Since its inception i thought the thread title odd. Why would the cleanliness of your woodyard matter? Until i head someone say it on TV this morning? Looked it up and it makes perfect sense to me now.
I have a planned addition to my woodshed and my black locust pile (~1.7 cords) was in the way. My coworker needed dry firewood so I offered him a couple pickup truck loads. I never thought the day would come where I would be giving BL away with impunity, but I already moved the entire stash once before; I’m not restacking a third time. In exchange he brought me a couple fat oddball lengths of shagbark hickory and (3) 11’ lengths of dead but perfectly solid white ash. The ash will all become lumber.
Started stacking all the oak and ash I’ve been gathering lately. Lots more than I originally thought. The oak is as high as I want to go, but in the row of ash next to it I still have to fill in the back side. Got a good amount accomplished today anyway. More to come as I still have a bunch to process yet, and another stack to build nearby. All that kindling sized stuff in the first picture is for boiling maple sap.
Another pallet rack set up this morning. I cribbed the ends, so the pallets on the end are just extra insurance in the event the stack tries moving outwards as the splits dry over the next 3 years. The first row that’s 100% ash is done. The next row will be a mix of beech, black birch, white/red oak, hickory and black locust. I’m digging these north-south rows, keeping uniformity with the rows already inside my woodshed. Little by little it’s looking less like a disaster area in this end of the yard. Gotta knock this stuff out while there’s no snow on the ground.
Looking good Eric. The yard here was starting to thaw after last nights freeze and was muddy much to my dismay. Liking your red fillers on the pallets. I try to avoid pallets with gaps if possible but have done the same in the past. Easy way to break an ankle. My mother did years back that way.
Today I got the second rack filled up, and put up a single row stack of shagbark hickory shorts. I still have a bunch more hickory shorts, a small chunk pile, plus more full size oak/sassafras/aspen splits that I’ll have to make a home for. At least these 3 piles are top covered and weighted down with whatever junk I had laying around (rocks, bricks, lumber etc)
I dropped the last sugar maple straddling my property line and got it processed today. Not a large tree by any stretch, but it produced a couple weeks worth of firewood for me. This tree was shading out an area where I planted several white oaks and a couple sassafras trees, so I’m happy to do a little release work. I saved the butt log for a coworker to mill, although it remains to be seen what he can extract from this crooked log. Unfortunately this tree got wounded badly by a falling oak in 2020, and rot had gotten a hold of it pretty quickly. It had to come down eventually.
The ratty back 40 section of my wood yard is approaching full capacity. I’ve accumulated somewhere around 4.5-5 cords since October, not including what I brought home and gave away. I can probably fit a couple more face cords in there easily, which I plan to do as there’s a couple more loads of good quality dead ash available close to home. My growing pile of shorts and nuggets is quickly becoming a growing problem. The pile on the right is shagbark hickory, and the left is a mix of ash, red oak, white oak, black locust, cedar and various maples. At some point I probably need to build a small covered pallet pen to get it off the ground. In the upper right corner of the last picture you can see where I have a bunch of sassafras and aspen piled under my kids’ tree house. As I burn through more inventory, I’ll have to find a better spot for that too.
Looks like you’re ready to start selling some. That’s a bunch of nice looking symmetrical splits perfect for the retail market.
I’ve definitely been considering it as of late. There’s a gas station less than 10 minutes from my house that’s looking for a supplier, and that owner has several other stations within a half hour of me. I just don’t know if there’s any money in bundles versus simply selling cords. I do have enough RTB red oak to try selling on Craigslist though.
I’d try to exploit an approaching Nor easter or winter weather. I have more small truck customers than full size truck customers. Probably 3:1 most fireplace casual burners are not interested in 1/3 cord or greater loads of wood.
That would actually work out well for me. I can only fit 1/3 of a cord at a time in my small truck anyway.
Those nuggets are a PITA especially with mixed species. I had accumulated a boatload (5-6 cords) and sold a lot this year much to my surprise. Im now purposely taking them to build inventory as i have a couple customers for them. Still a cord of BL and a half of some 3 yr old stuff where that KCT came from.
