advisory and the wind blew pretty hard all night. The oaks that died from oak wilt eventually fall when the roots rot off. After a wind like this, there are usually some that have come down. That's when I turn them into firewood. Until then, the woodpeckers and other little critters enjoy them.

The wind was still strong this morning, but not too serious. I decided to go out and cut up a little load and haul it back here to the museum. But first I wanted to check on the neighbor's cabin.

On the way to the cabin, there was one small oak blocking the trail. I cut that up and split it and it gave me about half a load in my little ATV trailer. When I finally got to the cabin, a large oak had fallen about 100 feet from it. I decided I would cut that up and split it for the neighbor. But first, I would check the rest of the trails and finish filling my trailer.

I found another oak blocking a trail. I cut and split that and there was about a load and a half in it. I finished filling my trailer and stacked the other load in the woods. I'll haul it up someday.

So, back to the cabin to cut the large oak there. When I get there, the wind has picked up a lot. Stronger than it has been all night and all morning so far. I need to carry the saw the 100 feet or so to the tree, because the neighbor has a food plot for the deer between the cabin and where the tree fell. I don't want to trample it all down with my ATV and trailer. So I park in front of the cabin, reach for my saw, and CRAAAACK! CRAAAASH! Another large dead oak right next to the one I would have been cutting snaps off two feet above the ground.

Uh, I think I will cut the trees for the neighbor tomorrow! I jump back on the ATV and all the way home the wind is really howling. I'm riding along looking at the big oaks overhead swaying and twisting just like wheat in the field. It made me a little bit nervous. The wind was supposed to starting dieing down this afternoon, not get stronger. I'll bet tomorrow I find more trees toppled.
 
Glad you are safe. I love it when nature helps with thinning selection.
 
we had the same here yesterday and today. I'm off to see if anything fell in my neighborhood.
 
You sent the wind this way huh? It isn't as bad as expected so far but they say all night it should blow.

quads, this is the sort of day we like to stay out of the woods. These winds are widow makers.
 
It kind of caught me off guard. It wasn't too bad when I first went out there and then it very quickly turned ugly. I beat a hasty retreat! I don't like to be in the woods when the trees are tipping over.

Didn't have my camera today because it looked like rain, or I could have gotten some shots of the trees all bent over. Spooky.
 
Windy all over! So windy here that a piece of siding blew off my house! Will try and fix that tomorrow, also lost at least 2 trees that I can see from the house! I will have to take a drive tomorrow and see what else is down for the taking.
 
It was relatively windy here today as a front passed through, but nothing strong enough to bring down oaks, alive or dead. However, the front did bring with it our first real taste of autumn weather. I love it! I spend about 9 months a year waiting for this weather. The wind is also good for the wood piles. :coolgrin:
 
Pagey said:
The wind is also good for the wood piles. :coolgrin:
Not when it's combined with rain like what we got. Lots of leaves and branches in my yard but no trees down.
 
LLigetfa said:
Pagey said:
The wind is also good for the wood piles. :coolgrin:
Not when it's combined with rain like what we got. Lots of leaves and branches in my yard but no trees down.

We ended up with someone around 10" for the month of September (should be dry the last 2 days). I'm sure anything uncovered partook in the great deluge. I was referring to the stacks covered by the roof of my shed, really. I'm sure the ends of the front-facing 2 face cords got wet, but the rest should be doing relatively well in the wind.
 
Up until yesterday, we only had a 1/4 inch of rain all of September. And then only got .3 more as it is.

Still breezy this morning, but calm compared to what it was. Cows are milked and as soon as I finish laundry I'm heading out to make more firewood.
 
Thanks for the story. Sounds like a great place to live.
 
OK, I got pictures.

Here's tree #1 in the foreground. Tree # 2 is hard to see in the background of this picture, back in the brush, where the branches of tree #1 are pointing:
IMG_4396.jpg


Here are the top branches of tree #1 on the left and tree #2 on the right, the one that broke off just as I was going to cut tree #1. It was a little too close for comfort, even though I was still 100 feet away:
IMG_4398.jpg


Cut, split, and piled. It was a solid three hours of work. I didn't stack it since I did it for the neighbor and I don't know what he will want to do with this wood. I already have his stacks filled up. He will either make another stack or sometimes he gives it away:
IMG_4404.jpg
 
quads - you bang out a pretty good pile of wood in 3 hours..
 
heppm01 said:
If you'd use a Fiskars your splits would come out sized more evenly. ;-)
Variety is the spice of life! Applies to the size of splits too, doesn't it? Ha ha!

Me like um big club. Ugh ugh. Want um no Fiskees.
 
Ratman said:
Nice job quads.
There are some all-nighters there too!
Thank you!

I intentionally left some of them a little larger than what I like for my stove (although my stove isn't very fussy and will burn just about anything that fits in the 7 cubic feet firebox!). The neighbor has a trash burner/box stove and it's not too easy to control the fire (with all the cracks and crevices the draft control is only a suggestion!). If he fills it up with small splits, it starts jumping up and down off the floor and the fire is done in a couple hours. If he puts one or two larger splits in it, accompanied by some smaller splits, then the fire is just about right.

Plus, he has his own splitting club and can make the big ones smaller himself if he wants to. That's also what I do if I come across one of them in my stacks that I didn't split small enough. As I'm bringing it in the house, I'll hit it with the club again and make it a little smaller. Most splits I make roughly fist size, give or take.
 
3 hours? crap, now you got me feeling like a wuss. what am I doing wrong?!?!?!?

I guess it would be nice to drop buck and split all in one location. I usually drop and half-buck, then stack it all, load up the trailer, transport, unload the trailer, finish bucking, stack, then split at my leisure, then cart the splits to my wood-pile. I think that pile you have there would take me about a month to get into my woodpile, lol.
 
Danno77 said:
3 hours? crap, now you got me feeling like a wuss. what am I doing wrong?!?!?!?

I guess it would be nice to drop buck and split all in one location. I usually drop and half-buck, then stack it all, load up the trailer, transport, unload the trailer, finish bucking, stack, then split at my leisure, then cart the splits to my wood-pile. I think that pile you have there would take me about a month to get into my woodpile, lol.
Ha ha! It's all in how many times you handle the firewood. (I'm cutting more today, am in between loads right now, had time to stop quick for a sandwich and type on here, and I'll still get a face cord done today and milk the cows...twice!)

I used to help a guy that was awful at handling the firewood too many times, which probably is the main reason why I don't do it that way, it used to drive me nuts! We'd go out and cut some trees down. Then we'd come back the next day or so and cut the trees up. Then we'd pile the rounds near where we cut each tree, separating the small stuff from the ones that need to be split. Then later we'd go back out with the hydraulic splitter and go around to all the piles that need to be split. As we split them we'd pile them in the woods with the other rounds that didn't need to be split. Then sometime later we'd go around with the trailer and haul all the stacks in the woods up by the house and stack it again there. Holy smokes! One tree took days! Not to mention every fall we'd build woodsheds over the stacks for him, then every spring we'd have to take the woodsheds down and haul any leftover wood out by the woods and stack it. He didn't want the sheds and wood left stacked by his house in summer. And we stored all the lumber for the woodsheds in another shed, dragging it out to build the sheds in the fall, and putting it all away in the spring after tearing the sheds down.

What I do is cut enough that will make a load in my trailer, tip the rounds up where they lay while I split them, at the same time loading them on the trailer, and haul them to the stack. Done. One trailer full (1/6 of a full cord) from start to finish takes 45 minutes on average.
 
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