Scrounging Firewood (and other stuff)

[chipper1]

been at this about 12 years
first year or two the city compost , I live in a small rural city but the city has a place for towns people to drop off brush , and lawn clippings the city has all the trees taken down in town taken there in the size the truck can move usually 8-10 foot sections and all over 5 inches in diameter or it went through the chipper some times this is good findings other years when we have just had a hard winter and the economy stinks it is not so good

---so if you live in a city , village or town check if they have a place that removed trees are taken

then I did some craigs list scrounging and got some good wood and a bunch of garbage but enough to get me through , had one developer who advertised free wood , yeah it was all standing green silver maple full of leaves and he wanted it down before the end of July , man was that hot I cut it and hauled way too much brush for what I got in wood

wife put an add up in the company classifieds when she worked at the phone company got a guy with 10 acre about 2 wooded he mostly wanted dead pine and a few boxelder but enough to mostly fill my 14 foot utility trailer they appreciated me cutting and helping with clean up not to hard he drove by with his garden tractor and small traier I piled the brush on and he drove it to his burn pile , and then a few months later a storm came through and dropped a huge oak on his garage it wasn't a direct hit but boy was it some nice wood accept for that nail I found about 7 feet up and 10 inches into the trunk at full throttle ripped 7 cutters off the chain , oh well the price of good wood some times

the next year a church friend realized I was looking for wood , he had 5 acres of woods and didn't burn , also had several down from storms and a lot of standing dead I cut there for about 5 years till I was starting to get to the neighbors property I marked a bunch of standing dead on the neighbors place with orange tape I like this because it makes it easier to find when all the leaves are off and lets the owner know what I plan to cut , sometimes there is that dead tree that ll the birds sit in that they want left alone . the neighbor called him up and said he is over the lot line my friend said your in a wheel chair you want it cut or not he works for free and hauls the wood away , sure cut it , this was a hill side and I had to wheel barrow the wood out , it was a lot of work

then I scored the sweetest of wood lots , it is a friends farm and he wants it cleaned and thinned , and he runs the skid steer moving 8 foot lengths of log out to the road and piling them up for me while I cut , and how did I get this sweet spot , I asked we happened to be out there one day for a bbq and I said you sure have a lot of trees down he said yeah bad strait line winds the year before , been cutting on that 3 years now.

be prepared to take down a bunch of junk wood in a fence row to get at the sweet wood lot when it's dry it all burns

--- have some cards made up with your contact info a pile of wood is just a storm away
--- ask , be polite , clean up after yourself , call or text them to make sure it is ok to come cut you never know if they just worked a week of nights and they want to sleep or have the inlaws over to sit on the patio
--- if the cows got out and you see them in corn field make sure you help get them back in call them first this is not a one person job
--- sometimes they don't have a wood stove in the house but have an outdoor fire pit ask if they would like some wood for the camp fires if your scoring several cord a half a face left for them cut and split is a small price to pay for free wood
--- go over what they want cut and mark it with survey tape , paint fades much to quickly or the stuff I tried did



I will cut most any tree not in danger of landing on anything of importance

Welcome to AS Pete.
Appreciate all the good neighborly advice.
Sounds like you sure have a good deal going now .
Brett

 

[Cowboy254]

been at this about 12 years
first year or two the city compost , I live in a small rural city but the city has a place for towns people to drop off brush , and lawn clippings the city has all the trees taken down in town taken there in the size the truck can move usually 8-10 foot sections and all over 5 inches in diameter or it went through the chipper some times this is good findings other years when we have just had a hard winter and the economy stinks it is not so good

---so if you live in a city , village or town check if they have a place that removed trees are taken

then I did some craigs list scrounging and got some good wood and a bunch of garbage but enough to get me through , had one developer who advertised free wood , yeah it was all standing green silver maple full of leaves and he wanted it down before the end of July , man was that hot I cut it and hauled way too much brush for what I got in wood

wife put an add up in the company classifieds when she worked at the phone company got a guy with 10 acre about 2 wooded he mostly wanted dead pine and a few boxelder but enough to mostly fill my 14 foot utility trailer they appreciated me cutting and helping with clean up not to hard he drove by with his garden tractor and small traier I piled the brush on and he drove it to his burn pile , and then a few months later a storm came through and dropped a huge oak on his garage it wasn't a direct hit but boy was it some nice wood accept for that nail I found about 7 feet up and 10 inches into the trunk at full throttle ripped 7 cutters off the chain , oh well the price of good wood some times

the next year a church friend realized I was looking for wood , he had 5 acres of woods and didn't burn , also had several down from storms and a lot of standing dead I cut there for about 5 years till I was starting to get to the neighbors property I marked a bunch of standing dead on the neighbors place with orange tape I like this because it makes it easier to find when all the leaves are off and lets the owner know what I plan to cut , sometimes there is that dead tree that ll the birds sit in that they want left alone . the neighbor called him up and said he is over the lot line my friend said your in a wheel chair you want it cut or not he works for free and hauls the wood away , sure cut it , this was a hill side and I had to wheel barrow the wood out , it was a lot of work

then I scored the sweetest of wood lots , it is a friends farm and he wants it cleaned and thinned , and he runs the skid steer moving 8 foot lengths of log out to the road and piling them up for me while I cut , and how did I get this sweet spot , I asked we happened to be out there one day for a bbq and I said you sure have a lot of trees down he said yeah bad strait line winds the year before , been cutting on that 3 years now.

be prepared to take down a bunch of junk wood in a fence row to get at the sweet wood lot when it's dry it all burns

--- have some cards made up with your contact info a pile of wood is just a storm away
--- ask , be polite , clean up after yourself , call or text them to make sure it is ok to come cut you never know if they just worked a week of nights and they want to sleep or have the inlaws over to sit on the patio
--- if the cows got out and you see them in corn field make sure you help get them back in call them first this is not a one person job
--- sometimes they don't have a wood stove in the house but have an outdoor fire pit ask if they would like some wood for the camp fires if your scoring several cord a half a face left for them cut and split is a small price to pay for free wood
--- go over what they want cut and mark it with survey tape , paint fades much to quickly or the stuff I tried did



I will cut most any tree not in danger of landing on anything of importance

Solid advice there, TP. Be polite, clean up after yourself, go the extra yard. You might get a few knockbacks and the odd dodgy deal but in the long run you'll end up doing pretty well.

 

[Cowboy254]

The airborne bears start talking to the grounded bears then all hell breaks loose.

The first bit is how it starts, and then the last bit is how it ends. Every damn time. It's a nightmare.

Anyway, onto non-drop bear related topics. Yesterday's scrounging had unposted pictures and I'd hate for you to go without. Limby didn't let me down for a change and did some good work.



Bluegum is quite nice looking wood. We had the option of bluegum flooring at our old house but went with Alpine Ash instead which was 10% cheaper. It is also less than half the hardness (as I now know having had a reason to look it up) and was full of child related knocks and dents in no time. Maybe we'll go for the bluegum this time when we do the renovations on the 80's pornstar mansion.



Had to do a fair bit of blocking up and then more blocking of the bigger blocks into smaller blocks.



More blocks. Loading the trailer is like playing tetris.



So, what was this...



Is currently this (with the helmet sitting on the first broken branch stub)...



Plus this...

 

[dancan]

Awesome 1 tree score !
Thanks for the pics , lots of btu's there

I have to weedwhack a whole acre to get that many btu's

 

[benp]

The first bit is how it starts, and then the last bit is how it ends. Every damn time. It's a nightmare.

Anyway, onto non-drop bear related topics. Yesterday's scrounging had unposted pictures and I'd hate for you to go without. Limby didn't let me down for a change and did some good work.

View attachment 540488

Bluegum is quite nice looking wood. We had the option of bluegum flooring at our old house but went with Alpine Ash instead which was 10% cheaper. It is also less than half the hardness (as I now know having had a reason to look it up) and was full of child related knocks and dents in no time. Maybe we'll go for the bluegum this time when we do the renovations on the 80's pornstar mansion.

View attachment 540489

Had to do a fair bit of blocking up and then more blocking of the bigger blocks into smaller blocks.

View attachment 540490

More blocks. Loading the trailer is like playing tetris.

View attachment 540491

So, what was this...

View attachment 540492

Is currently this (with the helmet sitting on the first broken branch stub)...

View attachment 540493

Plus this...

View attachment 540496

Man that is a lot of noodling. Good job.

Lots of BTU's is an understatement.

 

[Jeffkrib]

We don't have BTU's in our part of the world.......we have 'Megajoules'

 

[LoveStihlQuality]

We don't have BTU's in our part of the world.......we have 'Megajoules'

Is that anything like the 1.21 gigawatts in Back To The Future?

Sent from my SM-N900P using Tapatalk

 

[MustangMike]

I see I forgot to hit "Post" last night!

So, you are terrified of spiders & snakes ...

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121112135510.htm

 

[MustangMike]

It is also interesting to note that Plum Island, a former Gov Research facility for infectious diseases that can be spread from animals to humans, is only about 10 miles from Lyme CT. What a coincidence! Not hard to imagine a tick infested bird making the flight.

 

[panolo]

I hit the back of neck and chest hair with the same bio-spot on put on the pooches. Never worry about them deer ticks then

 

[svk]

My wife got Lymes this summer. Ironically she picked up the tick in Florida.

 

[WoodTick007]

The $11 bundles are back instock instock @ the local grocery store. They were sold out over the holiday weekend. . it does include a bundle of knidling. They can be seen to the bottom left of the picture.
Eggsellent! I would assume those are chargeable to the Bridgecard.

 

[dwasifar]

The $11 bundles are back instock instock @ the local grocery store. They were sold out over the holiday weekend. . it does include a bundle of knidling. They can be seen to the bottom left of the picture.
Eggsellent! I would assume those are chargeable to the Bridgecard.

Two for $11 each? That's sort of a weird way to put it.

 

[PA Dan]

First time I saw that display at the grocery store I took a picture. I sent it to my wife and said "Honey I'm a millionaire"!

 

[Philbert]

At least they don't charge for the bark . . . .

Philbert

 

[WoodTick007]

Two for $11 each? That's sort of a weird way to put it.

I asked and was told that for $11 you got a bundle of kindling and a bundle of firewood. . .so you get two for $11 each. . . and yes you are correct the wording is very strange.

 

[cantoo]

I was still dying abit today but said screw it and headed to the bush. Almost killed me but I cut down, trimmed and piled up 6 trees. Butchered 5 of the stumps and had to push 2 down the rest of the way with the tractor but they are in the pile now. I was wearing a snow suit and going from full sweat to shivering to death every few minutes. Head was pounding so hard I barely had the radio head phones turned on. It still got dark way to quick though. It's muddy as heck around here so not going to haul stuff out for awhile. Hopefully it will freeze around Christmas time and I can get a bunch of loads out. Must be 5 or 6 loads sitting there ready to go. I took a couple pics but it was pretty dark by then. Wifey says seeing as I'm in such good health now that I can help her get ready for this weekends Family Christmas. This weekend is her side of the family at our house.

 

[LoveStihlQuality]

I asked and was told that for $11 you got a bundle of kindling and a bundle of firewood. . .so you get two for $11 each. . . and yes you are correct the wording is very strange.

A different way of gas station firewood sale

Sent from my SM-N900P using Tapatalk

 

[MustangMike]

I finished butchering the deer a few days ago, and it rained heavy all day yesterday, so today I cut the antlers off the head. Good thing the guy next door stopped by for a few minutes, he held the antlers while I did the reciprocating saw, made it a lot easier (I had already pulled the skin back).

Came inside and over the next 2 hours pulled 4 of those tiny little ticks off of me. Don't know where the heck they all came from, when I skinned the darn thing it was not that bad! I'm wondering if they just hatched on it or something like that. They were all very tiny. Two crawled out from under my watch, about 20 min apart, gives you the skivvies!!! Let me tell you, I showered real good, but I have seen them little buggers survive that also!

 

[Cowboy254]

Bit of a frustrating scrounge day today. Had a fair bit on at work today which reduced scrounging time and it was 30*C today which is above my comfortable scrounging temperature. There was a bit of wind today too which means that you're scrounging a mouthful of sawdust as well while you're cutting. I can see why the termites haven't really been into this tree, bluegum sawdust is fair at best.

Anyway, I picked up yesterday's noodled pieces. I did the picking up at the beginning, but took the photo after I had done some more cutting, sorry for the confusion this might cause.



Limby got temperamental again today. I was about to take to him with the maul when I remembered @MustangMike 's sage advice. Set in 'Run'. Knee on the top. Trigger down. Pull cord. BANG! We were away again. Thanks Mike! If MTronic has the ability to learn and remember things, I hope it learns and remembers that I'll smash the cr@p out of it if it makes me mad enough, often enough.



I also had to re-noodle a couple of previously noodled bits down to a size I could lift without risking blowing my back out, I'm a bit more circumspect about that now than I used to be.



Also had an annoying half buried branch that was in the way of me cutting the main trunk. Of course, it was still attached and I had to cut it. Seeing as the carbide chain on the 460 was already shagged, I shagged it some more cutting dirt as well as this 15 inch branch. So, in the end, I only ended up cutting and noodling 1.5 new discs off the trunk. Mind you, that's still a lot of BTUs at this stage of the game.



My tree-mance with the bluegum is about to come to an end, however, as there is a 12 inch branch stub stuck down vertically into the ground. This has been great for keeping the bits I have been cutting off the ground but if I cut the stump side of this stub, I'm not certain which way the trunk is going to go and since I have to get under it a bit now to cut through, there won't be any second chances if I guess wrong. So I'll be able to cut off the half disc still there and one half disc from the other side of the branch stub and then I think I'll go and find another tree to post pictures about.