Been getting some of the seasoned wood moved from the stacks out in the meadow into the wood shed at the house so it's handy and covered for the heating season. I have storage for about 6 cord here at the house and that is the average I use in a winter. The north half of the woodshed has the two freezer carcasses in it that we keep the steer feed in so I can't load wood into that half till after we butcher in late October. I was able to get the south half of the woodshed and the two wood racks in the basement filled over the last week. I have several places on the farm where I process and store wood as I'm trying to get back up on the 3 year plan. I've been lucky so far as I'm able to harvest standing dead that is usually able to be used to make up for being behind on the plan. Wood shed with left half full of 3 rows of Honey Locust, Sugar Maple, Ironwood (Hop Hornbeam), Ash, and Elm. I like burning Elm, I just don't like splitting it unless it is standing dead with all the bark gone. There's a little Hickory and some other species mixed in. Right side still has the mouse proof feed freezers till butcher time. I bring wood from the other stash spots on the farm up to the house in the truck or on the carry-all. I can roll the wheel barrow right into the racks in the basement. Racks are 2 deep in the basement about 10' inside the door. About a cord total in the basement, 1/2 cord in each rack. Each rack lasts 14 to 18 days depending on the temps outside. I can get one more wheel barrow load in this front rack yet. This picture is the reason I hate processing green Elm. It's slow, stringy and never splits clean. Burns great once it's dry though. I almost never process any of it while it's still green. Some of the fresh cut White Oak harvested from the neighbors this summer getting noodled into manageable sized chunks and put up on pallets so I can split it down to final size this winter for the 27/28 heating season. It's measuring in the 45% to 55% moisture range right now... There are several 4' diameter rounds that need to be broken down to get up on pallets. There's a ton of limb wood in the background that needs cut to length also and put out in the sun on pallets. I'm guessing about 12 cord of white oak in this area to process. This is the area that had all the wood that got moved to the house above. I stack in the meadow behind the camera for about 6 hours of afternoon sun every day.
I love the smell of a fresh split white oak stack. It smells for days too. After splitting the oak, I’d just throw the elm to the side. Then when the day is done I might even add some moisture content to it.
I call this playing musical firewood. Wood always on the move. Nice when you can push the wheelbarrow right into the basement like that. My old house had a basement slider and a simple ramp was all it took to push it right in. Not a big fan of elm either, but I'll take it if decent and an easy score. I couple pleasant (for elm) splitting experiences with it last Fall changed my opinion of it.
I'm not a big fan of handling wood any more times than absolutely needed, but I like it out in sunny spots as much as possible and once it's nice and dry, move it to the sheltered dry wood shed and basement racks. Normally when I drop trees back in the woods I either skid them out to a processing area or cut and split them into the truck or carry-all so I can haul them out to some sunny pallets to dry. I don't like keeping my wood in damp, dark areas... Wait, did I just say that?
I envy your open sunny stacks. With my very limited stacking space I have one area that's gets decent sun 2/3 of the day. Most of the rest is in shade when leaves are out. My MO is to get rounds turned into splits ASAP even if not stacked right away.
I like getting it split and stacked right away too, but when I'm faced with 12 to 16 cord of logs laying around I have to set priorities. I'm thinking that cutting it to length and getting off the ground up on pallets is first and then come back through and get it all split and stacked as soon as I can. I'm interested if there are other methods or if I should focus effort in a different theory / process to get the least amount of loss. I'm still working full time and life gets in the way of getting it all done as quickly as I would like... That's the main reason I put the light bar on the truck, so I could split in the evenings during the short days of winter. I had the light bar on facing the rear of the truck the first time I used it. It worked great till I drove it out on the road. The cooling fins on the rear of the light bar made a shrieking noise like a Stuka dive bomber if I got over 30 mph... Now I keep a wrench in the truck so I can roll it over front to back easily for driving or working at the rear of the truck.
Wish I had an answer for you on that Monte. Its always a work in progress with me. Luckily as its a PT venture for me I'm able to devote more time to it. Ill assume you stack logs on sleepers to keep them off the ground? The only advice I can offer.
Logs planned for the sawmill are always up on pallets. The firewood not so much, but I try to get it broken down to a size I can get up on to pallets then from there up on the splitter by myself. I get lots of pallets from a couple of buddies that have businesses.
