woodchip rookie
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what is this?
Scrounging Firewood (and other stuff)
- Thread starter mainewoods
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what is this?
woodchip rookie
Addicted to ArboristSite
I had to post the pics from my fone but now I can type on a real computer and describe stuff. This wood was a craigslist scrounge that turned out good. Full truckload. But half the pile was buried in the mud when I got there. It has a papery layer of bark under the outside layer and the wood is really white. Not pine. Not ash. Not walnut. The space in between the rings in some places is pretty big. Like half inch. That, and the dry pieces I have are lighter than ash so I'm guessing a softwood but not conifer and not silver maple. The side/bark pic has 2 different kinds of wood in the pic. The bottom log is not the one. Its the top 2 logs. The log in the middle has some bark left on it and the top log is the same wood with no bark. The end grain pic is of the same middle log. Its really hard to split. Granted its damp but even the dryer pieces are almost impossible and its strait grain...oh yea....and the inside smells like strait cat piss. But its not oak.
Probably American Elm or as some would call, "Piss Elm". It's hard to split and when and if you do get it to split, it should be stringy.
woodchip rookie
Addicted to ArboristSite
Its kinda stringy but its been dead a long time. I figured it was so tough cuz it was so damp. Is American elm a hard/good wood? The pieces I have that are semi-dry are pretty light compared to all the ash I have.
It's a hardwood. It'll burn for a long time in your pit or fireplace.
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I cut by myself and am usually very careful however once in awhile you just keep your head down and in the work. I stop fairly often and set the saw down and just walk around the area that I'm cutting in just to see what's up. Yesterday was one of those days, things just weren't going right and I was getting ahead of myself. I'm starting in a new section of the bush and it is covered in rotten, standing, half falling, leaning, half alive, woodpecker eaten or crappy Poplar and is a mess to say the least. It's so thick and so many down trees that I can't even drive thru it with my tractor and cab to knock over the dead stuff 1st so I've been walking in and cutting down leaners, cutting laying stuff into lengths and cutting the branches off the cedars that are down. Trying to make it a little safer to get in and get the ash. Was cutting for a couple of tanks and realized I had gotten a little off my "trail" and happened to look up to see this beauty. Pic1&2 is the mess. Pic3 is what I hope to have this section look like soon. Pic4 is the nasty break up about 35'. Pic5 is a close up. It was just sitting there lightly stuck in another tree, only took a light tap with the tractor forks to make it come crashing down 4' from the base. I think I'm just going to go in and drop every single poplar before I even trim or haul anything out, just too dangerous with them standing. Make sure to keep looking up fellas. And just to put a smile on everyone's face I again buried the log trailer on the way out of the bush. I'm taking the hitch off the tractor until summer so it doesn't happen again. damn mud.
Wowzer
ArboristSite Operative
you sure have alot of work ahead of you. how many acres of Bush is there in total there. the cleared patches how long did it take you a year or 2 or?
do you get back there much in the summer or do you have to wait till crops come off, and then saw and drag them out?
Trapper_Pete
ArboristSite Operative
You think of cold weather in Southern terms. There is no mud or slush or wet when it's cold. It is all dry and frozen. The ground is frozen deep 2-4 feet down. You can park a fleet of tractor trailers on the lake. This year was warm frost came out of the ground weeks early there was never any decent ice. Almost no ice fishing.
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Boy that's not like anything I've ever cut.
Looks like your aspen has hypoxylon canker with the black "rust" and the trunk breaking at infection area. The only way to get rid of that crap is to cut down the whole stand.
I haven't scrounged for 6 days, I was starting to get the withdrawal shakes. I didn't have a lot of time after work and now that daylight savings has finished it is now too dark to scrounge by 6pm. However, I did get out and have a crack at afternoon scrounging. I've been picking up bits and pieces of dry stuff for the Lady Farmer, here were a few nice dry peppermint bits for her.
Won't take her long to burn through that but it all helps. Then onto a neighbouring peppermint.
I cut what I thought was a trailer load but when I loaded it up found that I was a few pieces short. I quickly cut a few more bits and while I was taking off a couple of branch stubs one touched the chain as it fell and knocked it off the bar. The chain then hit my leg. Check the damage.
Moral of the story, always wear your PPE, even when you're just going to do a little bit. Good old Kevlar pants. Alternatively, you could try not to hit body parts with moving chains.
Anyway, I ended up with a nice load.
It was a lovely evening, nice sunshine and about 21 degrees. Mt Cowboy is coming along too, this is load 28 since winter, of which about 22 would be in the pile and stacks behind it.
Won't take her long to burn through that but it all helps. Then onto a neighbouring peppermint.
I cut what I thought was a trailer load but when I loaded it up found that I was a few pieces short. I quickly cut a few more bits and while I was taking off a couple of branch stubs one touched the chain as it fell and knocked it off the bar. The chain then hit my leg. Check the damage.
Moral of the story, always wear your PPE, even when you're just going to do a little bit. Good old Kevlar pants. Alternatively, you could try not to hit body parts with moving chains.
Anyway, I ended up with a nice load.
It was a lovely evening, nice sunshine and about 21 degrees. Mt Cowboy is coming along too, this is load 28 since winter, of which about 22 would be in the pile and stacks behind it.
All I see is a hairy leg? And a massive pile of wood.
woodchip rookie
Addicted to ArboristSite
Sounds like a party I don't wanna be at.
I guess persistence has paid off - Ive been scrounging tops and limbs on this property and after being there often and keeping to my word I was given the ok to cut into this pile also. just about everything is already cut to at mostly oak - all ready to meet my faithful orange companion.
somewhere in there it was supposed to say cut to at least 10' lengths but I guess I not mart enough to get it right the first time
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Correct. The chain hit my chainsaw pants and bounced off, saved me a few stitches no doubt. I have one more month of farm scrounging left then its all over, gotta scrounge hard and scrounge often.
woodchip rookie
Addicted to ArboristSite
Get it while you can get it.
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Wowzer, I've been working on different parts of the bush for 3 years now. I just finished a cedar section of about 3 acres and it took 2 years to clean up, all that is left is the big ash trees and the good cedar. This here section is really messy poplar is about 250' wide and about 750' long. Normally it is so wet you can only get there in the winter and middle of summer. 2 years ago I cut 100's of poplar down and hauled them all home to burn. Then I spent a year cutting smaller and crooked ash. Now I'm back in this mess because in the last 2 years tons of poplar have blown over from wind and rot and it looks like heck. We have 4 wheeler trails thru this section and it just isn't safe to ride thru there anymore. If I don't hurry the poplar will rot and be worth nothing but work to move out of the way. My Dad logged this bush 40 years ago when we owned it, a small section was logged about 20 years ago and nothing since. This just means that most of the trees are crap now and not worth much more than firewood. I'm slowly cleaning my Dad's old logging trails to make riding trails. Regular logging would have yielded lots of money but the last 3 cash croppers that have owned the land don't care about the bush. There is around 40 acres of bush but at least half will not be worth working in. Swampy and not worth my time when there is lots available easier. There is also a 4 acre cedar bush that should be cleaned up but is completely surrounded by crops. This is a 300 acre block of land. He also owns 100 acres with 15 acres of ash bush across the road that was logged (raped) last year that needs to be cleaned up. I work there whenever I can and that means around the crops. If crops are on I cut rounds and make splits.
