Funny how when i least expect it a score comes along. Im ready to leave this afternoon with a PU full of splits being relocated to storage and my phone chirps. Text from an old friend of mine who just cut some trees down at his sisters house which is on the way to where im bringing the wood. Stopped to check it out and chat. Three yellow (i think) birches planted as landscape trees that got too big. I counted the rings on a bigger round and less than 20 years old. Come and cut at my convenience. Other than the oddball lengths some decent wood. Ill buck to my size and take shorts too. Five minutes to storage. I got several loads of wood from there last year. Mostly honey locust hybrid Found Myself Another Honey! I Love You Honey! were the threads. They also cut a tulip poplar in the back yard but bucked the rounds to 12". Not touching those.
That honey locust is some hard Splitting stuff, the only stuff they stalls my splitter. If you hand split all of that.....
Looks like a tree I had given to me last summer. The consensus here was river birch, haven’t burned any yet. Kinda the same scenario landscaping yard tree that got to big. Pretty wide growth rings
I hand split all the HL from the prior loads from there and whatever else i had scrounged and no problems. My normal MO is to split ASAP from being bucked and have had good luck. If rounds sit and the ends check i gets a lot tougher unless they get rained on.
Nice score! A friend just dropped off some swamp (yellow) birch and red maple logs yesterday that his mom wanted taken down. I don't go out of my way for swamp birch, however I have burned a lot of it over the years and it's great SS wood.
Im not 100% sure of the variety. It resembles yellow birch. The growth rings were 1/2"+ Most hybrid yard trees are "made" for faster growth. I snapped a twig and had no smell to it. These had to come down as they were too big. Sad thing was the other trees they cut from last year made for a real nice back yard.
Interesting, and I'm not familiar with the landscape varieties as just about everything I get around here is wild growth. An old forest service report on yellow birch/white birch hybrids that I was reading did note a faster growth rate on the hybrid trees. I wonder if the ones you're getting are something along those lines.
Havent been able to get any of this as work had been busy, weather not ideal for hoarding and storage issues. Cut a load this morning. Gonna get lots of nuggets/shorts as their lengths were 18-26" Having problems with pic files so wont load, but 3/4 PU full. Maybe two more of the same yet there. I split one from a fresh bucked end and the wood seemed as though it was starting to punk even though cut fresh green mid May. When dry i think itll be a poor btu wood compared to other birches. Gonna use the hydro on these. Need to get SS ASAP as already showing some spalting. Ill try to post pics with next load.
