In the pic with your son I noticed what looks like some birch/Aspen? Would that get priority over the DF? What is the ratio of soft vs hardwoods in your area?
Yep! That’s Aspen. I do enjoy burning Aspen. It burns hot and very clean. It will clean off the glass on your stove if there is soot on it. I don’t necessarily prioritize it though, as Doug Fir and Lodgepole have a much longer burn time. The only hardwoods in my area are Gambel/Scrub Oak. It grows in big stands. I’ll track down a stand of it and post some pics on here sometime. It’s a PITA to process, but it’s amazing stuff. I have about a cord of it ready to go for really cold nights.
Grapple trucks around here charge $100.00 a hour to move logs or pole wood. Several portable mills use them to haul free logs given to them.
It is perfect sized stuff. That’s one of the things I really like about Lodgepole Pine. It rarely grows to a huge diameter, so it’s really easy to manage. It’s also a slow growing pine, so it’s very dense, which gives it a longer burn time.
We have a fair amount of it in our forests as well but I dont burn it as I have lots of larch and fir to choose from. I was once given about a half cord of it all nicely seasoned so it was interesting for me to see how it performed. Since I burn almost exclusively softwoods (occasionally a bit of birch) I was amazed at how much ash aspen made. It burned well though. I think if I had to burn lots of it due to a lack of supply of other woods I would do ok.
All my experience with Lodgepole comes from an elk hunting trip years ago. We had a variety of fire woods in camp and some of it seemed to burn hotter and longer. I was told by a local hunter that it was Lodgepole and was the best of the pines. He said it and Larch were his favorite woods for his fires at home. Besides, it has a cool name evocative of snug Jeremiah Johnson mountain man style log cabins and lodges. You and your dinosaur helper should get as much of that stuff as you can!
Can't pass up a score like that. Nice dry lodgepole is one of my favorite woods to burn. I can get black locust, but it hardly ever gets cold enough here to need it.
No way I’d rest knowing all that wood was there for me to take. Looks like a couple vacation days are in order.
Ha ha. Trust me, I’m restless about it. I have made a couple more trips and just loaded the truck. But I need to get back there with the trailer.
There have been winters where I’ve burned primarily Aspen, and they were fine. It’s good stuff. But it does make a lot of fluffy white ash. You are right about that.
