Anybody else here notice people eyeing up your woodpile?

[BillNole]

What really amazes me is people think I'm psychotic for having so much wood. In reality it is just over two years worth. Not nearly what I would like to have stacked up. Can you imagine their response to 8 years worth?
They think I have a problem but I call it being responsible!

I'm probably a relative newcomer to cutting my own as I've been at it for only about 4 years now. I started regularly burning a dozen years or so ago when my FIL started insisting on us loading the back of the Suburban with wood anytime we visited them at their retirement cabin in the North Woods of WI. It started as an armload and grew over the years to a trailer load and even him bringing his trailer down when they visited. I didn't feel bad about a few armloads when it first started and it made him feel good to do it, but as it grew to be more, I got a little uncomfortable and decided to buy a better saw and set out on my own.

What fun! I had no idea what I was missing out by not getting it myself instead! Good exercise in the great outdoors, instead of a sparkly gym. Have met some really nice people along the way (and a few not so nice...) And I have the pleasure of having done it all myself, instead of having it handed to me, even though he misses the opportunity to continue his kind gesture.

I too noticed the same phenomenon as you indicate Bushman. My first Spring of gathering, I put in a little under 3 cords (128 cu ft. each). I had several neighbors and friends that visited ask me if we were preparing for the end of the world. lol I now go into winter with a little over 4 cords and use 2-3, depending on the season. I used it all up last year except for about a cord, as I had a line on about 8 cords of beautiful huge elm to get into, (my favorite wood to process and burn!) with the owner being in no hurry and letting me come and go and take or leave whatever I wanted and whenever. He even bought a Bobcat home from work to help get the logs (all at least 8' long by between 30" - 40" across!) pushed into place and stacked up so they'd be easy to get to and cut off of when I go back this Spring! He and his brother dropped the trees and limbed most of it and burned it all off. What a deal for me!

Yeah, I'm nuts. Nuts for enjoying hard work and wanting to provide heat and a pleasant experience of falling asleep by the fire. (Everyoyne in the house delights in laying in front of the open fireplace and falling asleep while reading or watching TV. The trick is getting that spot!) Not to mention the comfort of knowing that if we ever experience any sort of power outage during the depth of a blizzard or extreme cold spell (Polar Vortex anyone?), we'll be fine with the gas stove in the basement keeping the pipes from freezing and the fireplace on the main floor keeping us from freezing!

Nertz to being nuts!

 

[philoshop]

The whole video surveillance/ beware of dog sign can be better than nothing at all.
As mentioned earlier, having good neighbors is even better.
The first time my Dad showed up to drop off some wood from my brother's place when I wasn't here he had to convince a couple of neighbors that he was dropping off and not picking up. Everybody knows him now. Nobody's what I would consider nosy, we just watch out for each other.

 

[TFPace]

This little story may be a little off topic but it addresses honesty. We have owned a campground and operated a campground for 36 years. Our camp wood system has always been sold on the honor system. I have a rack the you fill up and a steel box bolted to a nearby building. I have no idea the thousands of dollars that we've lost to people not paying for their wood. I have come to understand the entitled mentality of folks. They think the price one pays for a service should include this or that, etc.

Stealing from someones wood pile goes the same way. The guy thinks nothing of the hard work that went into cutting, splitting and stacking.
I have yet to buy a closed circuit camera system. They are cheap enough to warrant my doing so if not but for entertainment value.

 

[pennsywoodburnr]

Damn, I didn't think you saw me!

Given our modern society that is so obsessed with comfort, convenience, passive entertainment and having the latest labor saving devices, heating with wood is still a novelty and curiosity. Some of those people may just be gawking at the weird guy with all the wood. Others will assume you are selling it because the only conceivable reason to do anything is to make money. Using your own time and labor to provide your own heat would not occur to them.

If you ever stopped by I'd invite you in to talk about saws and wood!

 

[pennsywoodburnr]

A buddy had the same thing going on recently; passersby showing a little too much interest in his stacks.
He put up an official looking sign saying the property was under video surveillance. Give the would-be thieves a little something to think about. Can't hurt.

I like that idea.

 

[pennsywoodburnr]

Or dementia. Or Moommmmm, make them stop looking!

Even the tweakers go out and cut their own firewood in these parts. Other than illegal cutting on the National Forest, or cutting and ruining the log decks during hunting season, I've never heard anybody complain about firewood thieves.

Don't move here. It rains all the time.

Don't worry. I won't.

 

[Fred Wright]

Damn, I didn't think you saw me!

Given our modern society that is so obsessed with comfort, convenience, passive entertainment and having the latest labor saving devices, heating with wood is still a novelty and curiosity. Some of those people may just be gawking at the weird guy with all the wood. Others will assume you are selling it because the only conceivable reason to do anything is to make money. Using your own time and labor to provide your own heat would not occur to them.

This would be my guess when it happens here. It does occur sometimes. And this is Amish country. Folks from the city and suburbs are simply fascinated by large stacks of firewood. To them, a large stack of firewood would last us a few days, at most.

 

[stihly dan]

I have 150 ft of 5'w X7' h stacked fence along the rd. I always get the slow down and comments by walkers. But since the 1st polar vortex I get at least 3 people a week coming to the door asking if would sell firewood, on top of my wife asking if I would sell it to her work mates. I did sell a few cords of either the not so good wood, or the to small for me wood to some people in need. This has not helped either. it's getting a bit aggravating. No worries of it being stolen for I have a bit of a reputation of being a mean SOB. Although I don't know why, never met most of them.

 

[philoshop]

Around here we have the wine tour folks, (the locals call 'em winers), who tend to gawk at everything along the way, unless they're doing the Humvee limo tour.
Good folks for the most part and a big part of the local economy so I can't complain, but I live on a major travel route for them, (I could easily walk to three wineries) and I sometimes feel like an animal in a zoo when they stop to take pictures while I'm mowing, or splitting, or drinking a beer while I work on the tractor. I'm not joking.
I can only imagine the captions for the slide shows:
"Here we see the indigenous male of this area with his machinery, tending his property. Notice that he's wearing a sidearm should a ferocious animal approach."

The gun is for woodchucks, and the odd raccoon or feral cat that might bother my neighbors' chickens.
And to let 'em know that not all of NY state is Manhatten.

 

[turnkey4099]

I have 150 ft of 5'w X7' h stacked fence along the rd. I always get the slow down and comments by walkers. But since the 1st polar vortex I get at least 3 people a week coming to the door asking if would sell firewood, on top of my wife asking if I would sell it to her work mates. I did sell a few cords of either the not so good wood, or the to small for me wood to some people in need. This has not helped either. it's getting a bit aggravating. No worries of it being stolen for I have a bit of a reputation of being a mean SOB. Although I don't know why, never met most of them.

I posted 8"x11" "This wood not for sale" signs visible from the road. Noone has stopped and asked since.

Harry K

 

[zogger]

I have 150 ft of 5'w X7' h stacked fence along the rd. I always get the slow down and comments by walkers. But since the 1st polar vortex I get at least 3 people a week coming to the door asking if would sell firewood, on top of my wife asking if I would sell it to her work mates. I did sell a few cords of either the not so good wood, or the to small for me wood to some people in need. This has not helped either. it's getting a bit aggravating. No worries of it being stolen for I have a bit of a reputation of being a mean SOB. Although I don't know why, never met most of them.

41 cord fence, not too shabby!

 

[J1m]

I definitely get gawkers. When I'm mowing around these I can definitely tell people are slowing down to take a look. One guy even mentioned my wood to me in the Post Office the other day. Strange.

 

[griffonks]

I had a theft crew cut a lock on a lane, pull a flatbed trailer in and load it with hay bales by hand.

One of my fishing lease members saw the thieves, stopped and asked them where the lock on the gate was

They told him the lock (on a chain shackle) was broken....

You never know. We never could figure out who stold the hay.

 

[pennsywoodburnr]

I definitely get gawkers. When I'm mowing around these I can definitely tell people are slowing down to take a look. One guy even mentioned my wood to me in the Post Office the other day. Strange.

Those stacks, my man, could give whitespider a run for his money! And everyone on here knows that guy's got it piled up to his eyeballs.

 

[Whitespider]

Not so much to my eyeballs anymore pennsywoodburnr... been burnin' for the last two years, but not cuttin' much.
Looks like, with this sort of competition... I'm gonna' haf'ta get busy again

 

[zogger]

Not so much to my eyeballs anymore pennsywoodburnr... been burnin' for the last two years, but not cuttin' much.
Looks like, with this sort of competition... I'm gonna' haf'ta get busy again

I think my scrawny azz has done snuck up on ya! And I spend way more time reading about wood than I do cutting splitting and stacking! I split quarter cord easy wood yesterday, and didn't do it until the afternoon when it was the warmest out!

So ya, you need to get out there in that 50 below and 100mph winds and get crackin!

Or not! You wouldn't see me out in that, nope! Southern fried wuss here, these teens and single digit nights, heck with that, I wait a long time before I go out in the morning. Like around close to now I will do more than go out on the porch. HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Polar vortex, double nutz, this is craz-ee cold weather around here. I think around three cord so far this heating season and only end of January, geez loweez...it talks to me, the smogger.. FEEEED ME!

 

[Whitespider]

L-O-L
Well... -13° out there this morning, 15-20 MPH winds, windchill at -36° or worse at times... Yeah, it can wait‼ LOL
*

 

[mainewoods]

This guy was looking at my pile last week - should I be worried?

 

[Vibes]

Well someone mentioned above about being a mean SOB. I come from a long history of crazy people. That reputation is worth more than any survelance system you all could afford. I like my place to look like a crazy person lives there too. That works for the strangers or the new folks to the area. I have a piece of stainless steel sitting right out in the open that's got to be worth over $125 and its been there for years.

I did catch one of my late sons friends breaking in some years ago. I didn't catch him red handed but I saw his trike tracks in my high grass. (The high grass scares the yuppies), and his footprints on my siding where he climbed in a window that he unlocked one day when he was here with my son. Well I dealt with him like I would deal with any thief. And informed him to go let his dad know why he came home in tadders. Never saw that kid again.

I'm sure that boy spread the word.

 

[740jsmayle]

I'm guilty. I slow down and stare most of the time I'm envious of their stacks