Well, you got it before the rain, that's good. Wood hoarding in the rain, not so good. That's all primo stuff despite the motley shapes and sizes. Do you try and split the sycamore? I've given up on that, just toast it next to the stove until it's dry.
No Molly I don't, but I love fallen sycamores branches because of their ability to dry out in the field and be ready to burn. That said I only take up to 7" diameter branches because splitting the stuff is out of the question. I wouldn't burn a 7" diameter oak before splitting it at least once in half, but sycamore is so light and dry it can burn at that size no problem. I mostly see 3 to 4 inch size stuff regularly in this particular park which is majority sycamore. This size is perfect and the no bark feature (well basically none) increases it's value to me. Great shoulder season wood and a beautiful if not interesting and sometimes even a majestic tree to behold makes it one of my favorite trees in nature. As a plus I never got a splinter handling sycamore wood , but splitting?
I got back to my down an' dirty scrounging roots at the dump this Saturday. I found this sketchy looking pile of oak splits... And I took the ones that weren't rotted from laying directly on the ground. They don't look very appealing, you say? I split one open, pure gold, and almost ready to burn. I will probably resplit most of them, they are pretty chunky.
No, and I need to go, there is plenty laying on the ground out there. Once we get snow and the wood freezes to the ground, it's pretty much ungettable, for me anyway.
nice score Molly! Those splits look WAY smaller in the first picture than they do stacked in your car!
Hey Midwinter you're in my territory now scrounging "zombie wood", but already I see that you're making it look pretty...you just can't help yourself! Nice score by the way, almost fully split and almost ready to burn I say is like winning a small wood hoarders scratch off lottery. Speaking of scratch off, I just came back from that cemetery to check out their back tree dump and I was only able to get a 6 ft length of unseasoned black locust in the 13 inch diameter range. It had an old dead poison ivy vine attached to it, but there was some live ivy under foot and so I cleaned off real good just now and waiting for the verdict haha. This log was as heavy as the ash I got last time, a little thinner, but a little longer. There is a twin piece to this one that I will have to get next time. Due to the 6ft length I cant fit it easily in the cargo hold of my car and two of these logs would have been too heavy for my trailer hitch. I'm guessing they are each in the 225lbs class. So I took that log and some smaller wood and still got away with a hefty payload, but unfortunately nothing that will be ready to burn this season. So what I found in that back dump was more of the same huge logs in the 500 to 1000lb range. They are all from oaks that are 125 to 150 yrs old which must make them some of the original trees planted for this cemetery probably established in the 1870s or abouts. Anyway, don't know why, but they cut at least 7 of these beauties down recently and the wood looks healthy. Only thing I can speculate is during that surprise Nor'easter and squall we had last month some of these trees are starting to drop dangerous branches. Too bad all are cut so big and by evidence of a huge area of wood chips, they must've ground up all the smaller branches. All that remains is mostly 4 to 5ft diameter logs cut 30 to 48 inches long and each one would sag the back of a pickup. Well it was nice eye candy anyway
Yes! Each log completely processed into splits would supply over a face cord with proportionally very little bark in the mix.
I got some very wet white oak off a nearby Craigslist offer this morning. Here it is cleaned up. It was so heavy, that's all I could load my car with. The homeowner had more, but other people were supposedly going to show up. I'm going to check back with him in a few days. The wetness, soggy bark, and fungi may discourage other takers.
Not to mention its a bit gnarly. looks like the woods been laying in a mud puddle. I hate when wood is saturated and weighs way beyond what one would expect. looks like all the weight's in the saturated spongy sap wood. Heartwood seems to be solid. You didn't complain about the splitting so I assume that part went well at least.
I'm trying to get back in shape for splitting. Just getting these rounds in half left me with sore arms this morning. I'll try to do a little every day or so. This stuff was lying in the woods where it was cut last fall. It picked up a lot of water. Should be ready to burn in five years!
haha! Nah you'd be surprised once off the ground and stored properly it will follow the regular seasoning schedule especially since you cracked them open. Anyway, I meant to send that silly little message earlier this morning, but then the work day started and I got super busy with the school fundraiser -"Halloween Haunted House" (I built a headless man costume) and other deadline stuff. I just settled down tonight after eating dinner and saw my unsent message waiting in draft form haha! I forgot to hit post reply It's really crazy at work now with deadlines for nonsense that distracts from the bottom line of education, all while pretending to be helpful new procedures for the teachers. Most of the stuff is bureaucratic useless nonsense that our Board of Ed uses to look good on paper. It's all time consuming window dressing designed to give the students every angle to pass their classes with little effort while taking the authority and autonomy away from teachers. I shouldn't be surprised, it mirrors same silly backward politics we are witnessing today. Sorry to unload here
I love those headless man costumes! There are so many variations. Two heads in the alien abduction version... Post up yours if you get a chance.
Haha, love it! Mine is more gory and sinister. It was made from scratch because I needed to get the students involved. I cut up a cheap mannequin torso for the upper harness and illusion. We make something every year, last year a crazy Jack in the box and the year before that an entrance to a cemetery. Problem is I'm usually busy and not in the building that the event is held ...also not a fan of going through the actual haunted event. Just don't like having my students trying to scare me haha. Anyway, I mention this because I don't have any final photos with make up and all. I do have some process photos where you will get a good idea. I'm off to work now and will see if anyone has my costume photographed from the event. If not I will post the ones I have later.
