I have 3 different stacks, one for each year, and whatever wood I have on hand at the time I'm splitting & stacking them is the wood that get's put in that stack. There's no deliberate mixing and matching. For instance, the wood I'm burning this year is a mix of pine, ash, and silver maple because that's what I had when I was splitting it 3 years ago. Next year's stack is mostly oak with some ash, because that's the wood I scrounged 2 years ago. I haven't split the wood for 2018/19 yet, but it'll be 100% ash because I have 3-4 cords of ash logs already cut. Maybe I'm less particular than others because I have a boiler so burn time and BTU's per species isn't that important to me. I load the firebox with enough wood to raise my water temp from 150° to 200° and light it and then whenever the water cools down I light another fire, either 12 or 24 hours later depending on the outside temps.
We generally do all the cutting in winter, splitting in late winter or early spring and stacking following the splitting. When through splitting it generally looks something like picture 1. Picture 2 really shows how we stack. We just start at the edge of the pile of splits and begin the stacking with no sorting at all. When we are finished stacking it will look something like this: Most times our stacks will be a mixture (although lately it has been mostly ash) of ash, elm, soft maple, oak and whatever. Unfortunately we do not have a lot of oak but as I put the wood in the barn for the winter (in October) I will tend to place all the oak where it will be in front during January and February. The oak will be burned during the nights only and during the daytime we burn some junk wood or some that does not burn long.
Mine is all mixed and I am at a point I am usually burning 4 to 5 year old wood so it doesn't matter whether it is oak or something faster drying it has had plenty of time. I tend to have little patches of certain species in the stacks and I might leave an area in the stack that has locust and move on down to ash/cherry or so on then dig back into the locust for cold weather or long burns.
That is because that is the way most men's brains are wired. Woman on the other hand........... well they have there on way of keeping track. That is why we go along with their ideas most of the time.
I separate my species so, I know what is where and burn appropriately for my needs, I do like to Burn mixed loads so I pull from where and what I want to burn
I have a roofed back porch that will hold around 3 cord. As a result, I stack all my wood willy/nilly but when I bring it up to the porch in the fall I pull out the high btu stuff and put it in a special rack, take the real lightweight stuff and burn it first, along with the uglies.
No room to sort anything and I'll collect out that's going . Brothers away and lent me a splitter he has bought , gonna rip all nots and crappy bits so they fit in my fire.plus it will give a tad more space for storage . Wish I'd a fraction of the land some of you have. It all burns so I'd better get somat done
yup on this side of pond we call them uglies... I use a lot of them on stacks to hold top cover... burn them early or late (shoulder season) in season because they don't fit in stove nicely... here about -10c now going colder... good on ya for putting splitter to use!
Think our kid is making a stand for it , kinda enjoyed mysen sat on a log wi the sound of knots ripping . Every now an then a piece gives a satisfying ping and went flying down the garden .
I stack by the "time" it was split and stacked. My wood is all mixed species and like others have said, I save the best stuff for the coldest nights, and burn the rest daytimes and warm spells. I have some Bitternut Hickory just waiting for sub zero. I love that stuff. I several cord of all Oak in it's second year just awaiting yr. three.
