I have no good answer. I’m seriously trying to get rid of shorts in the stacks. As a first year scrounged that’s not easy. I’m cutting normal lengths and ending up with a lot of cookies. Right now I’m using those cookies in an attempt to burn some stumps out of my backyard where I took some trees down this year. Some of them end up in the stacks. 2-3 pieces deep occasionally to mimic one split. Pain but it works. In the one case were I to have lots of 24” big oak rounds? Think I’d cut the 16” out and split those. Then leave the 8” cookies whole and let them season like that. Then split onto the trailer right before they come in the house. 8” round should season fine and I wouldn’t have to stack a bunch of small pieces.
Age old question for sure. I normally cut everything thing to 20". OWB will take anything up to 30", but the splitter is limited to 24". I sell about a cord and a half a year and that customer is okay with small lengths that his wife can handle. I also cut some of the shorts for camp fire wood. All the uglies and short shorts go in the uglies bin.
Firewood jail for the uglies. Oh boy, the tree huggers are going to raid this forum when this gets out.
Y’all can send me your oak uglies, shorts, and cookies. I will punish them in the order of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.
I now agree on the 16" with the 8" nugget. I have more shorties to stack and maybe a cord of the darn things. At the time of the score it seemed like a good idea. I drove home on 66 and that ash pile is huge. Maybe 3 trailer fulls. Decent looking wood jo191145 . It was raining when i went by, otherwise i mightve stopped for some
nice looking bin GrJfer I have more nuggets than i know what to do with. Close to two cord in the bins and a cord hanging around needing another!
I was faced with this dilemma again at my score this week. Asplundh had bucked the 24" diameter oak from 26-30" long. Cut my 16" lengths and had cookies/nuggets left. Not doing a bunch of shorties again! lots of cookies, but the price i pay for being a roadside scrounger!
i make face and half cord bins and sell them as such. I take milled hardwood camping. Burned 8-9 bundles last trip when we met you. I personally dont like burning bigger chunks in pits. The one here is smaller. I just scored this one roadside last Sunday. Tad rusty but bigger than my other. No grate so i improvised.
ive got between 3-4 cord of them plus (half is oak) another 1-2 cord of shorties...10-14" pcs. The consequences of being a roadside scrounger! the pile is still sitting roadside around the corner from the last score. Tempted to leave a "free wood" sign, but T.Jeff Veal warned me id be revoked from FHC!
Are campgrounds getting strict on the size of fire they allow? Back in the day I needed half a pickup for two days. Big chunks were great.
i think the state parks may limit size. We dont make a bonfire, but have a steady fire. Firepits are small. Never saw a ranger at DH. Paid online. The little ranger house there looks like it hadnt been used in years.
No one to check in campers at DH? Sounds like someone could drive in and set up camp anytime they wanted. Until someone who paid online for a site comes along. I’ll have to check out the website. Still hoping to sell off some of my chunklys to campers next year. Just need a bin of sorts. Don’t wanna tie up my little trailer. It’s good for tossing loose bark in while splitting.
we said the same about freebie campers. One site had a yurt and looked like someone was living there. I meant to ask if you ever sold any of the wheelbarrow fulls of chunkies?
Yes and no. Left it out there Labor Day weekend, no takers. Dumped it in my pit and had a couple cocktails. Then my sister tells me she has a buyer (city people) Wants two wheelbarrows full. I just overstuffed my trailer and called it good. $15 is good enough. They came and only took a little off the top. Sister called them back and asked what the problem was. They said it would take years to burn all that wood LOL $14 a night. $98 a week. I could see someone trying to live there. That’s cheap rent in Ct
pick out your fast seasoning species, make smaller splits and sell it like that. Amatuer burners hate chunkies. Did the same for my stepson couple years ago. His apt has an insert. Gave him a 1/4 cord of chunkies/nuggets. Some still sitting in his yard.
My pile of cutoffs is getting a little out of hand. I have a couple wire mesh bins (larger drawer size) that I filled a while ago and left in the shed where it gets nice and hot during the summer, so hopefully they are good to go as stove fodder. And then I can breakup the new cutoff pile and move them in. I’ve started leaning towards halving anything in the 24”-32” range. I figure, since I din’t sell, having some shorts mixed in is better than too many nuggets. Most of the red oak I scrounged was 12-14” anyways, which I wasn’t going to turn down. Maybe i’ll give north/south a shot after their mandatory waiting period.
personally i would rather have a few shorts than cut them all say 12”. I usually toss the shorts aside and whack em up for kindling or i use it in the indoor bbq. Obviously depends on what type of wood it is for the grill, so the ones that arent bbq ill put them in the tire on the chopping block and beat them into kindling.
