Tractors and wood! Show your pics

[Rockbadchild]

Yeah, I've heard a lot of conflicting opinions and conclusions on this. It's been documented in some places that the average household firewood usage in the 18th and 19th century was something like 30 - 40 cords of wood per year.

But it's also claimed in other sources that "comfort" is a modern concept, our forefathers really weren't as concerned with keeping their homes warm, as we are today. Often cited with this, is their wardrobe, the way they wore underclothes, then their clothes, then a vest, then a jacket... usually all outer layers being wool. Seems to make sense.

(And young readers may confuse "jacket" with "coat", we use them somewhat interchangeably today. They'd also don a coat atop all of this, to go outside.)

I suppose both could be true, as I strongly suspect they were burning green wood, based on so many accounts in literature of cutting wood only shortly before burning it. Burning wood before it's lost most of its water content, is basically throwing your hard work into boiling off the water in the wood, it takes a lot of energy to boil off a small amount of water... and green firewood can contain a lot of water.

What bothers me most, no matter how much wood they actually consumed per year, is that they had to do all of it without a chainsaw. No matter how much wood you're burning, that really sucks.

My family has been in the same area for a little over 300 years, and some of the old tools that have been handed down from one generation to the next, have landed in my shop. Among them are one two-man saw, about 6 feet long, and another large one-man felling saw with holes at the tip of the blade for attaching a second helper handle. The teeth are aggressive, they'd probably cut pretty fast if re-sharpened, but the force required to push and pull one of them thru our large oak trees must have been enormous. If you were a homeowner without a few big sons, I can imagine you just got used to living cold, as the work to process enough wood to keep an old uninsulated stone house with single-pane windows warm, would have been out of the grasp of anyone over a certain age... particularly before the invention of anti-inflammatory medication.

I cannot imagine doing firewood by hand, that's a full time job on its own and yes the average household temperture has double since then. Also depending on the time period you would've seen house huts with a room for animals in the back so in other words they would have a horse or/and cow and chickens in the back room which generate heat...

 

[Sawyer Rob]

Here's the tractor,

you will see the wood tomorrow as I'm headed to skid firewood logs!

SR

 

[arrow]

Yeah, I've heard a lot of conflicting opinions and conclusions on this. It's been documented in some places that the average household firewood usage in the 18th and 19th century was something like 30 - 40 cords of wood per year.

But it's also claimed in other sources that "comfort" is a modern concept, our forefathers really weren't as concerned with keeping their homes warm, as we are today. Often cited with this, is their wardrobe, the way they wore underclothes, then their clothes, then a vest, then a jacket... usually all outer layers being wool. Seems to make sense.

(And young readers may confuse "jacket" with "coat", we use them somewhat interchangeably today. They'd also don a coat atop all of this, to go outside.)

I suppose both could be true, as I strongly suspect they were burning green wood, based on so many accounts in literature of cutting wood only shortly before burning it. Burning wood before it's lost most of its water content, is basically throwing your hard work into boiling off the water in the wood, it takes a lot of energy to boil off a small amount of water... and green firewood can contain a lot of water.

What bothers me most, no matter how much wood they actually consumed per year, is that they had to do all of it without a chainsaw. No matter how much wood you're burning, that really sucks.

My family has been in the same area for a little over 300 years, and some of the old tools that have been handed down from one generation to the next, have landed in my shop. Among them are one two-man saw, about 6 feet long, and another large one-man felling saw with holes at the tip of the blade for attaching a second helper handle. The teeth are aggressive, they'd probably cut pretty fast if re-sharpened, but the force required to push and pull one of them thru our large oak trees must have been enormous. If you were a homeowner without a few big sons, I can imagine you just got used to living cold, as the work to process enough wood to keep an old uninsulated stone house with single-pane windows warm, would have been out of the grasp of anyone over a certain age... particularly before the invention of anti-inflammatory medication.

The house in the country is about 15 miles from Providence. My house is perched on the highest part of the state.
It is said that in the late to mid 17 to 1800’s, you could see Providence from my house as no trees were left.
It is now completely reforested such that l can’t see the dog a mere 50 ft away.

 

[WinterDeere]

The house in the country is about 15 miles from Providence. My house is perched on the highest part of the state.
It is said that in the late to mid 17 to 1800’s, you could see Providence from my house as no trees were left.
It is now completely reforested such that l can’t see the dog a mere 50 ft away.

Same here:

1. My church was built in the 1740's, and it shows up in a handful of old landscape paintings and drawings from area artists. People are always surprised, because the paintings and drawings from the 1700's and 1800's always show it as surrounded by barren rolling hills, with a clear view to distant houses and barns. Today, the small church yard and graveyard are completely surrounded by dense woods in all directions, and people assume it's always been that way.

2. I grew up in and around New Hope PA, which has always been a bit of an "artists community", and a relatively old town (one of my family homes there was built 1692). We have a lot of old photos and paintings of the area showing basically zero trees looking south and west from town, an area now completely covered in forest. Washington used a hilltop on the south end of town, to spy on British encampments from Lambertville down to Trenton NJ in Nov/Dec 1776, but standing atop that hill today you can't see anything across the river through all the trees on both sides.

 

[bcjmmac]

I cannot imagine doing firewood by hand, that's a full time job on its own and yes the average household temperture has double since then. Also depending on the time period you would've seen house huts with a room for animals in the back so in other words they would have a horse or/and cow and chickens in the back room which generate heat...

We heated exclusively with wood when I was growing up. No insulation, or animals, to ward off the cold but normally shared a bed with one of my brothers. When it got below zero, mom would throw an extra quilt or 2 on our beds. Another one at minus 20 (still in Fahrenheit then). 9 of us in a 4 bedroom house (maybe 1600 sq ft).
Dad would get up in the morning & start the wood stove (Enterprise cooking range). Would have a pot of water/ice on it as he would have to thaw out the drains in colder weather (they were a pipe out the side of the house/exposed to open air). We got up to do the chores once he had the water running - feeding cattle, milking, etc. Was almost always warmer in the cow barn than in the house in the winter mornings.
House was “insulated” & bathroom put in when I was about 6. Got a tractor about the same time - had 3 draft horses until then & kept 1 for harvesting wood as we could get lots of snow
I’d guesstimate that we went through about 10 cord of hardwood, or less a year. Wood stove for cooking (& heating water) + the pot bellied stove. Dad put in a wood furnace after I headed off to university which dropped his wood burn to about 5 cord
He always maintained that fire wood heated you at least 4 times - cutting down & hauling, blocking it up, splitting & putting in storage, burning

 

[Hoobie]

We heated exclusively with wood when I was growing up. No insulation, or animals, to ward off the cold but normally shared a bed with one of my brothers. When it got below zero, mom would throw an extra quilt or 2 on our beds. Another one at minus 20 (still in Fahrenheit then). 9 of us in a 4 bedroom house (maybe 1600 sq ft).
Dad would get up in the morning & start the wood stove (Enterprise cooking range). Would have a pot of water/ice on it as he would have to thaw out the drains in colder weather (they were a pipe out the side of the house/exposed to open air). We got up to do the chores once he had the water running - feeding cattle, milking, etc. Was almost always warmer in the cow barn than in the house in the winter mornings.
House was “insulated” & bathroom put in when I was about 6. Got a tractor about the same time - had 3 draft horses until then & kept 1 for harvesting wood as we could get lots of snow
I’d guesstimate that we went through about 10 cord of hardwood, or less a year. Wood stove for cooking (& heating water) + the pot bellied stove. Dad put in a wood furnace after I headed off to university which dropped his wood burn to about 5 cord
He always maintained that fire wood heated you at least 4 times - cutting down & hauling, blocking it up, splitting & putting in storage, burning

Sounds exactly like my growing up here in your neck of the woods. Hot flat irons mom wrapped in newspapers and placed in our beds at night. Enterprise cook stove and Triple Jewel wood heater. Windows frosted on the inside in morning.
I still live(74 years) in the same house but has been upgraded over the years. Wood heat....about 5 cords.

 

[fruitcakesa]

Been logging my hemlock stand since June. A load of pulp and another of sawlogs sent to the mills. I half or so into a 2 nd pulp load and maybe a 1/4 in sawlogs.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

I went to my skidding job today, what a mess! An excavator broke off, dug out and made a huge mess piling trees and the owner now wants the pile pulled apart and the logs cut out.

Here's some of them,

There's stumps to cut off and deal with too,

Like I said, what a mess, but I'll be back on the job tomorrow!

SR

 

[Gordon Gould]

Been logging my hemlock stand since June. A load of pulp and another of sawlogs sent to the mills. I half or so into a 2 nd pulp load and maybe a 1/4 in sawlogs.

Nice to see that you are able to get into your woods and do some work with all the rain we've had. Sounds like you have gotten quite a bit done. You must have a well drained lot. Up here in the St J area we have more mud, wet soil, and water pooled up on the ground than we do during spring run-off with no chance for it to dry out with these continuous showers. Even the log yard I use is shut done from the flooding and extreme damage to his access road.

gg

 

[arrow]

Here's the tractor,

you will see the wood tomorrow as I'm headed to skid firewood logs!

SR

We use a 2022 3/4 ton Silverado at the shop pulling a 22' tag along. It tows very nicely with the 6.1 and provides plenty of power even with a 5 ton load.
It really didn't pay to get the diesel. First, couldn't find one and secondly, that engine came with a hefty premium.
Truck still averages 12 mpg pulling heavy.