While running my bus route I've been keeping my eyes out for old shelterbelts that I could target. If they were planted reasonably long ago there is generally dead standing and laying trees mixed in with the live ones still doing their job. The easy half of the game is honestly finding the trees, the more challenging bit is working out who owns the property so I can seek out permission to cut. There are a lot more tree rows than there are houses. I generally find folks are happy to let me get in there and clear out the dead so the live ones can keep going. I got into a new area this weekend with a butt load of black locust and hedge, with some elm mixed in for good measure. Some of the hedge logs I tried to count rings on, and hit 80 before losing track. I suspect some of them were a part of the original windbreaks planted just after the Great Depression/Dust Bowl era. I pulled two pickup loads out, but only remembered to take pictures of one The hedge doesn't get very wide around here, the biggest I cut was about 12" at the base. But my goodness I forgot how dense the wood grows. Sticks they may be, but very heavy sticks! I started to CSS back home and got somewhere between a third and half cord turned into firewood. A small batch went to an elderly neighbor in trade for being a generally good neighbor and advertising for me to folks around the area. And the rest hit the stacks. As many years as this stuff was dead it was either bone dry or rotten and I didn't bother to bring the more rotten stuff back like this All in all not a bad haul (I didn't nearly get everything CSS yet from these two loads) with many more likely on the way from this area in the future.
Man oh man that dead stuff looks like awesome firewood. Definitely worth the headache that comes with cutting abrasive logs. I don’t know if your area has it or not, but around here I can Google GIS Maps in the town in question and look up the property owner. It’s an easy way to make contact with whoever the owner is.
Good eye. Some good stuff there. Great shelf life on the BL and hedge. Nicely cleaned by mother nature and probably ready to burn if needed. Dont give up on BL with interior rot like that. May only go a few feet. Ive encountered it like that around here.
I may go back and cut into some of those half BL pieces I left behind. See how far the rot actually goes. Thanks for the tip!
Last September the wife and I went on a trip with our new ( to us) camper. Going through south east South Dakota from around Winner to Mitchell to Pipe Stone Mn. I couldn’t help but notice all the shelter belts full of standing dead trees. The game plan that I came up with if I lived near there was to just go to the nearest farm house to the shelter belt in question and ask. It seems to me that people out here in the middle of the country are still by and large the friendly and neighborly type. If they own the property in question, they will either say yes or no, about permission. If they don’t own it they probably can tell you who does. Or they may offer up something that they do own that you haven’t spotted. Take the wife and kids and go for a drive in the country and knock on a few doors. If’n you have a young son take him up to the door with you and ask permission for both of you, people in this part of the country like to see work ethics being passed down to the kids. I thought I started a thread about S.D. desperately needing hoarders but I can’t find it. But there’s a LOT of wood in that area of the state that needs put to good use. Good luck!!
Crap, my bad, I thought you were in South Dakota. That’s why I was a bit confused about the hedge. But the same advice applies. Get out and knock on some doors.
Yes, I'm more than happy to knock on doors. Worst someone can do is tell me no, and that hasn't happened yet. In the summers I've worked for many years as a tour guide, bartender, etc. at Boot Hill Museum in Dodge City. Talking to people, be it with proper intent or simple small talk, is like second nature to me at this point. On the other hand, finding the time and catching someone at home can be harder. Sometimes neighbors have offered me names and phone numbers so that helps too. I'm not aware of any GIS systems that I can access through the county or state that would give me property owners. I know the treasurer's office certainly has that information, but it'd probably take just as long to get it as stopping and knocking on doors! And indeed, I'm not that far north. In fact, Kinsley, KS the geographic "center" of the U.S. (or so they claim) is only about 45 miles to the northeast. We're halfway to everywhere in this part of the country. Though I suspect the terrain is quite similar to that part of SD you mentioned. The trees in these shelterbelts are the only wood around for miles in any direction. Winter wheat is in the ground in almost every other direction right now.
Had the chance to go back out and get another load. This one was a bit rushed as rain was starting to fall. I caught a break in the precipitation to snag a picture. Mostly Hedge again with a few Black Locust pieces as well. I took some advice and wound up keeping a few logs that have a little rot on the end, but are completely solid for 75% of their length or better. I got a moisture meter in the mail today too. Been meaning to get one for a while so I put it to work. The Hedge and Locust were both at 10% or less: I checked a split from a recently deceased Ponderosa Pine that I dropped two weeks ago. In both cases I followed all the best practices I've seen suggested. I used freshly split faces, room temp wood, etc. It was considerably harder to get the pins in the Hedge and Locust, but going in at an angle helped.
Not counting the pine I never get moisture readings that low. Was the wood room temperature before you split it or did you split it then warm it.
I split the wood outside, dropped the pieces in the mudroom on the way inside, took a shower and came back to check them shortly thereafter. Probably 65 in that room and a little higher humidity than the rest of the house. And it was probably no longer than 15-20 minutes between bringing the wood inside and checking the moisture. It wasn't super cold outside, somewhere in the 50s. So the wood wasn't coming up from Arctic temperatures. Should I have done it a little differently? The pieces are still inside. I could go split them again and try to stick it another time. See if it makes a difference.
Alrighty, I split it again after it sat in the house all night. Survey says: And it's even lower in other places on that same piece of Hedge.
Be gentle when pricking them. I actually bent the tips on my MM stabbing a long dead chunk of chunk of black locust! "Petrified" is the term we like to use for long dead rot resistant hardwoods like those.
Two more pickup loads today. The first a little on the small side: The second a bit more full: It's all Green Ash. Killed by EAB by the look of it. It was kind of fun to find a little patch of Ash trees in the tree row. They aren't common outside of town in my experience. Checked the inside of a split with my cool new tool: Should burn well best I can tell!
Sad to see the little green beetles made their way out there already. Enjoy the ash while it's still available, and scrounge as much as you can.
