Scrounging Firewood (and other stuff)

[James Miller]

Gonna have to bring the big Tirfor on that tree , the heavy side is pointing to the house .
The things a fella does for an oak scrounge

It is pretty ruff walking to the neighbors and asking what there doing with the oak once it' down. I'l never have piles of oak sitting around like you have spruce though.

 

[cornfused]

The county road crew was clearing trees out of the right of way about 3/4 mile south of my place on Friday. I stopped on the way to work and asked about the wood and they said I could have anything that they left as long as it was gone by Monday as they had to come back and finish up. To my amazement it was almost all HEDGE!!!! According to the grain scale at work, just over 4500 lbs!!! Just a little Mullbury, about 100 lbs.

 

[dancan]

I'll make up in quantity with what you guys have in quality lol
I did have about 3 weeks of night burning oak this year with a scrounge from 2 years ago mixed with sugarmaple and my other hardwoods during the cold season , looking at the woodshed I still have some of that oak leftover and I have some oak from a scrounge this past summer so I'll be set for the cold blast next winter
This fresh oak will be for the 19/20 winter burn

 

[woodchip rookie]

Ground has been too wet to get to anything here. Off to the guitar I go...but its made of wood. That somebody cut with a chainsaw. That counts right? I can scrounge all the guitars and drumsets I want. You cant stop me.

 

[dancan]

I don't have any hedge around here or in this province that I know of .
Usually about 20 minutes to find some oak , 1/2 hour for beech , 2 hours for locust and I've heard tell of some stands of hornbeam but haven't found any yet .
Sugar and red maple are around, white , yellow birch , spruce, balsam fir , some wild cherry that doesn't grow very big , white pine , a bit of tamarack and a few hemlock .
No poplar in our scrounging area but I have some in my back yard.
The gate is not more than 5 minutes from my front door and so far sugar maple is the top of the lot but since I cut blow downs, leaners and dead standing when I get a load of softwood I'm still ahead .
I will travel for almost anything btw lol

 

[MustangMike]

Sugar Maple is right up there with the best quality woods!

 

[chipper1]

Sugar Maple is right up there with the best quality woods!

How do you like splitting it.
I don't get my hands on it often, but when I have it's been very heavy and was a bear to split and it wasn't the easiest to cut either.

 

[James Miller]

The county road crew was clearing trees out of the right of way about 3/4 mile south of my place on Friday. I stopped on the way to work and asked about the wood and they said I could have anything that they left as long as it was gone by Monday as they had to come back and finish up. To my amazement it was almost all HEDGE!!!! According to the grain scale at work, just over 4500 lbs!!! Just a little Mullbury, about 100 lbs. View attachment 636018 View attachment 636019

Iv got tons of mulberry in the tree line at my place. Burns good and puts on quite the show when you open the stove. We have hedge around here but iv never got to burn any.

 

[JustJeff]

I find sugar maple tough to split, but when it goes, it flies apart. I can put a piece on my splitter and gruntgroanBANG! The splitter loads up and the splits fly out each side. My shins have learned where not to stand!

 

[woodchip rookie]

Yea dont leave the draft open on a load of sugar and walk away. It WILL go nuclear.

 

[panolo]

I have about 15 more cords to split. The twists suck to split for sure. Difference in a winter/spring cut sugar than a summer/fall cut one. The summer one is considerably lighter. Lot's less sap. It is hard as heck. Harder than any oak or ash around here. Kinda like an old dry elm.

 

[svk]

I noticed that as well. It's a chore to split green but it's a total bear when dried.

 

[woodchip rookie]

Ya. Dont cut live sugar in the spring. I made that mistake.

 

[MustangMike]

Sometimes I can split Sugar OK, then other trees are real tough. If it is a straight grain woods tree, usually not too bad, but yard trees are tough! It is never as easy as straight grain Oak, Ash or Walnut, but usually not as bad as Elm or Black Birch.

That said, I find Norway Maple to be harder to split, straight grained or not!

 

[LondonNeil]

So our eastern blast has hit and mild old London is getting it's coldest week this winter. Very mild by what you are used to but hey, it's cold for us. An inch of snow which is fairly unusual, and temps tonight of -4C . I let the gas boiler warm the house all day while out, but it hasn't run for 4+ hours....to ickle stoves still have the btus

 

[woodchip rookie]

Still haven't fired the furnace....

 

[woodchip rookie]

And we had mornings that were -9F(-22C) with -20F(-30C) windchills.

(I used google temp translator to get the C temps)

 

[JustJeff]

Here in the great white north....it isn’t very white. Gorgeous 12 degrees C. Went out to prune my Apple trees and some of them were starting to bud! This is not good, it’s still February folks. Spring may be around the corner but there’s still march to go and she can be a fickle biatch! Still freezing at night and the maple syrup guys are busy now. Missed out on the first possible scrounge of the year, couple trees down around the corner, went and asked but someone had spoken for them already. It’s ok I’m not really ready for that yet anyway. Need to dig my scrounge trailer project out and finish it first.

 

[dancan]

The guys have been running the sap down here for 2 weeks now and we have the same issue with buds , I've seen ice on the lakes and snow storms in April here .
I think red maple is the nicest to split of the maples , sugar usually has a twisted and stringy grain, 50/50 chance of that on the birch I've been cutting as well.
I'm gonna drag the splitter to the pile to do the spruce up because it's usually the worst.
Hey Cowboy!
I hear that you guys are having a bumper crop of brown snakes hatching this year .

 

[woodchip rookie]

Leave it to Aus to have a bumper crop of deadly stuff.