In loving memory of Kenis D. Keathley 6/4/81 - 3/27/22 Loving father, husband, brother, friend and firewood hoarder Rest in peace, Dexterday

Wood Hoarding On Mount Kadam

Discussion in 'The Wood Pile' started by Woodsman, Feb 23, 2020.

  1. Woodsman

    Woodsman

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    Taking a cue from CTRider and starting a wood hoarding journal thread. I thought maybe it’d be fun to have a thread where I can post all my pictures and hoarding/scrounging adventures rather than putting up a lot of individual posts. Keep it all in one place. Eventually it’ll be neat to be able to scroll back in it and recall certain things.

    This is where I stand right now as far as my hoarding goes.

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    The pile of uncut lengths is from some recent roadside scrounging on state land. Mix of sugar and red maple, ash, black birch, white birch, little bit of cherry and red oak. I’ve been scrounging sawless - if I can’t pick it up, roll it or flip it end over end without cutting it, it doesn’t go in the truck. Makes for quick scrounges and saves the back.

    The pile of cut and ready to split rounds is everything I’ve hauled off the hill out back from cutting up storm damaged and storm felled trees. Its mostly all 12” diameter or less stuff. The easily handleable stuff that fits well in the ATV trailer. It’s a good mix of species. Shag hickory, red oak, maple, locust, ash, black birch, beech. And there are also a couple hauls worth of larger diameter ash from my ash score, here. I plan to trailer the splitter over there come spring and start hauling back truckloads of splits.

    My wife and I heat the house with wood only. Propane furnace is back up or emergency use only and isn’t even plugged in. It’s a small house. Pretty easy to keep warm with our woodstove in the basement.

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    So far this winter we are just about through three cord of wood. Been taking from the back side of the wood shed this year as that’s the oldest stuff. Shed is three 8’ x 6’ bays of four rows of 18” splits each. Stacked 7 feet high. So it’s just about 8 cord when fully stacked in. Got about 2.5 cord stack up on the front side that will be 2 years old come next winter. This is our second winter with the shed since I built it. As things are shaping up it holds 1.5 to 2 years of wood for us. I’d like to get on the 3 year plan. I think for right now that means stacking up on pallets and top covering. As I used to do before the wood shed. Just don’t have the time right now to build another shed.

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    Gotta keep hoardin’! And for anyone wondering - Mount Kadam is the name my wife and I gave our property and small farm. It’s a hill. Not a mountain, haha. And our names are Kat and Adam. So, Kadam.
     
    Last edited: Feb 23, 2020
  2. Well Seasoned

    Well Seasoned Administrator

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    Looking great man! :thumbs:
     
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  3. Woodsman

    Woodsman

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    This past week was pretty light on the wood front. Was able to get out back for an hour on Tuesday and take down a small double trunk red maple and small bark-diseased beech that have always been in the way when hauling the trailer behind the ATV. Wide set trailer wheels would that would always get caught up. It’s a narrow section of the trail through the area of the property that was most heavily logged by the former owners. Got a full trailer load out from the two trees. Just have to go back up with a sharpened chain to zip the stumps nice and low.

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    Also got a little time in on the splitter on Wednesday and split up some hemlock to fill in the pile for the maple arch. Tree was standing dead. The wood is super dry and light. Will go up as fast as paper but hey, it’s still added BTUs. Got about a face cords worth out of it. Maybe a little more.

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  4. buZZsaw BRAD

    buZZsaw BRAD

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    Great idea for the single thread. Ive thought of doing the same. I saw your name on the website and guessed it was a name hybrid. You need a sign though at the summit! Great looking place and hoard Adam (im partial to the name as it was my late fathers first name) Looking forward to seeing it in person someday soon. Ill trade some good buZZsaw rounds for a gallon of your dark amber syrup! Very well organized and love the shed.
    I think the hoard needs more locust, a lot more, just sayin! :whistle:
     
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  5. Thor

    Thor

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    Wow Woodsman looks beautiful! Your shed and property makes me jealous.
     
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  6. Backwoods Savage

    Backwoods Savage Moderator

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    Beautiful place there. Looks like you have a bit of splitting to do too.
     
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  7. Woodsman

    Woodsman

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    Thanks! It’s been nearly five years of endless work and late nights and exhausting effort but it’s finally getting to a point where it feels like my own and certainly now feels like home. The people who originally lived here, unfortunately I have nothing much good to say about them. Want to take a guess at how many 30 yard dumpsters I had to rent to clear out all the trash and junk that was strewn about the property down by the house? It was terrible... They treated this place like a garbage dump. Every time it rains, new pieces of junk and garbage appear out of the ground. People like that do not deserve to own land, in my opinion. It’s sad. I do feel bad for the original owner lady in some sense. She and her husband bought the property, it was originally 90 acres, and built the place up together in the early 90s. He passed away from a battle with cancer, so I’ve been told, and unfortunately she then didn’t have the resources or know how to maintain the house. So the house fell into not disrepair but just dirty and far worn down. The guy she was with when I bought the house I think was the main problem here. I gutted the house and spent a year rebuilding and making it our own. Since completing the interior of the house I’ve also built the work shed, wood shed, chicken and duck pens, garden beds and the sugar house. Fenced in the backyard with a post and rail fence to keep the dogs contained at night when we let them out. There was nothing here but overgrown weeds and trees when I moved in and that was a main reason this place and the acreage sat on the market for four years with minimal interest. Overpriced and just worn down to minimal value. The land has been logged so the big timber value was taken out of it. It’s a pretty steep hill of ledge and rock the first half of it so building or parcelling out is not possible. I ended up getting it for 1/4 of the original asking price which came out to be much less than what the average regular size house sells for in CT. It was nothing more than right time, right place for me, as far as being so lucky to have acquired a nice piece of land. But believe me, everything else has been just endless work. This is where I will finish my days, hopefully many many years down the road still. I will never move and go through this process again. But I am very proud of how it stands today and I hope it will be a comfortable place for our children to grow up.
     
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  8. Woodsman

    Woodsman

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    Perhaps I’ll have to host a CT Hoarders G2G at some point! Although if you come up here for a visit I’m pretty sure you’ll just end down the road cutting up those locust trees.
     
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  9. Woodsman

    Woodsman

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    Sure do! The splitter will be seeing some action very soon. Once maple season is over.
     
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  10. Backwoods Savage

    Backwoods Savage Moderator

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    Looks like there will be a slow down on the sap by the end of this week but the cold snaps keep getting shorter and shorter.
     
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  11. billb3

    billb3

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    Zap and Rowerwet have done pretty much the same with [constantly] updated thread. (although Zap comes and goes).
    Seems convenient.

    I suppose like with caronavirus this is one way to [feign][try to] contain the possibly infectious hoarding disease.
     
  12. Woodsman

    Woodsman

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    Looks like it should flow through Thursday here then some colder air comes in. The flow yesterday and today was great. I’m just about to fire up the arch now for a few hours to get a jump on things.
     
  13. Canadian border VT

    Canadian border VT

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    Beautiful man.. absolutely beautiful.. I
    Can relate as my house was bought out of foreclosure and it only took 3 (40) yard dumpsters to make it ready to clean!! Also a person that got cancer..

    also had to remove 3 decks to get a mortgage as bank said they were not safe.. that were rotted and not in dumpster count.
     
  14. buZZsaw BRAD

    buZZsaw BRAD

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    Im not anti social, but for locust i could be! Kidding aside, I would be interested in some sort of CT GTG
     
    Last edited: Feb 23, 2020
  15. Woodsman

    Woodsman

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    Geez. That’s crazy! I needed three 30 yard dumpsters and thought that was a lot!
     
  16. Woodsman

    Woodsman

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    Planning to boil late into the night tonight. Get a jump start on the week. Don’t plan on finishing any syrup until tomorrow night though. Just keeping the arch fed with wood and feed tank fed with sap. Got some older black birch, maple and hemlock going into the arch now. 28°F outside. The sap lines just froze up and stopped running. Got the radio turned down low and it’s a comfortable 66° inside here. This is... work? Sure doesn’t feel like work right now. Coyotes are howling like crazy tonight.

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  17. buZZsaw BRAD

    buZZsaw BRAD

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    id love to get some dark amber syrup.
     
  18. Woodsman

    Woodsman

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    Yes sir. Got ya covered. Last year we never produced anything darker than a medium amber. Even the very late stuff right before the trees put out buds was right in the middle of amber/rich. If the trees give me sap this year that will go darker I’ll be psyched. Everything so far this year has been golden. I’ve got a suspicion that this week we’ll cross into amber territory.
     
  19. Buffalo Plaid

    Buffalo Plaid

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    Woodsman are you running vac on those lines or gravity?
     
  20. Woodsman

    Woodsman

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    All gravity lines for now