The 2025-2026 scrounging season is underway

The stove was the only real treasure in that whole pile, but I'm glad I snatched it up! I've been needing one for camping/ice fishing. I'm heading down to buy fuel for it tomorrow morning

 

Another dead ash score. A lot of it is considerably past its prime, but good enough for my supply.

 

Work that truck!! Nice hoarding

 

That's a good load, well done, sir.

 

Nice score. Aren’t we all just a wee bit past our prime.

 

I wasn’t planning on scrounging anytime soon but white oak is my absolute favorite firewood, and a semi-rare get for me. My 372XP did the bucking and noodling, and I had my 288XP as a backup which in the end wasn’t needed.


Most of a full load. I’ve got a 30 mile ride home later so I didn’t want to push it. I’ll be in the area again tomorrow anyway.



What’s left. 2 rounds noodled in half plus a crotch section I’ll salvage something from.

 

That's a great scrounge right there, well done, my friend

 

Yahtzee! Excellent find.

 

No round worth taking left behind.

 

I still had my saws in the truck from yesterday, and just enough time today to buck and noodle 4 rounds of this red oak.


There’s a couple log lengths left here for whenever I can get them. Kind of a pain to roll them out from the mountain laurel and over rocky ground but it’s all part of the gig.

 

4 more rounds today. Man I should’ve quartered these

 

Yeah, I've gone to quartering myself.

Hows the heartwood on that RO? Some of it looks questionable?

Is there a lot there to scrounge?

 

The heartwood on the rounds from Wednesday has some old stress fractures through it but very minimal rot. Plenty of solid wood there. Yesterday’s rounds were perfect. There’s another 4 or 5 large rounds from this location that I’d like to get, and further down the road there are a couple more trunks that are not priority (standing dead that were felled, punky sapwood)

 

Now that my firewood deliveries are out of the way, plenty of space opened up, and with warm weather quickly creeping in, I decided it was time to start processing this oak. Today I managed to quarter all the halves and split all of the white oak.

A decent little haul:


The black oak quarters still needing to be split:



All in all a substantial start on some future heating season’s fuel for me. There’s one more black oak log I plan on cutting, hopefully soon. It’s almost the time of year for me where I normally don’t scrounge. But, we’ll see if the temperatures hold and where my willingness is when the time comes.

 

Nice work, my friend. Get that oak while you can. Summer will be here soon

 

Living vicariously through your pics Eric. Hopefully it motivates me soon. I love running my 350/46. How’s your 2150 doing? This wood to large for it?

 

Happy to inspire you to pick up one of your saws again Yeah, this oak was just a tad too big for the 2150. Not that it couldn’t chew through it, but it’s just not the right tool for the job. Sadly I haven’t run it much yet besides a few cuts. When hoarding picks up again in the fall I’m sure I’ll start to really put it through its paces. I had my 61/272 out briefly yesterday for the first time since swapping to the OEM cylinder. That’s running freaking awesome.

 

Night and day difference? I once got a chinese coil for my 394. Wasn’t till I replaced it with OEM did I notice just how bad it actually was.

 

Noticeable for sure. The throttle response seems a little better now. I’ve still got to tweak the tune slightly once I find a job for the saw. Fatten the high jet some more. I haven’t run it since probably December, and back then I think I had a 20” bar on it. Now it’s got a 16” bar that’ll be on there permanently, so it’s time to really dial it in, probably even drop the rakers on the chain(s) too.

I can believe the China coil didn’t perform well. I have one on this saw right now, but am on the lookout for OEM when the right deal comes along.

 

I managed to split all of the black oak this morning. About 1/3rd of a cord +\-


Also I made stacking all of the white oak a priority. There are a few other random pieces of various oaks on top, but most of it is white. About 1/3rd of a cord here too.