Oh ...okay okay, I think I like you Kris...Haha! Thanks for the compliment in full non jealous disclosure. Yeah the porch was added (actually extended) after living here for 22 years. We designed it to wrap around the turret 7 years ago while we were putting on the new addition which included opening back up a fireplace that was plastered over in the 1940's to put in my insert. Both decisions were good ones! Wow been living here almost 30 years! Anyway, the porch does make our house pretty and shades the whole first floor in the summer as it completely covers the front and continues half way on both sides. It's great for cigars with buddies. Maybe in the future you can still add on to your porch. Tell your wife to think of it as a covered deck and that's all it really is. I also screened in a section of mine so we can enjoy the outside room without the mosquitoes. Thanks again, and we're all looking forward to seeing that maple split and stacked when you get around to it!
Let the real estate market be your guide...once your house is worth stupid money (coinciding with your earliest retirement age) you can move to where the wood is plentiful and free!
Here is my latest score on a snowy morning day. They are kiln dried white oak rips that I got from a flooring manufacturer. I intend to mix them with not so dry wood.
Snagged a couple rounds on my way to the store! Had to do it, the snow Sunday night will shut everything down...
Ok next I want to see a picture of the whole car....There must be a jib hoist on your hood Also a good commercial for eating Trader Joes food. Your definitely in the maple lately, but the round in the back looks like it might be a red oak. Speaking of oak, I took a drive through the park today to see what the storms have done. Lots of little stuff down near the road and bigger stuff including whole trees down deeper in. I may have to do some early morning work for those, but when it comes to the park I don't want to do anything too serious, just quick hit and runs. Anyway, I came upon this sight 50 ft. off the road. Some of it was already cut by park crews so just needed to cut them further down into 35 inch lengths and muscle to the car. I was on a narrow and busy road in this section of the park so I wanted to get out as quick as possible. In my hast forgot to take a car picture...Sorry. I did take a picture of a few I cut to stove length when I got back home so you can see what I was dealing with. I left a lot of the hairy smaller branches at the park site and just took the primo wood. I can afford to be choosy at this point. Ignore the already split wood in the background, I have to get around to re-filling the shelters again. For a snow covered landscape I'm happy I was able to get something today. It all adds up, just like your shopping trip snag! Now if weather permits I may get in some cardio tomorrow
That's a honeypot for sure! Did you have to carry them the 50' to your car? Dragging a loaded shopping cart would have been impossible in the snow... but the snow is your friend for now, it will keep the parks dept. from doing any cleanup I bet. I would hit that spot hard and often!
Yeah, a combination of tossing the lengths towards the car into a pile then carrying by hand from there to fill the trunk and crate. It was heavy wet green stuff so I didn't overdo the haul and went for a more modest amount to save my struts. I will definitely be returning periodically to the park, but also like to space out my scrounges and hit different areas to avoid anyone getting on my trail or telling me I cant take wood from a particular location anymore. It's all part of being elusive. Sometimes I even leave notes behind like a serial killer... Just kidding
You know, I get paranoid too about people calling the cops, or showing up on a surveillance camera and getting a phone call, etc., but I suspect that if the wood is on public property, people really don't care. Hard to know. And hard to know who to ask.
When in doubt, it's better not to ask haha! Like you though I'm generally taking stuff that I know has either been dumped and left to rot or will need to be hauled away. The stuff I take has little to no commercial value. For me the issue at hand is to avoid being seen on a regular basis taking wood from a certain location. Human nature tells me that people will start to become familiar with seeing me taking wood and assume I have a some sort of profitable gimmick going on. That's when some idiot whether it be law enforcement or some nosy citizen tries to blow a whistle and claim I'm violating some law. Again though I'm in a pretty crowded location with very little public land to plunder so I try to stay a moving target. Plus it keeps life interesting for me.
Well I got some splitting in while the gorgeous weather cooperated. Now expecting 6 inches snow starting at 5pm if you can trust the weather forecasts. I split a few logs of the new pin oak I scored at the park yesterday and surprisingly it split like a dream and one was even a crotch! I will split the rest another time, but more importantly I needed to get to some older stuff that has been piling up on me. Just some pictures to keep this thread alive. First picture is some red oak that split so perfectly and easily, but no, I didn't do it with one hand. The second is a piece of Cherry that really loved me.
Got out today to split the sugar maple and pull some ash I bucked a couple weeks back out of the field. Split that before the snow started. Need to redo my stacks so they make more sense based on drying time. Have ash, pine, locust, and mulberry split and already stacked, but not separated well. Have a ton more locust to split that we got from a neighbor, but it’s all to big for our stoves and needs cut down first.
