Runnin' Loads

[ChoppyChoppy]

We put a sale on truckloads of cottonwood firewood, been selling the heck out of it... (have probably 300+ cords of logs). Couple of them that I ran through the processor, holy cow. May as well buried my face in a fresh dog turd.... and I can't hardly smell even!

They are close cousins. Aspen smells better and doesn't get as big.

 

[svk]

We put a sale on truckloads of cottonwood firewood, been selling the heck out of it... (have probably 300+ cords of logs). Couple of them that I ran through the processor, holy cow. May as well buried my face in a fresh dog turd.... and I can't hardly smell even!

The cw I've dealt with smelled more like dirty diaper than dog turds but I hear you loud and clear lol.

 

[svk]

Aspen smells kind of like fruit right at the point of turning mushy when green. Faintly of red wine when seasoned.

 

[lefturnfreek]

Ya it smells off, way worse than the wet black poplar I deal with on occasion, ya can keep it....

 

[tla100]

Heh, the smell of splitting cottonwood a couple weeks ago took me back to the days of going to threshing bees. As a kid we went to one in Butterfield, MN every year, got a little souvenir of a chunk of freshly sawn wood from belt driven sawmill. Not sure if they still do them, neat old steam engines and really makes think of the ingenuity to keep those behemoth machines in running order.

Apparently I like the smell of fresh dog ****......heh at least it is better than sour owl squat

 

[ChoppyChoppy]

It's not all the cottonwood that smells like that. Good thing too, could you imagine what 300+ cords would smell like at the shop!. It might be like 1 log out of 2 or 3 cords. Otherwise it doesn't have a smell, at least not to me..but I can't smell well either.

Some of the cottonwood we have I think is more aspen maybe? I have mistaken it for birch at a semi-quick glance or from the skidder.... and I may or may not have accidentally haul a bunch thinking it was birch, only realized it as I was cutting it on the processor.

 

[svk]

It's not all the cottonwood that smells like that. Good thing too, could you imagine what 300+ cords would smell like at the shop!. It might be like 1 log out of 2 or 3 cords. Otherwise it doesn't have a smell, at least not to me..but I can't smell well either.

Some of the cottonwood we have I think is more aspen maybe? I have mistaken it for birch at a semi-quick glance or from the skidder.... and I may or may not have accidentally haul a bunch thinking it was birch, only realized it as I was cutting it on the processor.

I've only tangled with hybrid seedless cottonwood. I've heard that stinks more than regular cottonwood.

I'd take the sap and cat pee smell of spruce over cottonwood any day though.

 

[svk]

Some of the cottonwood we have I think is more aspen maybe? I have mistaken it for birch at a semi-quick glance or from the skidder.... and I may or may not have accidentally haul a bunch thinking it was birch, only realized it as I was cutting it on the processor.

Young cw and aspen look very similar except cw has many more horizontal limbs. Larger cw has dark and very furrowed grey bark for the bottom 1/3 to 1/2 of the tree versus aspen might only have a couple feet of the dark bark at the base.

 

[ChoppyChoppy]

Yeah maybe tomorrow I'll get some photos of a couple piles to show. I'm not a botonist... I just look at a tree and see it nicely cut and split, burning in a stove

 

[svk]

Quaking aspen and big tooth aspen are the most common trees in northern MN but we also get some balsam poplar (also called balm of gilead or bombagilian which is a different species from B of G species elsewhere in the world).

Somewhere in the southern half of the state aspen phase out and cw is one of the most prevalent trees. The seedless ones I dealt with were yard trees. They grow almost an inch of dbh a year but don't live very long compared to native species. My neighbor has them and they are dying at around 15 years old.

 

[lefturnfreek]

So it has warmed up a bit here so I got the itch to haul 4fts again, and I remember why I stop till it dries up around here....

Filled the quad trailer with mostly wet and green wood,




And buried it next to the row. Dang it. I have never had to use a snatch block on a 4000 Lb quad winch, till today...I'll try again in a few weeks....

 

[dave_dj1]

Finally remembered to take a pic! LOL
I did two loads today, I lost track of how many I have hauled in the last two weeks, somewhere around 15-16 including a couple of dump trailer loads.

And here's the total, I may get one more load but not sure yet.

 

[svk]

 

[lefturnfreek]

Almost twice as much on the Ford, and it's looks good compared to the Chev....

 

[svk]

Someone has helper springs

 

[lefturnfreek]

Ya.... the Chev....

 

[svk]

Lol

 

[chucker]

Someone has helper springs

!! "NO" !! there's no helper springs in that ford, they don't need helper springs just use helium gas in the tires to hold it up off the bump stops.... lol

 

[lefturnfreek]

So I had to take a break from running loads for a bit cause of mushy spring ground condtions. I have been clearing a patch of bush and a few trees in the mean time and got a load to go to the pile, way drier but still sunk quit a bit.






Those a 1/2 a load of green 4fts and the other 1/2 was almost dead dry.



Been using my 88 for blocks to be split and kibbles to go to the box, done a few loads of that so far.

 

[moondoggie]

not me in the pic lol. Loaded the splitter on a load of rounds....kinda dumb but it did save me a trip.