It never seems to end, the never ending things a man has to do to keep the peace. A few years back, My wife surprised me with a wood stove. Of course she bought it in Oct and I didnt have a stick of anything to burn in it. After scroungeing as hard as I could to find enough wood to get thru the winter, and mostly burning green wood, I have finally managed to get a couple of seasons ahead on my firewood. Couple a years ago, I was given a monster red maple, about 6ft dia at the butt. The tree was growing on a river bank and had fallen into the water. I helped the guy get the tree out of the river and we sawed into log lengths and he loaded the logs on my trailer with his trackhoe. Well the tree was dead, bark slipping off, almost rotten on the outside, but dang it had a bunch of firewood in it. I dump it close to my wood shed and it laid there far a while because I didnt have a saw big enough to buck it up. I actually sold the butt cut to a man with a mill to make table tops out of. Anyways, I was left with some 4ft+ dia wood and the biggest bar I had was a 20in. Well last year I traded up a 24in bar and managed to buck up the maple. I got it all split and stacked in the dry. Well the maple was in the middle of the shed and we have just now burnt enough wood from in front of it to start using the maple. Wood dry as power. Will light with just a match and burns very hot, and very fast. Now the wife she likes the heat, but she hates feeding the stove. Last night I was instructed to never bring any more maple home for fire wood. I say free wood is free wood, if it burns, put it in the stove. Problem is, I still have a ton of that tree left in the wood pile. I guess to keep the peace, I will have to dig into the pile and mix the maple with other stuff when I haul it into the basement. The things we have to go thru.