Sandy mess finally cleaned up

[daugen]

well, almost, still have some wood to split, but that's the easy part.
And a fine woodpile (one of many) to show for it. I'm sure this scene is repeated up and down the East Coast.
I bet the firewood people are having an interesting season, maybe too much supply and not enough demand.

Our township has a strict no burn policy so I had to haul all the trash away and bury it as neatly as I could in the woods.
The Kubota's grapple made this so easy to do.

One more large tree to do, but it's a big tulip poplar that fell in a field and I've got all winter to fiddle with it. Not sure how good that wood
is to burn, it's a hardwood, but apparently not very hard.

 

[Bob77064]

That's a nice stack of firewood.

 

[daugen]

Thanks. I was/am a long time boater, and sadly am utterly useless when it comes to tying knots, a real problem at times.
And I have been cutting wood since I was a little kid, and I never could get the ends of the pile right. Growing up, we did about seven cord a year, had 70 acres of woods out back, and had such long wood piles
we never worried about the ends.

Now my good friend Bill is an Eagle Scoutmaster and he comes along and fixes up my piles, makes the ends so straight I bet I could put a plumb on it.
Gotta know your limitations...
As you might imagine, Bill is really good with knots too...sigh.

 

[Verticaltrx]

Looks good. I remember when hurricane Fran came through our place in NC back in the 90's and left a huge mess. Luckily (or unfortunately) a large number of the trees that went down were oaks and provided all the firewood we could use for the next few years.

As for the tulip poplar, we've burned it before but it wasn't great. Made a ton of ash and heat output was mediocre. If it's down you might as well use it for something though.

 

[daugen]

I have about three years of white oak stored in the barn's wood room, so I really am torn about spending all the time to chop up that poplar. Long straight trunk as usual, would be good for someone to make furniture I believe.
At least it's lying down in a way that cutting it up will be super easy. If the saw goes through it like butter, well....maybe I will just haul it off for the squirrels to live in.

Even with the oak trunk as hollow as it was, that sucker was unbelievably heavy. I have some big logs to cut up, well big for me. I have a 20" bar on an Echo 450 and some of them are sure bigger than that.
Those really large rounds in the picture were from last year, need help to get them to the splitter and do vertically, but that's backbreaking too. Actually they'd make better seating around a camp fire...

 

[creekbend]

Here's wishing you and everyone affected by Sandy the best.

 

[daugen]

Thanks Creekbend. We had an enormous number of trees and power poles down, but perhaps due to some divine force, very few hit people's homes. But this morning, weeks later, all one could hear was the sound of saws and chippers echoing throughout the neighborhood as the cleanup continues. Almost like a tornado hit parts of our area, knocked down whole sections of woods. Others had it much worse, particularly further North of us.
The real worry for me was the older folk without power, and no way to get to their homes, all the roads, and I mean all for awhile, were blocked. And it got cold too so everyone helped out and took others in.
Really sad how many people died in their homes when trees fell on them, NY, NJ and New England were really bad.

 

[Baby Grand]

While tulip may not be a great heating wood, if I remember correctly it splits nicely and burns fast.
I'd cut a goodly pile and split it up small for kindling.
Can never have enough kindling.
Glad to see you weathered the storm in good stead.

 

[MarkV]

While tulip may not be a great heating wood, if I remember correctly it splits nicely and burns fast.
I'd cut a goodly pile and split it up small for kindling.
Can never have enough kindling.
Glad to see you weathered the storm in good stead.

Exactly what I do with poplar. I also keep some for early and late season fires when you just want to take care of the morning chill. Makes great kindling.

MarkV

 

[daugen]

Makes great kindling.
good advice, thanks.
Now what do I do with seventy feet of kindling?
Better rethink my storage plans.

 

[bigtiller]

Thanks. I was/am a long time boater, and sadly am utterly useless when it comes to tying knots, a real problem at times.
And I have been cutting wood since I was a little kid, and I never could get the ends of the pile right. Growing up, we did about seven cord a year, had 70 acres of woods out back, and had such long wood piles
we never worried about the ends.

Now my good friend Bill is an Eagle Scoutmaster and he comes along and fixes up my piles, makes the ends so straight I bet I could put a plumb on it.
Gotta know your limitations...
As you might imagine, Bill is really good with knots too...sigh.

Do you have a pic of how Bill the Eagle Scout fixed your ends? I have always done it like you or pound in a fence post.

 

[daugen]

got about half of the tulip poplar trunk cut up, easiest thing I've ever cut, and it was medium heavy, but the weight was all water I'm sure.
And as for getting the ends of the piles straight, my friend Bill was not about to go under the scrutiny of hundreds of online woodhandlers, so he did one layer and told me to do the rest.
And I did and it worked, though not really straight. And I don't think I want to go up much higher either. Basically every two or three layers, change direction and go out to the end.
Using flat split wood seems to work best. I'm sure others have a better system, and I'd sure like to hear it.

 

[TerryR]

Basically every two or three layers, change direction and go out to the end.
Using flat split wood seems to work best. I'm sure others have a better system, and I'd sure like to hear it.

That's close to how I do it. I change directions every layer. Choose split, fairly straight pieces. Put larger pieces on the outside of each layer and infill with smaller ones so the next layer rests solidly on the outside ones.

Terry

 

[jenkinsph]

daugen,
Looks pretty good, if it will dry out and stay put what else would it need.

 

[daugen]

making progress, now on tulip tree and woods fall downs, and testing a new log sawing holder for smaller stuff.
This one does not use chains, and is of Swedish design. And built far, far away from Sweden, but the box at least was slathered
with "From Sweden" and "Designed in Sweden", which is an immediate tip off it's not built there, anymore. Not cheap, but I was
very pleased with the construction, almost no assembly required, and nicely finished, and so far pretty stable and useful. Will be put to the test tomorrow.

Got the main pile covered with plastic, likely to build another pile this size around the building's corner.
Then I will hopefully look at these piles and know I've got a year or two supply aging nicely for me.
Funny, this rack of wood is very different than what you buy. Much greater variety of sizes and types.
Which as anyone who has tried to get his fireplace going with nothing but big logs to use, will know the challenges.
So it's nice to have some little stuff mixed in with larger hunks of white oak.

everything is muddy here, so I figured it was time to do some sawing. Tired of splitting wood, so just changing routines for awhile. Using a larger chain saw is
not good on my back at all, and I'm hoping the log stand will help with reducing the bending over.

 

[bcp]

Makes great kindling.
good advice, thanks.
Now what do I do with seventy feet of kindling?
Better rethink my storage plans.

I think you need to buy a Kindle. Isn't that what they use?



Bruce

 

[daugen]

the coffee is still brewing, that's my excuse, and I reread your sentence twice Bruce, and then it finally dawned on me. I bought my wife a Kindle and we hardly use it, maybe I'm loading the wrong stuff in it...

Yesterday I loaned my log splitter to a brother in law who lost some big trees on his farm. I took one look at his amazing piles of wood, and said "see you in a week". All storm damage wood.

 

[jenkinsph]

daugen,
Sorry about the damage and lost trees, I know that is a lot of work to clean up the mess. Hopefully you will have this cleaned up soon and have some seasoned fire wood for next year. We lost about 250 homes in a forest fire in my locale this year so I understand what you are having to deal with. Good luck with it.

 

[daugen]

duplicate

 

[daugen]

daugen,
Sorry about the damage and lost trees, I know that is a lot of work to clean up the mess. Hopefully you will have this cleaned up soon and have some seasoned fire wood for next year. We lost about 250 homes in a forest fire in my locale this year so I understand what you are having to deal with. Good luck with it.

thanks. As far as I'm concerned, if the tree fell and didn't hit a house, or hurt someone, it's unfortunate, but as long as it's not an evergreen, the "firewood" sign lights up for me. One of these days I'm going to drive off the road looking at downed trees ignored on people's property, all that potential firewood. Or is the right word now "biomass"...

I can't imagine being in a forest fire exposure, nor a tornado one either. That whole community that burned down in NYC must have been plain awful.
Things seem calmer here, but with Gloobal Wandering, I supposed that won't last.

Yes, we have firewood "out the ying yang" or the "wazoo" or whatever local term works. And I'm happy to keep stacking...
Actually I'm headed to my local dealer this morning for a second Echo saw, this one a 600 with a 24 bar. My 450-18 will cut this big stuff, but too hard on me.