I have been watching this forum for a long time and have learned a great deal here about felling, tools and firewood processing. I recently did three days of scrounging in Wisconsin, taking advantage of relatively good weather (for December) and figured I would share some pictures.
The first tree is a long-downed Bur Oak, about 14" at the base:
I thought it may be rotten, but it was solid when hit with the ax. Bur Oak resists rot for a long time when kept up off the ground as most of this one was.
All bucked up
All the large pieces ready for the X27! I stack like this so I do not have to reach into a pile or pick up every section from the ground. The plywood helps protect the edge on those rare occasions when I miss/glance a split.
Bringing in the smaller stuff: It took me some time to learn that it is smarter to keep the smaller branches in 6' to 10' lengths and just cut them up by the woodpile; It is a lot easier moving one 6' branch than a bunch of 18" by 3" pieces of firewood.
Uglies in the noodle pile--one with a wedge buried in a knot....
Split and stacked up front. Roughly 1/4 cord. The wood is basically seasoned--not a trace of the white oak smell you usually get when you split. We also tested a couple pieces and they burned fine. Still, we'll wait a few weeks before burning the rest.
Our wood shed holds about 5 cords and it started off full in October. It was about half full until we added the oak and what you see in back is a mix of Elm, Box Elder, Oak and Mulberry in that order.
Mixing the wood makes it easy to grab what we need based on the temperature/duration of burn we are looking for.