My Five Year Plan - A Few Questions - Suggestions Welcome

I took the advice of Dennis and Horkn and passed on the peavey/log lift and purchased a cant hook instead. My cub cadet 1863 is still in the shop waiting on parts. For now, I have processed everything I had on my property so I am cutting and leaving in the woods until I get my tractor back.

Here is the tree from my original post of this thread. Going to come back tomorrow with the x27 and do some splitting. Tree is pretty old but solid except for about a two inch strip where the log was resting on the ground.



Here are some lengths I will bring back for the sawbuck - I will cut just about anything as long as it is greater than 3/4 solid - don't mind a bit of the punk.


Here are a couple white oak tops that blew down. If you look at the second one, you can see the standing trunk - I can only cut "down" wood on this property, so I can't touch it. Going to get out as much of the downed stuff as possible this year and then ask the landowner if he will let me cut some dead standing. Even if he gives me permission, might be a while before I get to it.

 

Good decision I think a Cant hook is a must have

 

I agree. Whenever I don't have it, I sure need it. That's how it goes.

 

Your walnut should dry nicely if you keep the rain off of it. I have walnut that is less than a year old and it burned beautifully after 9 months in my wood shed.

 

cool that means I will be burning my walnut next winter, and I will be sweating my walnuts off this spring n summer gathering wood

 

Wood collection went into high gear today as my cub cadet was returned from the shop. Brought back the oak rounds cut over the weekend and a bunch of lengths for the saw buck. All my primary wood storage pallets are up on bricks/blocks ... just need to fill them up. Five of the rows are 24 feet long and are standard pallets (40x48) while one of the rows is 22 feet long and is made from roofing pallets (43.5x57). Still need to add a few more pallets to store shorts and odd shaped pieces.

 

Oh ya baby real nice pile O logs

 

Got a nice surprise this morning. My local tree service guy delivered rounds that I had ordered in January. He was generous and delivered two loads for the price of one. Some kind of maple. My stacks are coming along; added corrals to end of each stack to hold shorts and odd shapes; tree service rounds yield lots of shorts. Here are a few pictures:

 

Like those corrals. How did you make and attach the sides?

Sorry if it is obvious, but not obvious to me, and I'd like to try it.

 

Actually, there is no attachment. The pallets are held vertical using T-posts. I think any pallet would work, but for these particular pallets I have, it works quite well. I obtained these pallets from an electrical supply company - they are one time use pallets that hold standby generators. They allow plenty of air flow, but are not particularly well suited to stacking wood on. I scrounged a ton of these this winter, not really knowing how I would use them. In the end, this corral system seems to work best for them. I first laid out my pallets on bricks, then I put one of these generator pallets on its side next to the pallets already laid down. Then drove two t-posts between the pallet stringers and then added a second pallet over the t-posts. I then took some fencing I had and stapled it to the inside so that none of the wood can fall out between the big gaps in the pallet boards.

I use these pallets at the end of each of my stacks to hold them up. After seeing some of beautiful cribbing that people like Dennis do, I wanted to give it a try ... found out I am terrible at it and decided to give up cribbing for now and concentrate on getting ahead ... will leave cribbing for a future time.

The end and middle boards of these pallets are oak - planning to take some of these apart and use for kindling and burning.

 

I have to admit that I was spoiled by the first load delivered by the tree service - all red oak and a dream to split except for about 8 tough ones.

I worked over a few of these today and found I needed to chip away at the edges before I could finally get some nice square splits out of the center. The red oak would yield after a couple strikes along the center, not this stuff. I've never burned maple, so am looking forward to seeing how it burns relative to other woods I am familiar with.

 

I now understand why establishing a 3 year plan is the way to go. But, couldn't understand until I jumped into the deep end with a 5 year plan.

The double load of silver maple is wearing me out ... must have been a yard tree or something as it is full of knots and is a bear to split ... must have wanted to be an american elm or something

A fun and productive spring for sure. A few progress pictures ...

Before and After old oak and mulberry pile


Silver maple pile slowly shrinking


Way too many shorts as my corrals/pens are full


Oh, an my nice neighbor brought me some black walnut from his father's yard that was destined for the dump.

 

Nice job dude!

You have a nice selection of wood choices too. I think you will like burning silver maple. Of the wood you have, it'll be your shoulder season wood.

 

Wow! You're on your way! That silver will dry fast too. I have a decent amount that I split over Labor Day and it will be ready next winter for sure.

 

Impressive how far you've come in such a short time.

Nice neat, well organized great looking stacks. Off the ground, good spacing for air circulation, top covered
Don't get much better than that

The rewards will come when you are burning good dry seasoned wood !

At 3.5 cord/year, you got to be close to a 3 year plan, maybe even the 5 year plan.
How much you estimate you have CSS'd ?

Since most agree that red oak will take the longest to season to less than 20%, do you keep it separate ?

The only thing I might try with your set-up is the top cover, put pallets on top of the rows, then the tarps or plastic.
Might improve air movement on the top 12" or so .
But that's getting picky, I used to use tarps, learned to hate them. Seemed to fight them all the time.

Dennis (Backwoods) & others ,use the heavy galvanized roofing, be nice to have some of that.
Probably hard to find, lots of folk in your are scrounge it up fast,

Again:
We know the work involved ,
Impressive

 

Taking pictures along the way really helps put it in perspective. I look at the stacks and processing area every day, so I don't see the big changes that happen over time, but after reviewing my own pictures I realize a lot of work really has been done; fun to have these pictures to help remember. Progress has been helped greatly by getting the 3 loads (approximately 1.75 cords each) of tree service rounds.

I'm still guessing how much wood I really need for a year; with the Fireview on the way, I've just kind of picked 3.5 cords. Each row of pallets could hold approximately 3 cords. For now, I have been stacking dead standing cherry/elm (under 18%MC) in the far right pallet row to burn this fall/winter. All the other wood is stacked from left to right by MC with driest being on the left. My thought was to start on the last row on the right keeping track of usage and then work my way left to right by MC. I debated stacking by species, but decided that if I could get 5 years ahead, I would be assured the wood was plenty dry regardless of species.

I didn't fully appreciate the work in getting ahead of the game; if I had, I would likely have started with a 3 year plan and worked my way up to a 5 year plan at a more reasonable pace. I seem to have a bit of an obsessive/compulsive nature about things that interest me, so I guess this is the way it was destined to be for me.

I agree with you about top coverings; hate the tarps, but haven't yet settled on the type of covering I want to use long term. Going to try to get some of the lumber covering material and see how that works out. Would like metal roofing or rubber roofing material, but am looking for something closer to free.

Thanks. I appreciate your insights.

 

Problem solved

 

Taking pictures really helps keep you motivated.