I’m pretty well stocked up this point, with big stacks of locust and white oak for the next couple years. This year will be the squeaker.. we are burning a lot more since I am working from home and the 6yo is in virtual kindergarten. I have a random assortment of wood from the dump (a lot of ground seasoned(starting to rot) red oak shorts that have only been stacked about a year and a little. I’ll have to bust out the moisture meter to see how it is doing. I did just check at the pool where I scored the locust last year and there are some nice fat locust rounds just sitting there. I think the guy that cut them didn’t like how they burned, because he didn’t give them any time stacked. He said I could help myself though he claimed some other wood on the property. Permission is granted, so I am looking forward to take the kids to ride around on their scooters in the empty parking lot while I fill up the trunk with some more locust. I’ll bet the bark peels off.
depending on how urban you are in MD, you might try chip drop. There is a log drop option. I got chips in my only delivery and it was eastern white pine. Not high btu, but dries out nice and quick and makes great fire starter from coals. I wish I had some more stacked myself right now. If you are close to DC, I can give you some more specific spots to check although my goto wood dump has been dry the last few times I checked.
Thanks, Fancypants. I'm way down in SoMD. So far I've got a few friends that have trees down on their property and my local landfill has a spot for free wood. Only been over there once and everything there would have needed a saw which I didn't have with me at the time. Not sure how the dump feels about people sawing out in front of the entrance, but I figure if they expect people to take it, they gotta know it's going to have to be cut up.
I did some more cutting at my friend's house. I got to use my peavy for the first time! There are three more oak trunks like that one, and another pile of bigger chunks. I'll go back tomorrow. They are talking about more snow the middle of next week, so it would be nice to have everything out of there by then.
Easy rolling those logs with the peavey, eh ? With larger logs. I've gone to using a small sledge hammer to tap the pointed end in deeper. Nice logs. Dead and loose bark!
Not only an abuse of the Rav4 .... but also turning into a wood snob? Molly, Molly, Molly! What to do, what to do. Too much wood, not enough time! Very nice haul. I actually miss having my Rav4!! (?)
Its hard to say no isnt it? I can understand why you passed. My recent silver maple score was the same although the wood splits easily. Maybe 25% of it was the correct length. I still have some red maple from an old score to split. Tried with the log blaster the other day and no go. Sledge and wedge more likely.
No firewood hauling with the Rav I had. I'm surprised at the size of the load Midwinter manages to fit into her's. I didn't think the suspension would handle that extra weight well. I have only been without a truck for a few months at the longest. I used to do a lot of driving, compared to the amount of driving I have done in the last year anyway.
Let it get rained on then split or store them (for a short amount of time) with one end on the ground keeping it wet/damp.
I have some red maple rounds to split. I don't recall some other RM as being too difficult to split. But, I'll wait for a nice cold morning after the rounds have frozen to split jt.
Bigger round can be tough. If the ends start to check let them get wet and split from the wet end and a world of difference IME!
