Wood I.D.

[teekal]

Hey again guys. My Pops casually mentioned that he has a row of dead trees in his backyard that are mine if I want them. I am absolutely stoked about this, as I can drive the truck right in there and fall the trees onto the grass to cut them up.

I am thinking these are ash, but I'm also not great at distinguishing species yet:



Then my grandma said that they are expanding the retirement home that she's living in, and cutting down a whole bunch of trees to make room. I'm going to contact the groundskeeper tomorrow to see if I can cut it up and haul it away for them. Is this also ash? --Maybe none of it is ash and I just have ash goggles on, I don't know.



Thanks as always for any help!

 

[Wisneaky]

Ash

 

[Wood Duck]

I think there are Ash and Elm in that row of trees. The yard trees appear to be Ash.

 

[Applesister]

Yeah, it could be Ash.

 

[barmstrong2]

The leaf in the top pic looks like elm. Sawtooth edge.
The leaf in the bottom pic is ash. The bark on each is very similar.
Either way, I'd take it. Elm will need longer to dry.

 

[turn_n_burn]

Good Lord, I think I need to move to Manitoba. You're gonna be in the scrounging hall of fame now. The elm and ash are definitely my best guesses too. I would make the ash a priority, as it is one of the fastest hardwoods to season, and the smell is great. Give that elm 2 to 3 years to dry out, if not more,and it will not disappoint. It would seem that you have been doing your homework. My experience tells me that you might have found some rock elm, and it that's the case, get it. It's dense as heck, and is superior to all other elms for firewood, up there with white ash and maple. It generally has a slight sweet scent if it's really dry, but the "rock" designation means it will take quite a while to season. It's worth the wait.

For a "newcomer" you sure have a good nose for finding stuff. I respond to all these posts because I'm insanely jealous of all the stuff you find. I'm just waiting for you to tell me that you inherited a piece of land with 1000 white oaks that were all dead, seasoned, bucked up, and stacked in neat little rows, and you didn't have to pay a penny. I would not be surprised at all.

 

[teekal]

For a "newcomer" you sure have a good nose for finding stuff. I respond to all these posts because I'm insanely jealous of all the stuff you find. I'm just waiting for you to tell me that you inherited a piece of land with 1000 white oaks that were all dead, seasoned, bucked up, and stacked in neat little rows, and you didn't have to pay a penny. I would not be surprised at all.

Haha! A pleasure as always, Turn.

 

[husky345 vermont resolute]

ash

 

[Oldman47]

The leaf close up is no way ash. Ash has a compound leaf meaning that a single leaf stem has multiple leaflets on it, it is an odd number but the number varies with which ash you have but I have never seen one with less than 7 leaflets. On the other hand elm has single leaves that have a rough margin. I do see that in your pictures. .

 

[CountryBoy19]

The leaf close up is no way ash. Ash has a compound leaf meaning that a single leaf stem has multiple leaflets on it, it is an odd number but the number varies with which ash you have but I have never seen one with less than 7 leaflets. On the other hand elm has single leaves that have a rough margin. I do see that in your pictures. .

I was thinking the same thing... compound leaf with 3 leaflets with a sawtooth margin? That's not like any ash I'm familiar with...

 

[teekal]

So I went back there again today just to do some scouting for what I'm going to tackle this (Canadian) Thanksgiving weekend. I cut down a good sized tree, but unfortunately it's no good as it's all rotten inside. I'll just have to haul that one over to the burn pile.

I did have some luck with some smaller stuff that I dropped and checked out. I'm pretty sure it's ash and the moisture reader had it at 14% so it's good to go. This weekend I am going to get as much of that smaller stuff as possible to hopefully stock me right full for this winter.

Then once I feel good about the amount that I have for this season I'm going to tackle some of the bigger stuff that will need a year or two to season. My pops told me I could just drop some pallets right there in his back yard and store it there for now. I found this beauty which got a little too hot last fall when my brother-in-law was doing some burning out there. Not sure if it's possible to I.D. what type of tree it is (especially with this poor lighting), but it is nice and solid, and at around 25% so I'll stack it back there for a few years. It produced some really solid splits of nice wood.



My companion on this beautiful fall evening in the back 40. He didn't stick around for too long after I fired up the saw...

 

[Ram 1500 with an axe...]

Bark doesn't look like ash, but I have no idea, looking forward to the answer........

 

[teekal]

Bark doesn't look like ash, but I have no idea, looking forward to the answer........

Ya to be clear, it was not this tree that I figured to be ash, but rather the smaller standing dead tree that I cut that is not pictured. Whatever it is, it's ready to burn so I'm happy.

 

[teekal]

So someone gave me a tip that the trees at the retirement home had all been dropped. I called the building manager and he said take whatever I want. I went on Monday night and filled two pickup trucks full. Then I went after work both yesterday and today and got another truck full each day.

Here is the end result:



At the moment I am most concerned about finding a few more standing, dead ash trees to use this winter, but as soon as I feel confident with my supply for this burning season I am going to saw and split this stuff up to season for a couple of years.

 

[aansorge]

That last pile looks like mulberry.