Most common hardwood in Connecticut. A few dead, diseased and/or storm damaged trees at one of my storage areas needed to come down. Spent the afternoon taking down three. First tree was the dead one and had some nice spalting. Second one needed some persuasion to go where i wanted. Third had a hollow base. Cut it high and meat was good luckily. Carried rounds from the woods and staged to split. Nice splits going in the shed for bundle wood. Nice when the trees are right near the PA and storage! More to come down yet. Stay tuned.
Nice clean drops and great score in general. Got to love fast drying wood that doesn’t have to be hauled far. This is a different storage spot of yours than the one I’ve seen, right?
Right next door where we met for that elm. He said i could build a big shed there too. Kinda surprised me. Only thing is i cant really drive back there unless frozen ground or extended dry spell. Got stuck there a few years ago
Was a nice day. Near record highs in the mid 70's. Good breeze made it more pleasant. Helpers??? What are those? My friend came out briefly but was going to work. He said he would clean up the brush in the yard but there wasnt much and it got tossed in the woods. Another tree will be dropped into the yard. Im so used to working alone...99% of the time. I was gonna split some but decided to get a good stock of rounds and have a split-a-thon later on.
I grade them as i split. Pretty splits are bundle wood. Knotty and/or twisty are general cordage. Ive been trying to keep bundle fodder cleaner than general cordage. That shed will hold four cord once i finish it up. Roughly a cord stacked in it now. I loaded 2-3 cord in it May of 2021 and all that has been sold save for the 1/4 cord on the left side. The bin on the right is a half cord of nuggets/cookies etc to be sold this season.
Havent split any yet and didnt put a MM to it. Some of the rounds have a good amount of punk and that will get split out and tossed into the woods. The dead tree maybe put aside for possible late Winter sale if ready. Have a small pile of "almost there" splits already going.
Red maple is the hardwood I burn most of the time. My lot is mostly swamp maple and white pine. Some oak, but many that come down did so because the heartwood is rotten, often the carpenter ants have gotten in there when the heartwood is no longer hard. Often twenty feet of trunk is NFG. Maple can get rotten heartwood too but I've never seen carpenter ants in it. It's usually hollow or close to it. I find the maples have to be cut as soon as they start to decline or the wood is pretty soft and not worth much. I burn some pine, too. It's not so bad although not much good for overnight.
I was expecting the third very hollowed bottom tree to have rot up a good distance but cutting it at DBH height i was very surprised the meat was good. I have had similar experiences for the most part with red maple.
Here most reds grow in clumps and always bad spots where the rub together. Then middle is bad.. rotted hollow
Took down more today. Finished up one from the first cut. One 16" cut off the stump and the meat got bad real fast. One maple just next to this one dropped in the yard. Hollow and some big grubs in the "compost" pockets in the voids. Small dead maple spar in the woods and a couple small gypsy moth killed white oaks. I used the jrider "teeter totter technique" on a couple. One over a rock (done on purpose) and one white oak over a stump (done by accident). Nice when the trunks are off the ground. Plenty more dead white oaks to take down and maybe another living maple on the edge of the yard.
Nice. Good timing on a couple there with the rot. I laid one on a stump before too but it never teetered.
Keeping the white oak? Being dead, it shouldn't take too long to season. Planning to use a MM on a split? Nice hoard!
