Work Done 2025

[thewoodlands]

The only firewood work I've done is put in a neighbor's firewood for them this week. Today was the start of fall cleanup inside the house, more will be done soon.

 

[thewoodlands]

No firewood work has been getting done but we did do a fall cleaning of the house, walls, baseboards, behind the fridge, windows, dusting and vacuuming , floors and the porch. I was on a ladder while cleaning the walls and windows so the knees & my feet are barking at me.

I also raked up about 14 loads of leaves with some pine needles all week long from the backyard.

 

[all night moe]

Not much firewood work done here, either. Beginning of the week, I brought home a smallish load of white oak. Two bigger dia of about 12-14'' and 7-8' long pieces. Then a bunch of dead limb wood. again all about 8' long and averaged to 5'' dia. I kept the limb wood separate as I split and piled them up. Some of the bark was gone on the limbs and, It should be thoroughly dry Feb. That's with the aid of my heated and well circulated basement at full performance.

 

[GG Woody]

Had a forest fire behind the house last month, the fire crew widened what we call Phazer trail (Yamaha). All sorts of little trees buzzed and tossed to the side. I just can't unsee them and let them be...


I'll probably do a few less next load, was a touch sketchy in one spot on the way home. Nice to have some Larch/Tamarack although I find it almost identical to Douglas Fir.

 

[thewoodlands]

The next two mornings we might have frost so I made a shoulder season fire earlier, I'm heading down so I can start another.

 

[all night moe]

No firewood work done last 2 days. Yesterday's site the HO hept the wood....dang it. Was black locust and ash.
Today's job was with a different company. He keeps the wood himself. Sometimes I get lucky with a load of dead limbs from him. Couple years back I scored standing dead sugar maple. I got the top of the tree and he kept the base. The limbs were ready burn, crispy dry. I wish I could get a score like that now.

 

[thewoodlands]

I grabbed the weed eater and then cleared an area that was full of Golden Rod. I raked that up and dumped it in an area I'm filling up a drop off. I ended up mowing it but before that, I raked it up good since there were some rocks in the area. I have more to do and when that is done, I'll put the saws in the back of the side by side.

 

[thewoodlands]

I finally went up in the woods today, the wife had told me on her walk yesterday there was a downed tree across the trail (pictures 1 & 2) so I took care of that.

Once I cleared more trails of branches, I saw an old Maple had come down. Today because of some bugs that were all over me, I called it a day after cutting up some limb wood. I didn't get an after picture but the biggest part of the tree is still up there but off the ground, there isn't much good wood left but I'm thinking maybe 6 or 7 rounds.

 

[thewoodlands]

I had some pine in the woods I bucked up last year (I got lazy) so I split it today. Picture 2045 is the rounds, 2046 is the crap I picked up before backing the splitter in, 2049 the splitter, 2051 is a damaged tree that will come down, 2053 is a dead pine that hopefully I'll get before winter, 2056 is what's left of the pine I split today, 2057 is another damaged tree and 2059 is the trunk of a damaged Maple.

Some of the pictures were edited because they were a bit dark.

 

[all night moe]

Over the past few days I got a lot of little tasks done and, of course, spent an hour or better here and there swinging the Fiskaris. Possibly a little over a 1/3 cord split up. Small tasks include a bit of weed wacking, trimmed an apple tree a little, and trimmed other branches to make a bit more room in my messed-up woodyard. The apple tree got some lower branches removed so I could drive my truck around it. Poor thing should really come down. I've got 8 more but I don't have the heart to take her out yet. Stands defiant with all its cavities while still bearing fruit. She's an old girl.

The nephew, helped me move my biggest pile of splits out of the driveway. Next step is to move the rounds to the opposite side. Getting the driveway opened up for the 2025 Splitter Fest. I hope I can get more wood before then. I can't find anyone with a truck load of ash. All said and done, I have about half of what I had last season.

This morning I had an almost 2 hour round trip. Met my buddy at his garage and loaded my pickup with 5 sections of pipe scaffold and about seven 8' planks. He followed me home and we both set up 4 stories of it alongside my chimney. Time to rebuild a few top courses of brick and some repointing of the rest...to roof level.

I'll leave the scaffold up untill the new SS liner is also installed. I plan on doing the prep work for my local chimney guy. I'm going to start a thread on this for, I have questions....

 

[MRD1985]

I had some pine in the woods I bucked up last year (I got lazy) so I split it today. Picture 2045 is the rounds, 2046 is the crap I picked up before backing the splitter in, 2049 the splitter, 2051 is a damaged tree that will come down, 2053 is a dead pine that hopefully I'll get before winter, 2056 is what's left of the pine I split today, 2057 is another damaged tree and 2059 is the trunk of a damaged Maple.

Some of the pictures were edited because they were a bit dark.

Still love that property of yours! Beautiful piece of gods country

 

[all night moe]

gods country

Indeed. Was born up there. Loved visiting my grandparents. I'll always have a soft spot for the area.

 

[thewoodlands]

Still love that property of yours! Beautiful piece of gods country

Thanks MRD1985, it has been a while since I've been up in the woods, can't believe I've waited this long. I've said this before, we were very lucky when we were offered the property.

Picture 2062 was the first load out, 2064 the second load out, 2066 was the third load, 2063 is the trail up, 2065 is after I finished what will be the middle row and part of the first row and 2067 is four face cord of shoulder season wood finished. I have the back row to finish, that will give me 6 face cord of shoulder season wood for next year.

 

[Dieselhead]

I could have had a fire today, it was 62 in the house this morning on arrival home from work. No sun today just all rain. It would have been a perfect day to throw in about 5-8 splits of spruce I have lots of for this season. I have not swept or cleaned out my firebox from last season and have no wood close to the house yet. Maybe tomorrow gents, time to get my butt in gear…

 

[NickW]

Got irritated with everything that's been going poorly lately so I just finished cleaning the flue and glass. Not sure yet when I will fire it up.

Most of my time for the last 5-6 weeks has been spent demo-ing the first section of boardwalk, re-engineering, getting & prepping materials, and finally starting to build the new boardwalk.


Skidloader started giving me issues a few weeks ago and after several rounds of diagnostics decided it was probably the control valve pressure switch. That was verified this morning at the shop. They think they will be able to deal with it fairly reasonably... When I got there I saw the exhaust was falling off my truck. Ratchet straps to the rescue... Yesterday the ATV died and the chop saw stand fell apart. Stand is fixed, ATV is not.

On the plus side, my structure for the pole shed has been moved up in the schedule. Was told tentatively end of October or early November pending a schedule meeting happening today. Still have 2 piles of fill to move (hopefully with the skidloader and NOT by hand) and decking boards spread all over the slab seasoning so top and bottom can be sealed before installation. Nights are getting down to the bottom end of sealer curing temperature so I have run some heaters when necessary in the garage.

 

[NickW]

ATV randomly decided to run today.... Glad I checked before tearing into it 😁. Maybe the carb cleaner I blasted in it yesterday did the job, or maybe it was just flooded again. It's very old and beat up, but serves it's purpose. It randomly floods and won't run again until the next day sometimes, but that didn't seem to be the issue this time. Oh well, it's running again for now...

 

[Dieselhead]

Ok got down to it, weather held off. Up on the roof the chimney didn’t look terrible. I did a mid season cheater sweep (soot eater bottom up sweep) mid season last year. I can always tell when things are getting gunky when the draft starts to suffer on a hot reload.
Today I did a top down, cleaned the cap, got the outside of the pipe all spiffed up with oven cleaner etc. no after pic I was getting buzzed by a bee and wanted to get down lol…also cleaned the gutters and used some roof cleaner on a few spots I was starting to get that black staining asphalt shingles are good for.

Before cleaning. Cat stoves gunk up the top a lot with shiny creo. This is the last couple feet of a 25’ flue.

A view from the bottom up after sweep. It never comes perfectly clean but that film is paper thin.

Back side of the cat

Inside the cat/bypass chamber

Clean firebox

Touched up some paint on the connector pipe

Touched up some paint on the ash drawer I never use

Cat temp probe looks bad I’m going to buy a new one

Here’s my ash bucket and ash shovel I made

 

[GG Woody]

Skidloader started giving me issues a few weeks ago and after several rounds of diagnostics decided it was probably the control valve pressure switch. That was verified this morning at the shop. They think they will be able to deal with it fairly reasonably... When I got there I saw the exhaust was falling off my truck. Ratchet straps to the rescue... Yesterday the ATV died and the chop saw stand fell apart. Stand is fixed, ATV is not.

Yep... sounds familiar... I don't usually get it that bad but when stuff starts going bad it's usually not just one thing for me either! I've got a bunch of 20/30/40 year old stuff, great stuff when it's running well... I also have a few newer things with fuel injection and electric start. They might be onto something with some of this high tech stuff!
It's coming into old snowmobile and old snowblower season, I better be ready for the wrenching challenge...

 

[shortys7777]

Took the blower fan off yesterday and gave it a good cleaning with the air compressor. Today a quick soot eater cleaning from up top. Any day now. My oldest son is begging for it.

 

[Dieselhead]

Took the blower fan off yesterday and gave it a good cleaning with the air compressor. Today a quick soot eater cleaning from up top. Any day now. My oldest son is begging for it.

Tomorrow afternoon looks like the day for me. High of 52 tomorrow with 41 overnight is forecast. Usually this time of year when the sun is getting lower the house won’t heat up too much on its own, so a half load of shoulder season soft wood will do the trick.

 

[NickW]

Yeah, tonight might be the night for me. High of 57 and sunny later, but the shorter afternoon sun isn't helping like it was a few weeks ago. The walls are definitely cooling off.

Now trying to find the "happy temperature" will probably be an issue. Furnace is set at 66, which is cool sitting around watching the Brewers get smoked by the Dodgers but we are hot in bed with a sheet and a light blanket...🙄. Being old sucks!

 

[Whitenuckler]

Wood Piles in PEI
Taken from the highway driving by at 80kmph. They have a firewood company.

 

[Murray01]

Wood Piles in PEI
Taken from the highway driving by at 80kmph. They have a firewood company.

I didn’t think PEI had that much timber on the entire island!

 

[Whitenuckler]

I didn’t think PEI had that much timber on the entire island!

I'm not from here, so I was surprised also, and had my co-pilot take the picture on the way home from St Peter's Bay. So much forest must have been cleared back in the settlement days, that you see lots of planting fields usually. The potato trucks are everywhere now for the harvest. As we drove around the area, and I was able to see all the fall colors, I was really impressed with the hardwood forests. To be honest, I have never seen someone make such big piles of hardwood. I'm not even sure if the picture is showing all he has drying out.
I was curious so I spooked him out on google map

 

[Murray01]

Wow