First haul

[bsruther]

I've been pretty busy and haven't had a chance to split wood yet this year. This should be enough to keep me going for a while.
I'm hoping to get this much again in a week or two. There's no wood like free wood.

 

[jj3500]

Sooweet! How did you run across it? I'm looking at the smaller trailer. How did you move that real big piece? Did you have heavy equipment?

 

[Pagey]

Do I spy some locust?

 

[bsruther]

I have a good friend about half mile down the road that cleared a lot of his land and there are trees laying everywhere up there. We got up there early, while there was still plenty of shade. We cut a lot of logs into burning length back in March but, the rain kept us from getting to it. The stuff in the red trailer is pin oak that another guy up the road had left over from a tree that he sold. My friend picked that up on the way down here this morning. He has a 95 HP Kubota with a bucket.

Good eye Pagey, there's a bunch of locust in there.

 

[stee6043]

Sooweet! How did you run across it? I'm looking at the smaller trailer. How did you move that real big piece? Did you have heavy equipment?

You can haul that trailer with a 3/4 ton full size truck with no problem. I run a 20' flat bed with 2' side rails full to the brim with wood...

Nice load by the way! Lookin good....

 

[Hurricane]

Great score !

Nice trailer too, that load should keep you busy like you said, I do not mind being busy like that.

 

[Pagey]

Good eye Pagey, there's a bunch of locust in there.

There are several on my paternal grandmother's cattle farm. Very distinct bark. Locust has some great BTU content! Good stuff to have around. And the posts made from it seem to last forever and a day!

 

[jlow]

I'm jealous You definitely will be busy with all that Post a pic when you get it stacked.
It sure will be keeping you warm for a while.

 

[flyingcow]

Nice Haul.
-
But I'm really impressed just to see the sun. Been a long time. Almost had to put my sunglasses on just to look at the picture.

 

[bsruther]

Our spring was a little wetter than normal, not too bad though. I'll be glad to see it stop for a while though. I've had to cut the grass once a week since early April and it's getting old. There are Catalpa trees on the other side of the trailer and they are great shade trees. 86° today and 91° tomorrow so I need all the shade I can get.

 

[jdinspector]

Our spring was a little wetter than normal, not too bad though. I'll be glad to see it stop for a while though. I've had to cut the grass once a week since early April and it's getting old. There are Catalpa trees on the other side of the trailer and they are great shade trees. 86° today and 91° tomorrow so I need all the shade I can get.

I noticed that your Catalpas don't have any blooms on them. Did they already bloom and the white blooms fell off? Up here (chicago) my HUGE Catalpa is blooming this week. When I moved in 15 years ago, I thought it was a dead/dying tree, as the thing didn't bloom until the 4th week of June! All of our other flowering trees bloom about a month (or more) earlier. Every year, it's like clockwork- the tree blooms in late June. Really pretty tree. I'll take a pix tomorrow.

 

[rdust]

I noticed that your Catalpas don't have any blooms on them. Did they already bloom and the white blooms fell off? Up here (chicago) my HUGE Catalpa is blooming this week. When I moved in 15 years ago, I thought it was a dead/dying tree, as the thing didn't bloom until the 4th week of June! All of our other flowering trees bloom about a month (or more) earlier. Every year, it's like clockwork- the tree blooms in late June. Really pretty tree. I'll take a pix tomorrow.

LOL! I have one in the yard and the first year I was in this house I thought the same thing! My wife talked me into waiting to cut it down, which was a good thing. I'm in Michigan and mine still hasn't bloomed. I seen one about 20 miles south of me on the way home from work today in full bloom so I expect mine to bloom any day now.

 

[jdinspector]

Sorry for the hijacked thread....

Funny. Beautiful trees, but they make only so-so firewood. We'll keep ours for now, but it's so big that I don't think it has much life left. Several people who are knowledgeable tree people have told me that it's the largest Catalpa they've seen around here. I'll bet it's 40 inches across at chest height.

If you rake leaves, I'll bet you curse it in late November when there are still some leaves on it and those big seed pods haven't let go. Ughhh. I've raked the last leaves during the first week of December many times!

 

[bsruther]

We have a lot of Catalpas. Ours finished blooming about two weeks ago. I agree that they're not the best firewood but, they are definitely beautiful trees. We have some that flower and some that don't. I can't think of a tree that has a nicer smelling flower. The ones that don't flower get the cigars on them so I think they might be male and female. Soon the Catalpa worms will attack them and nearly strip them clean of leaves. I try to get as many of the worms as I can and freeze them, since they make some of the best fish bait.

 

[bsruther]

The Catalpas are on the edge of the woods so I don't need to rake their leaves. I curse the Pin Oaks all winter long though.

 

[jdinspector]

Here are some pix of our Catalpa. I measured the tree and it is 51" diameter at chest height! Huge Tree.

 

[bsruther]

How to split wood on a HOT summer day.

It took about 150' of extension cord.
The added bonus of the fan is that it keeps bugs off me too.
All I need now is a couple homebrews.

 

[SolarAndWood]

No AC?

 

[LLigetfa]

How to split wood on a HOT summer day...

You should rig a swamp cooler on it.

 

[bsruther]

How to split wood on a HOT summer day...

You should rig a swamp cooler on it.

Hey, that's an idea.

Actually it does a pretty good job by itself. It puts out like gale force wind.
Only problem today was that we kept getting 5 minutes cloudbursts and it felt the way it does when rain hits you on a motorcycle...figures.