Bad news first... As I have mentioned several times before, we had a pretty massive die off of our chestnut oaks. I hear through the grapevine that it was some type of borer(?) Good news is, I have several dozen fully mature oaks, 12-24+" dbh x 50-80 ft that are dead standing on my property and ready to be made into firewood. These standing dead oaks are one of the major reasons that wife and I finally broke down and bought a tractor. I've been slowly working on cleaning out some skidding roads to the clumps of dead oaks. Here's a picture of a stand of deads that I have almost reached with the tractor. You can see the dead trees by looking for the peeling bark on the trunks and/or the defoliated tops without twigs, bud or leaves. Just in this one picture, I see 8-9+ dead oaks, all less than 50 yds from my splitting and stacking area. That would be close to a full winter's worth of heat for us. Thank goodness we have plenty of other oaks, birches, beeches etc. to take over for the dying ones.
I've heard that as soon as you cut them they're ready to burn.... ya know, cos they're dead and all True story, right Barcroftb?
Eric VW a little English chap once told me if it was dead when you cut, it it was good to go. He said it was probably poor draft.
Wierd ... This story somehow makes me thirsty... Sorry for the derail Mike! Just wanted to say. Thats going to be some great btu's for sure! Just be careful sir. I know you will. Those standing dead trees also have dead roots. I watched my neighbor cut one last fall and it leaned a couple degrees when he started the back cut and then up rooted
Great firewood there! And a tractor can be used for soooooo many things! Like taking a vacation, hauling it up to Gasifier's house with your chainsaws, and trying them out on thinning his woods!
