Howdy! It's nice to see another fella from the land of not many trees. I'm pretty much straight north of ya, a couple hours. Welcome to the forum!
I have gotten a couple of loads from Arensman and have permission to cut in his dumping ground outside of Kinsley anytime I want, but that is about 40 miles so haven’t cut there yet. He has about 100 acres of pasture that he dumps on, then piles it up after drying for a couple years and burns it when we get a decent snow. I have a couple of part time landscaping guys that bring me some pretty good stuff for this area occasionally. Ben Arensman’s cell number is 620-430-1106. Nice fella. Had him take down a giant American elm at one of our rental properties this summer. Just had him put it on the ground and I cut it up and cleaned up the mess. Took him, two guys, a bucket truck and a crane 10 hours to get it on the ground. My 32” bar wouldn’t reach clear through cutting from both sides on the bottom 10-12 feet of the trunk.
Elm-er Fudd - Thanks for the number. I'll see about giving him a call next week. Maybe if he's doing any work in these little towns south of Dodge I can save him some time and fuel dumping at my place again rather than hauling all the way back to Kinsley. That Elm he cut down for you would have to be one of the largest I've seen or even heard of around here, outside of maybe the Country Club golf course. Noticed some big fellas in there when I used to do some lawn care because I assume they've actually been watered at some point in their life. Do you have any pictures of that beast? I don't see a lot of American Elms, mostly Siberian where I've took the time to notice. I don't mind burning Elm, but darned if the wind doesn't just wreck shop on them out here. Are the American Elms any tougher, or are they all just a brittle mess? I mean I'd bet I couldn't find a single one of those Siberian Elms in Minneola or the surrounding area that isn't a weird shape from having half it's top snapped off at some point recently.
Welcome High Plains Hoarder ! Lots of Characters here and lots of good information and fun interchange. Glad to have you aboard! Family, pets, saws, woodpiles, haulers? Love pictures here.
The picture really doesn’t do it justice. If I ever get around to getting the stump cut off, I will take a pic with both front tires of my truck on the stump. The trunk laying on the ground was almost 6’ tall and was wider than tall by quite a bit. Not many American elms left around here either. I prefer to cut and split Siberian elm. Splits way easier and much better firewood if standing dead. American seems to rot quickly when dead.
Neighbor had a Siberian taken down in her backyard. I was able to cut up and haul out around a cord that's stacked waiting for the splitter. She also has an American in the front yard that will get taken out next year. No too interested in it due to the difficulty of splitting it. We will see when the time comes as I tend to put my foot in my own mouth, almost daily.
I’d gladly cut it all up into sawdust. Just so you know High Plains Hoarder , I’m the resident elm “hater”. 90% of my banter is in good fun. I’ve had a couple bad experiences splitting and burning elm so now I “pick” on it.
High Plains Hoarder Welcome to the site. I have no idea what metalcuttr is talking about saying something about "lots of characters here". We are all perfectly sane, just ask buZZsaw BRAD
