Firewood sales, and maybe some other stuff.

[Sandhill Crane]

Sales for me have been slow.
Twenty orders or so for the year, and three orders for later in the summer. Most a cord or under, campfire wood, except two, two cord orders.
Ordering ahead, or the "put me on your list", in the past has been problematic.
The issue being orders that later are not followed through on. For me, the wood is spoken for and 'mentally' removed from inventory. When I'm sold out, there is still wood here to be delivered. Then if it's not picked up, or arranged for delivery, it is back in stock...but after I've told many in the fall "I'm sold out."
The solution would be to place a deadline or cut off of say September 1.
Another solution would be to collect payment. This sounds good, initially, until someone want delivery in January, when driveways are narrow, slippery, and snowy, which hides sprinklers, etc. It's happened. Another would stop by and get enough of his order for a week at a time. That drove me nuts, and I quit doing 'a list' for many years. Our son suggested trying it again.
I also have a small wood lot, so I need the space to stock more pallets of processed firewood wood to season.
I attribute slow sales to three weeks of rain and a recent hatch of mosquitoes. Also, I did not sell firewood last year, being on the "oh ****" list for Covid, having copd, old age, and pneumonia the previous fall. I've heard I'm not in business anymore.
It's July. I typically don't process firewood in July. This year I've helped our son with an ongoing deck project. He is an hour away. Lots of road time in that project. It has come out well, and I've enjoyed helping him. Now it's time to process some wood for next year.
How is everyone else doing this summer?

 

[T. Mainus]

Our sales have been pretty brisk around here. About 80 or so deliveries already this year. Our sales are always crazy around the holidays, then they get a little slow. So hopefully it will be slow until Labor day now. Labor day is usually the start of crazy time for us. Most of our wood gets sold between Labor day and Thanksgiving. Were struggling to get logs delivered. Need about 300 cord between now and the end of the year. Been getting maybe one load every 2 weeks right now. Trying to get the processor decision nailed down here shortly. Have it narrowed down to Brute Force 18-24 Diesel and MultiTek 1620ss right now. Leaning towards the Multi Tek. Might take a look at Blockbuster as well.

 

[cantoo]

I have all the wood I need for myself for next year in skids already. I usually cut a bunch of trees down in the fall and early winter. I cut all the limbs to 48" and they go into skids and straight into the boiler as I need it. I save the splits for colder weather. I leave the logs and process them in the spring or early summer. I have more than enough 16" long wood split for selling. We don't sell that much anyway. I also split a bunch of wood smaller for campfire wood but we've only sold 5 or 6 cords of that too. I've been planning on building a wrapper for campfire wood and I have all the parts I need now just don't have the time to build it yet. My buddy who stores wood at my place has been real slow too. He has a few guys that usually get wood off him early but they are short money so no wood for them. Just means more time for cutting and splitting I guess. Maybe I will get some time to run the bandmill more.

 

[rancher2]

There is a guy that lives about three miles from me on the black top running to one of the biggest lakes rec area around here. So he always sells camp wood to the folks headed to the lake and I ran into to him at the farm store in the city on Tuesday and I asked him how the camp wood business had been and he said it was way down from past years and said he had a good year last year. Don't know why people aren't buying his camp wood. Camp ground seems to be full when I drive by. A lot of campers on the road around here every week starting on Thursday evening. I have been a little slow this season getting my wood ready for winter. Some health things going on and my Garn was down during the coldest part of winter so I probably didn't burn as much as normal probably only burned eight cord instead of fifteen. Finally bucked and split and stacked in a trailer about four cord a couple Saturdays ago. It time to get to the timber and get some more hedge logged out. Spraying is done and its hot but we need to get cutting wood. Every year I say not going to process wood in the summer but that's when we have time to do it.

 

[moresnow]

Maybe everyone that was at home for a year cut/split a bunch of there own wood instead of purchasing? Seems somewhat plausible.

 

[Big_Eddy]

It has been good for us. Our son was selling the firewood up until last year. Wife and I decide to continue it when he moved away last spring. We weren’t sure how much work we wanted to commit to, so only ordered 3 loads of logs. We have about 50 cord to sell.
As of today we have sold 25, almost all to new customers. We prefer to spread out deliveries, so we placed an ad on Kijiji about a month ago. It has driven all the new customers. Many are new to the area and looking to make a “firewood connection”
My wife started calling last year’s customers today asking if they will want wood. If they all want what they took last year, some will be disappointed. While we have a couple of loyal customers who we would not want to do without, we won’t reserve wood for anyone. We will call regulars and let them know when we are getting low, but our plan is to sell out and when it’s gone, it’s gone.

We ordered an extra load of logs this year.


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[Picaso]

This is a vent. I live in southern WV so I am surrounded by second cut hardwood forest. I was at a state park just a few miles from me and I noticed that in their campground they sell firewood THAT IS CUT/HAULED/HEAT TREATED/PURCHASED FROM HOURS AWAY IN VA!! The park is nothing but trees. They have a crew nearly year round to keep the place up. They are leaving white oaks, hickories, maples, cherries, etc laying all over and someone is paying for some wood to be trucked in. The extra cost in diesel fuel alone seems outrageous. Fleecing the government man. The firewood has to be certified I guess but that only makes sense if the wood isn't coming FROM YOUR OWN SITE!!!!

 

[Sandhill Crane]

We just got back from RV camping at several MI state parks. Lots of green smoky wood being burned. Which promotes people transporting their own, which isn't so good either. Management doesn't seem to be looking at the bigger picture of selling seasoned wood. I did get a look at a firewood vending trailer. Nice set up, but we did not transport or buy any firewood. Most camping venues were full. Lots of kids and dogs. Road side front yard bundled wood for sale everywhere.

 

[unclemoustache]

I was in Yellowstone 2 weeks ago. Not sure where they get their firewood, but it must be fairly close by, if not in the park itself. There is so much dead wood there from forest fires and the pine beetles that they will never run out.
I wish they would clean it up, but some idiotic gub’ment idea is that it should be left ‘natural’, thereby causing greater damage when the next fire comes around.

Of course, the wood they sell isn’t very seasoned, but it wasn’t too bad.