New guy in Maine

[trukn2004]

You will continue to love the stove.
There is nothing quite like the feeling of being self reliant in heating your home, not to mention the all around warmth of a wood fire and, yes , wonderful ambiance!

Agreed! I enjoyed having the house at 75 and not hearing the furnace running!


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[DrewUth]

I loved reading through this thread- you have a beautiful piece of property and home! I love when my wife comes out to help me with the firewood- its a great thing for us to do together and the hard work pays off when we are enjoying the warm stove.

One thing I don't know if anyone has really drawn attention to- you are doing all this splitting by hand! That amazes me the most! You must be in great shape haha.

Good stuff!

 

[trukn2004]

I loved reading through this thread- you have a beautiful piece of property and home! I love when my wife comes out to help me with the firewood- its a great thing for us to do together and the hard work pays off when we are enjoying the warm stove.

One thing I don't know if anyone has really drawn attention to- you are doing all this splitting by hand! That amazes me the most! You must be in great shape haha.

Good stuff!

Thanks a lot drew! it is a great activity and when I can get the wife to lend a hand she does. We've narrowed he skill sets down to carrying rounds out, and some stacking. She tried her hand at splitting, but just doesn't quiet have the strength for it. As far as me, firewood has helped to get me to drop 20 lbs and increased my strength quite a bit. I look at it as a free gym that helps save me money. You wont catch me out there splitting 4 cords at a time, but I've been known to split and stack a 1/3-1/2 a cord in one sitting. I try to do a little every couple of days and it adds up quick!

Joe

 

[trukn2004]

Welp, the loveable scamp in southern maine was out last weekend slinging chips and making piles!

Spent Saturday cleaning up part of the forest the wife found 'messy'..... she got together some good bonfire stuff and I added to the scrounging piles. I cleaned up some dead and down, dropped a small sickly ash, and dropped a large straight ash exactly where I wanted it, and with a perfect backcut! I was so excited I forgot to get a picture of it, but the photos show the rounds that we moved this weekend. All the wood is split and stacked as of now.





This was 90% of the pieces I split. Look how straight and clean that grain is. I was half-heartedly swinging the Fiskars and pieces were popping right off.



My next scrounge that I am currently in the middle of is a big oak branch. I only got a few pictures, but It is all cut up and ready to be carried out. Been busy this week and with the darkness creeping in earlier and earlier, I haven't been able to get it out to process. Its not a lot of wood, but every bit helps and it cleans up the property quite nicely!



closeup of the branches.


And just for fun, shot of the stove from a couple nights ago. First time I got this bad boy really rolling. loaded on a bed of coals with about 5 splits of ash and half air. Came back 20 minutes later to a stove top of 550-575 and it just boiling in flames! shut the air to a quarter and the secondaries rolled for a good 45 minutes.

 

[trukn2004]

Figured some more photos are always appreciated. I got a couple shots of the wood from the big limb, as well as the tree it came off of. Does not look like any of the other red oaks on the property, and I wasn't sure if it might be another oak sub-species.







Some splits with more bark.




It just doesn't seem as deep red as the other oak, but maybe im just seeing things. Either way, itll burn!

decided to tackle a three lead ash. One lead was dead and down, a second lead was dead standing, and the third I figured wouldn't do very well once the other two were gone. Had a bit of trouble getting them to the ground (slight hangup) but got them there safely eventually. I was home yesterday so I took the time to buck all three into rounds and began the process of carrying them out. Got them staged to be tossed down the hill and loaded into the tractor, but ran out of energy. This firewood business is tough!

lead one, you can see the house down there is where I have to get the wood to. its a decent walk, along with some severe elevation changes.


lead two


dead and down lead three



Since the weather is so nice this week, im going to try and build my firewood racks and get the wood onto my porch, then get these rounds out and possibly split. I don't know how much longer these mid 60's temps will last, so I figure I should get the most out of it while I can!

 

[trukn2004]

Well, another weekend is in the books and a little bit more progress was made around the homestead. got into a little project I have been putting off, but it was nice to get it done. built one of two wood racks and loaded it up. it holds a little more then a 1/4 cord, so with the other one I should be able to keep half a cord on the front porch at a time. makes grabbing sticks easier and should keep the stuff pretty dry. I used a bunch of leftover bits to make them, so I am out zero dollars. Cant argue there!





cooled off over here on sunday, so I got the stove rolling again. some good burns, but I have noticed a little bit of water coming out the end of the splits. Not dripping, mostly a little sizzle right on the end near a edge. The wood is mostly ash that's been split and stacked over a year, and it is not many pieces, but I figure this is just part of trying to get ahead. Still puts out a ton of heat, so I don't complain too much!





My mother was visiting and she found these packets at the Christmas tree shop. They change the flame color on a fire. I chucked one in Monday night after the fire had been burning for a bit and it was awesome. the pictures don't do it justice, but there were blues, greens, yellows and some purple. Lasted a good two hours and was quite a fun show! the packet contained Cuprite, according to the package, some sort of mineral by-product from copper I think.





Also, Noone in my house particularly cares, but I know you guys will! I had my first real good successful overnight burn last night. Loaded at 930, closed the air down to around 1/3 open at 1015, woke up at 545 for work and I had a 225 degree stovetop with a healthy bed of coals. house was still quite warm, 69 downstairs, 64 upstairs, and I could have reloaded and got it going again if I had wanted too. It was a great accomplishment for me.

 

[trukn2004]

Made some more progress with the woodpile. Got the ash out of the woods and split and stacked.







Some updated, overall shots of the wood stash.




Been burning pretty decently as of late, stove has done a solid job of keeping the house comfortable, but the propane kicks in every once and a while. Nothing too outrageous, and i do not burn when i am at work during the day. Just re-lit the stove off of a solid bed of coals this morning and it is cruising now.





Also, built another rack this weekend past, and got it loaded up. I now have a half cord at a time on the front porch. First rack is pretty much all ash, while the second rack i mixed in red oak. It is funny to see how far I have come in terms of my prep and presentation with firewood. I cut wicked short, and split very fat on a lot of pieces. It all burns though!

 

[DrewUth]

Whyyyyyy aren't the racks the same height hahaha my OCD would keep me up all night!

 

[trukn2004]

Whyyyyyy aren't the racks the same height hahaha my OCD would keep me up all night!

Haha, the first one I built without having to make any cuts, just leftover material from building the house. The second one I didn't have any shorts so I just cut two 8 footers in half. Didn't realize the discrepancy until it was too late. Luckily I don't see them that often. Plus, they cost me nothing to make but my time.

 

[trukn2004]

Had a productive saturday. Finally took out the Red oak that had one dead lead, one lead i took already, and I took the last healthy lead since the stump was starting to crack and i figured it didnt have long. Got to use two more technical cuts. First one. was a traditonal fall, but due to the heavy lean i decided to bore it and then release. Glad i did because it pretty much popped and went as soon as i released the strap.





Second one was leaning two ways. so i swung it a bit so it wouldn't come to rest against another tree.





And noone told me this, but god damn is red oak heavy when alive!


Five full tractor buckets So i got it all together and got to splitting.







This was all that was left saturday, but i split it on Sunday


I havent stacked it yet, since we had a rainy sunday for the most part, but once the ground dries a little i will find this stuff a spot. Probably wont be burning it for several years. considering it was very wet. I've also found that my wood i am currently burning isnt very dry either. Some is, but i am getting more sizzle then i like. metered one piece out and it read 32% this was a live ash, split, stacked and top-covered for over a year. kinda frustrating, but all the more reason to get out there and get more wood stacked up. hopefully next year will be better since the woods been up for a bit, its been split smaller, and is stacked in a better location.

 

[DrewUth]

Wow 32% after a year? I have white oak that I cut in April that reads 13-15%, and I didnt split it until August (was in rounds all summer).

And yea, red oak is HEAVY- its 50% of what I cut around me (the rest being white oak, which is only slightly lighter IMO).

 

[trukn2004]

Wow 32% after a year? I have white oak that I cut in April that reads 13-15%, and I didnt split it until August (was in rounds all summer).

And yea, red oak is HEAVY- its 50% of what I cut around me (the rest being white oak, which is only slightly lighter IMO).

Yea, I highly doubt it's right. I had the piece in the house for three days so it was about 65 degrees. Did a fresh split and got that number. Thought it was weird because at that moisture usually you can see and feel it in the split. My guess; my cheap harbor freight meter is wrong. Especially considering its ash. I mean, this morning I got a fire going with small splits out of the same stack, stove top gage topped out at 550 before I cut the air, then stayed above 400 for a hour. So I think I'm fine. I just can't wait to get into 2 or 3 year old ash. I bet it's rocket fuel.

 

[DrewUth]

I have never handled Ash before so I can't say. I do have about a cord of dry Poplar that I am running on now, and that stuff is rocket fuel- snaps and pops and stove temps shoot up REAL quick. Drawbacks are that it needs to be loaded every 2-2.5 hours, and it doesn't leave much for coals if you push that- at 3hrs+ you have a warm stove with some ash in it, thats all! I load the oak in when I need it to burn overnight.

My BIL lives in NY and has a few black locusts that need to come down, even though its a 3hr drive for me I am excited to bring home a load of that as I hear its some awesome wood. I am surrounded by red and white oak, so I can't really complain, although all the talk about Ash on this site has me really curious.

 

[trukn2004]

Yea, I have a lot of ash, red oak and hard maple on my property. The ash seems to be the holy grail on here, and I agree it is a decent fuel, but I have some dead maple and it is really great! I've only burned a small amount of red oak, not enough to have a good read on it yet. As the winter progresses, I will be getting into more of it.


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[stihly dan]

No, ash is not even close to red or white oak. Ash just seasons fast and splits easy, plus light to work with. With your wood selection ash would be your shoulder season wood.

 

[trukn2004]

No, ash is not even close to red or white oak. Ash just seasons fast and splits easy, plus light to work with. With your wood selection ash would be your shoulder season wood.

That makes a lot of sense. I mean it does great for me, but I doubt I could heat my 2700 sq ft well with it in the middle of a deep freeze.

 

[trukn2004]

So a new neighbor is building down the road from me and needed some fill. Luckily, I was in the dilemma that I had a lot of fill and no room to use it. We struck a bargain that I wouldn't charge him for it, and in return his site guy would take all the fill and set some large rocks for me that I couldn't pick up. While he was taking the last of the fill today, I had a medium size sugar maple that was damaged during initial construction. I had plans to flop it at some point, but asked nicely and he laid the tree right down for me! its nice when the tree is put exactly where you want it AND the stump gets pulled at the same time. got it cut up and put aside, going to get to splitting when the ground freezes up since its a muddy mess right now.

 

[trukn2004]

Aww, what the hell you guys like pictures. Here are some more! shots of the start of a bonfire pile, and the fill gone. It was the big pile that routinely was in the background of most of my photos. Ended up being 17 10 wheeler loads!



there is a old stone wall here that the wife liked, so I had him add some more rocks as he went along and extend it to my beech tree.








this was the massive pile of stones that I had leftover. I couldn't move a lot of them, even with my tractor luckily the Daewoo excavator had no problems.


A big monument happened this past week and weekend as well. I got my bay cleaned up! Tractor is now safely parked away, and I took the loader off and put on the front end snowblower. Didn't get a pic of it mounted, but im just happy to have the machine in and under cover.



hung my license plate collection too


This was during the cleaning process. it wasn't that I had a lot of stuff, so much as it wasn't well organized. Everything was just kinda strewn about.



Well, that is it for now! Ill try to get a shot of that red oak all stacked, ended up being a decent amount of wood.

 

[Marshy]

Since you have elevation behind you house to your advantage I suggest you consider buying a utility slef to move your firewood. Even with no snow, a heavy layer of leaves on the forest floor is enough to drag a sled filled with rounds down the hill. Google "Shappell" for an example. You can find them on Amazon as well. I have one and love it.

 

[trukn2004]

Since you have elevation behind you house to your advantage I suggest you consider buying a utility slef to move your firewood. Even with no snow, a heavy layer of leaves on the forest floor is enough to drag a sled filled with rounds down the hill. Google "Shappell" for an example. You can find them on Amazon as well. I have one and love it.

That is a awesome idea, thank you! I usually use my tractor, but I have to get the rounds somewhere I can reach them with the tractor. Those sleds look like a great tool.