Wifey has decided she will be working from home until Covid is diminished allowing her return to work or retirement.....whichever comes first. She decided in March her temporary workspace should be closer to the wood stove this coming winter. She said, "I will start and tend a fire daily, but I want some smaller wood to make it easy to start." I decided it would be a good use of some basswood as it drys fast and burns quickly. I hope this will be enough for her.
I would put my money on the retirement thing... Dennis Prager had it right when he said "When it's safe means never" Anyway, nice big pile of kindling!
I’d split everything I have into kindle sized spits if my wife wood tend to the fire all day! And that’s a whole lot of splitting!
Holland Dell that is a beautiful pile of kindling wood. It took some time but well worth it. I'm curious if you did this by hand or hydraulics? Personally I prefer using hydraulics for this. Another wood you would like for making kindling is soft maple. It is one of the easiest woods for splitting, dries super fast, lights off fast and burns hot. All this is why we use it, but then we don't have much bass in this area but I have had some in the past.
Thanks Backwoods. I have a small electric 5 ton splitter that I use for this. I'm actually pretty amazed how much power this little splitter offers. I've tried it on some pretty good rounds (16 inch +) of Oak, Walnut, Locust and Hackberry and it works great. Every time I come home from the woodlot, I toss in 5-6 Basswood rounds. After dinner in the evening I just light up a cigar, park my butt on a stool and start splitting. Keeps me outside and away from all the crap on television. I've tried Maple and agree it works well. Basswood doesn't burn hot, but it does start quickly.
That's a lot of kindling! I like to use a hatchet and I make my kindling super tiny, like fatwood size tiny. I've got 3 full IBC totes of kindling - mix of sugar maple, norway maple, some cherry, a lot of black locust, and now a lot of spruce. With one or two pieces of fatwood when the kindling is super skinny it really lights up almost immediately. I split the spruce rounds into wedges which makes it easier to process with the hatchet.
