Pignut down!

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Woody Stover

Minister of Fire
Dec 25, 2010
13,121
Southern IN
Heavy winds last week took down this Pignut on my BIL's place, about 1/4 mile away from our house. 20+ incher. Don't like to see these nice trees in the area taken down, but this one will be put to good use.

http://i1108.photobucket.com/albums/h407/2bnator/Hearth/Pignut14.jpg
http://i1108.photobucket.com/albums/h407/2bnator/Hearth/Pignut10.jpg
http://i1108.photobucket.com/albums/h407/2bnator/Hearth/Pignut.jpg
http://i1108.photobucket.com/albums/h407/2bnator/Hearth/008-2.jpg
http://i1108.photobucket.com/albums/h407/2bnator/Hearth/007-1.jpg

It fell on an abandoned house foundation. Check out the hearth. It has a rectangular hole in the center to clean out the ashes, which apparently could then be shoveled out from outside the house.
http://i1108.photobucket.com/albums/h407/2bnator/Hearth/Hearth.jpg

High winds a few weeks ago nailed this tower, about 1/2 mile from the house, which was rated to withstand 90 mph.
http://i1108.photobucket.com/albums/h407/2bnator/Hearth/001-8.jpg
 
We got those same winds last week (I'm near Terre Haute). A few mile south of my house there is a large grove of Black Locust trees ranging from 8 - 20". About 15 feet up every one of them was snapped off, probably 50 trees total. Just east of there oak tress were pulling up 30' diameter root balls and falling all over the place. They say it wasn't a tornado, but it sure did look like it.
 
I'm with you on seeing nice trees like that come down, but since it's down it might as well be used for a good cause!

That is interesting about the fireplace clean-out. Below are shots of one we built a few years ago at a cabin I'm building down in the swamp. We built it as closely to the rumford style as we could after lots of research. Look around that fireplace area and see if you see a very large stone that might have been the lintel rock. If you find one see if you can tell where the "breast" of the lintel had been chiseled a bit to round it off...this would be a sign that the builder knew about Count Rumford's building technique. With the clean-out I would say that at one time that was an upscale house. ;)

You can see the clean-out hole in the fireplace floor in this picture and the outside clean-out is temporarily blocked by those four red bricks stacked up...
http://userpages.troycable.net/~welchs/bg_v-4-fireplace-c0007.jpg

Here is the mostly finished product...
http://userpages.troycable.net/~welchs/bg_v-4-fireplace-i0019_r1.jpg
http://userpages.troycable.net/~welchs/zz1-diy-c0019.jpg
 
I have a bunch of giant pignuts back in our woods. Trunks are better than 20 inch diameter and go straight up probably at least 25-30 feet before the first branches appear. I won't ever cut them down unless they are storm damaged. I have had a couple of smaller ones come down in storms when we first moved out here. I cut 'em up and split them. Burned them about three years later. Last year there were half a dozen or so six inch rounds that I had not split for some reason. Try as I might, neither my 10 pound maul nor my Fisker's SS would make a dent in that wood. So, I just added them to my overnight burns on the coldest nights. They did great. But I'm out of hickory and all I have to burn around here are Pin Oak and Water Oak. Acres and acres of that counting my own woods and that of friends and neighbors who let me have downed trees.
 
Southern IN got beat up pretty good last week. 90+ mph straight winds all over the place.

It kind of fell apart in my neck at the last minute
 
mecreature said:
Southern IN got beat up pretty good last week. 90+ mph straight winds all over the place.

It kind of fell apart in my neck at the last minute

We just had a tornado outbreak wednesday, first time in my life my town has had one, theres so many trees down crews have been cutting for two days straight, Im going to have to find out where all the wood is going so I can get some.
 
Good for you getting the hickory Woody. Seems like a lot of folks are getting firewood compliments of Mother Nature's wind this spring.
 
weatherguy said:
Im going to have to find out where all the wood is going so I can get some.
I heard that the County was dumping at an old gas station, but when I went by there, nary a stick of wood to be seen. Bad lead, I guess... :long:

Backwoods Savage said:
Good for you getting the hickory Woody. Seems like a lot of folks are getting firewood compliments of Mother Nature's wind this spring.
It's on BIL's land so I'll cut it down to managable-sized pieces for him, and haul it out. I will keep a few big rounds for my trouble, though. :)
 
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