I guess I assumed fresh cut. WE don't have black birch here that I know of but yellow birch will smell like wintergreen/root beer (but not quite the same as sassafrass) if it is a fresh cut live tree. Oh well. Decent firewood.
The ritzy subdivisions are fertile scrounging areas, they are carved out of prime woodlands, so the back yards have great mature trees. And the homeowners don't want them falling on their houses, and they don't heat with wood!
That birch, all of it, should split nicely. Be sure to zip the length of the skinny birch with your saw.
Niiiiice! Will you back for more or was it all taken after you left? Looks like a lot of wood still there.
The homeowner has a couple other people lined up to come after me. She let me take two loads, I didn't want to be greedy. I've been in her shoes, giving stuff away on CL or wherever- you don't want to disappoint people. Plus, I was pretty tired.
Our Astro with a full load of dutch elm kill slippery elm, seasoned standing, bark free. A full 1000 pound load. The hand truck was used to haul this load about 120 feet all gently down hill. I use the bow saw to mark my cutting length. One side of the black tape is 20 inches and the other is 21 inches. The entire dutch elm kill slippery elm unloaded and waiting for c/s/s. The largest diameter cut in this load was 11 inches and I used four battery pairs because the slippery elm was very hard, well seasoned. Yes, I sharpened my saw before cutting. Looks like a tough split but dutch elm kill slippery elm, seasoned, and bark free is one of my favorite firewood along with sugar maple.
I used all four battery pairs I own. I purchased another two pairs in addition to my original two pair. Each pair is rated at 36 volts together and 5 amp-hours. This seasoned slippery elm stem was VERY hard. I have cut the same amount of seasoned slippery elm with only two battery pairs but those stems were not as tough as this one. Just think how tough the splitting will be, NO large check cracks which is a sign of very tough elm.
That Astro van is nice and big! That load would fill my RAV4 right to the back hatch, if in fact I could load that much without bottoming out. If I had to split it, I'd noodle down an inch or so and then set my wedge.
More of my locust score. I pinched the saw pretty bad and took multiple attempts with the wedges to get it free. I even borrowed my friends stihl, but it wouldn’t start, I think because the cable to the spark plug is shot. But then one last try with a sledge and wedge and I freed the saw and finished off a 5 or 6 rounds. I was hand splitting and racing for daylight.
